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John Lennon Remembered; Corporations Prepare For Potential Pandemic; Author Discusses History In Terms Of Beverages; Are "Chronicles Of Narnia" Christian?
Aired December 08, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour now here on LIVE FROM.
You're looking at live pictures -- that's right -- Strawberry Fields, it's a part of Central Park renamed in Lennon's memory in 1981. This was Lennon's favorite part of the park, near the Dakota apartment, where he lived with his wife, Yoko Ono. It's a gathering spot for Lennon fans. And they have an annual vigil on the day of his death here every year.
You may remember, he was shot at 10:50 p.m. outside his apartment 25 years ago tonight.
Larry Kane knew him well, remembered him as a young reporter.
I think you were 20 years old, Larry Kane, is that right, when you first connected with the Beatles?
LARRY KANE, AUTHOR, "LENNON REVEALED": Actually, it was 21 years old.
PHILLIPS: Twenty-one.
KANE: Pretty close, though.
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: You know, I think John would have looked at a crowd like that today and said, what's the fuss?
PHILLIPS: Really?
KANE: You know? I think so. Yes. He was very -- there's always ego. There we are on the plane, Paul and John and I, and doing our tours.
But John was a guy who really didn't have the egocentric nature of many entertainers. He was really more concerned about what people thought about what he respected and what his values were...
PHILLIPS: Well, you...
KANE: ... and what -- yes.
PHILLIPS: Yes. No, you talked a lot about his legacy of thinking. And, you know, you look at all the pictures that we were going through, pictures that you have in your book that you just came out with, "Lennon Revealed."
And it caught my attention when he was in Rishikesh, India, you know, one of the most spiritual parts of India. And whether it was spiritual, political or musical, he did seem to have a sense -- you called it creative energy -- for all different things in life, even his own mortality.
You write about this interview, the last interview he did before he died. In your book, you write -- and this was an interview he had with Dave Sholin. I hope I'm saying his name right, Larry.
KANE: That's correct. That's correct.
PHILLIPS: And you write that he said in this interview: "We're either going to live or we're going to die. If we're dead, we're going to have deal with that. If we're alive, we're going to have to deal with being alive. So, worrying about whether Wall Street or the apocalypse is going to come in the form of the great beast, it is not going to do us any good day to day."
He said this in an interview just before he died.
KANE: Well, he's a contemporary philosopher.
And I think this day, Kyra, has meaning in more ways than one. We're a nation and a world starved for heroes, especially among our young people. They look to some vision. And it's not just spirituality that we're losing, but it's also the philosophical edge. And John Lennon gave us that. He was a well-known person who decided to use his fame to express opinions about things.
I mean, this is also a man -- and, to me, this is startling, that, in 1975 -- and I know there were thousands before him -- he became the first public stay-at-home dad in the world. People knew about that. And, for four years, he stayed at home with his son, Sean.
A soldier I interviewed talked about seeing him in -- in Central Park, not from the Strawberry Fields oval, where so many are gathered today. And he said, aren't you John Lennon?
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: And John said, no, I'm not John Lennon anymore. Now I'm just daddy.
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: And that's my job.
PHILLIPS: Aww.
KANE: And...
PHILLIPS: And that was important him.
KANE: And, you know, he had -- he had problems. I mean, he had major alcohol abuse, major drug abuse throughout his life. He was invested with drugs. He could be acid-tongued. He could be tough.
The first time I met him, he asked me what I was doing there on the Beatle tour. He said, you look like a square peg in a round hole. What the heck are you doing here?
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: And I said, it's better than looking like a Slobodan Milosevic, like you. And we...
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: And we had a wonderful relationship from then on out. And then he almost took my head off when I joined the Air Force in 1968.
PHILLIPS: All right. Now, wait a minute.
KANE: He wanted...
PHILLIPS: You're -- this is a perfect segue, Larry, because I pulled this quote from this section. I thought this was hilarious, when you came back, after being in the military, and you had that short haircut. And he looked at you and he said: "You're..."
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: "You're F-ing with me, Larry. I can't believe you piece of..."
KANE: Yes.
PHILLIPS: "You look like you have been scalped at Custer's last stand."
I was just...
KANE: Yes, Custer's last stand. Custer's last stand.
PHILLIPS: Custer's last stand. I was thinking of General Custer.
"I was just doing my thing for my country," you said. "Taut and angry, he replied, 'Your thing -- your thing sucks.'"
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: He...
KANE: Well, that's the way he was.
PHILLIPS: He didn't hold back about how he felt about the war.
KANE: As some people may know, I went to work in New York for a while.
And I decided to go back to Philadelphia for family reasons and personal reasons, did OK here. And he called me up on the phone. He watched me in New York, when I worked here. And he said: "You are an 'expletive deleted' fool. You are leaving the great confluence of all creative energy in the world, New York City, to go back to Philadelphia."
And he said, "And what's there?" And I said, "Well, it's my life there, John. And you just have to understand that."
And he continued with some other very mad -- maddening remarks. He is also -- he was also a guy -- and I want to explain this to people -- that really cared and was benevolent about other people. In 1975, he came to a charity marathon in Philadelphia that benefited multiple sclerosis, which was the disease that claimed my mother's life. And he knew that was part of the charity. He came down.
I picked him up at the train station. He arrives in public transit with a little overnight bag. We took him throughout Philadelphia. He appeared on that telethon and radiothon for three days, and, in a remarkable moment in broadcast history, did the weather on the station I was working at the time.
PHILLIPS: You know, we actually have that clip.
KANE: It's not bad. It's not bad.
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: I mean...
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: We have the clip right here.
How was he?
KANE: Thank goodness that the weather was sunny and clear, because meteorologically, it was one of the -- a nightmare.
(LAUGHTER)
KANE: But there he was, waiting to go on. And there he was, talking to the technicians, getting miked up. That was me in 1975.
And there -- let's listen for a second.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN LENNON, MUSICIAN: This is meant to be green. This is the northwest winds. But, if you do that, it falls off.
KANE: For Action News, I'm Larry Kane.
(END VIDEO CLIP) (LAUGHTER)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KANE: Thanks for being with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KANE: Yes, we signed off quickly after that.
And this -- this film is courtesy of Damon Sinclair (ph), the great producer who helped us out with it. But it was quite a moment. He spent an entire weekend.
And, you know, just before he died, we talked on the telephone, and he said he met 2,000 people that weekend in the flesh, and it was the greatest weekend of his life, more than a lost weekend that they talked about, a weekend where he found people.
And I will tell you something, Kyra. If you met John Lennon, he would just love to meet you and talk about you and find out about you. He wanted to know about people in all professions, in all ways of life. And he wanted to understand people better, even though he had an extremely difficult time understanding himself.
PHILLIPS: Well, that is true.
The most curious person, they're the most intelligent people.
I mean, Larry, you're a reporter. You know. You have got to ask questions. You got listen to people, right?
KANE: Yes, you do.
PHILLIPS: And care about people.
KANE: And he didn't mind tough questions, by the way. A lot of celebrities want to be in their bubble.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
KANE: He didn't really care.
PHILLIPS: Larry Kane. The book is "Lennon Revealed."
Thanks for you time today, Larry. It was a pleasure.
KANE: Kyra, great to see you again.
PHILLIPS: Great to see you, too.
Well, we are going to Miami now, where passengers say that a man and his wife were attracting attention even by before they boarded their plane. Not long after American Airlines Flight 924 landed in Miami yesterday -- you may remember the live coverage -- Rigoberto Alpizar was shot and killed by federal air marshals. The two marshals opened fire in the airport jetway after a confrontation inside the plane.
It's the first time marshals have used their weapons since the program was bolstered after 9/11. A government spokesperson says that Rigoberto Alpizar claimed to have a bomb and that he approached the marshals aggressively.
Another factor in this case, words from relatives, who say Alpizar suffered from bipolar disorder.
A little while ago, Alpizar's relatives commented on his death.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEANNE JENTSCH, SISTER OF RIGOBERTO ALPIZAR'S WIFE: "Rigo Alpizar was a loving, gentle and caring husband, uncle, brother, son, and friend. He was born in Costa Rica, and became a proud American citizen several years ago. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him."
That's all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: For more, let's go to CNN's Kathleen Koch. She's at the Miami Airport.
Kathleen, let's talk more about the air marshals and the training that they go through to prepare for this. We have covered the training here on CNN ever since 9/11, when more air marshals were being requested on -- on aircraft.
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And, Kyra, what we're hearing from the Federal Air Marshal Service is that these two air marshals yesterday on board the aircraft -- it was soon to take off from Miami here, bound for Orlando -- that they were faced with what was really a textbook scenario, a passenger exhibiting odd behavior, a passenger making threats, and then a passenger who was refusing to obey the air marshals' orders, the orders being to put down the backpack in those air marshals said the passenger, Rigoberto -- Rigoberto Alpizar, said he had a bomb.
And spokesman Dave Adams said that they took appropriate action to diffuse the situation, to keep not only themselves safe, but also the passengers on board the aircraft and passengers in the terminal -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: What about that airplane? Is it still on the tarmac? Does it still need to stay there for part of the investigation, or...
KOCH: They did keep the aircraft on the tarmac for quite a while.
And it was only until today that it was released. Obviously, members of the Miami-Dade police force, who are now taking over this investigation, they had to go over it, pick up any evidence that they could. But American Airlines says it's now been put back into service, though they aren't saying what route it's flying, and they aren't identifying it.
PHILLIPS: Kathleen Koch, live from Miami International, thanks so much.
We are going to take a quick break -- more LIVE FROM right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Straight to the newsroom.
Carol Lin working a story for us there -- Carol.
CAROL LIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, well, just a short time ago, House and Senate conference leaders basically agreed on some compromises to extend the Patriot Act.
You recall that this was the sweeping anti-terror bill that was passed after 9/11. Some of those provisions were pretty controversial, like the ability to have roving wiretaps on somebody suspected of a terrorist, or the ability of the government to go into your business records to see who you are doing business with.
Well, the -- it appears that they have reached a compromise. It still needs to go to the full House and Senate for approval. But, already, some Democrats are threatening to filibuster. They think this was a rush job.
Let's listen to Senator Patrick Leahy, one of the people who wanted a limit on the amount of time these provisions could go forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PATRICK LEAHY (D), VERMONT: This is one of the things people overlook. If the final bill does not have the confidence of the American people, then the American people lose confidence in the very law enforcement there to protect every single one of us.
And as one whose career began in law enforcement, I do not want to see the time come when we do not have confidence in our laws or in our law enforcement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LIN: But, a short time ago, Kyra, the attorney general came out, had a short news conference with reporters , saying that he was pleased with the compromise.
There are some changes. For example, in this compromise, the government would have to go to a judge in order to get permission to search some of those library and business records -- but, still, these provisions going forward, according to this compromised bill, which both the House and Senate have to consider. There you go.
PHILLIPS: Well, we will keep talking about the Patriot Act. That's for sure.
LIN: Yes.
PHILLIPS: It's not going away any time soon. Carol, thanks.
Well, chilling predictions from Senator Majority Leader Bill Frist about the potential impact of a bird flu pandemic, first, his warning today that, if a human outbreak of bird flu hit the U.S., it could exact a huge toll on the economy, a $675 billion toll, he says. Frist is citing a study from the Congressional Budget Office that assumes 30 percent of the work force would be no-shows on their jobs for up to three weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TN), MAJORITY LEADER: Normal life stops. The churches close. The schools shutter. Communications and transportation grinds to a halt. The public succumbs to hysteria and panic. Police protection fails. Order decays. Productivity falls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, Frist is laying out a six-point plan to help the nation prepare. Several key factors relate to beefing up the nation's vaccine research and production capacity.
Well, First is preaching to the choir, as far as most high-level health officials are concerned. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health, was among those testifying at a House committee hearing on the global threat of avian flu. He says that it's vital to expand U.S. capacity to produce vaccines.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: We have a challenge not only in stockpiling and making the best of what we have, which is Tamiflu, but also directing our efforts of developing promising new antiviral candidates that we would feel more comfortable would be effective against a disease like influenza, particularly a pandemic flu.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: And it's not only the world's medical community that's gearing up in case bird flu morphs into a pandemic. So are many major companies.
They know that, if a pandemic were to strike, it could be serious business for big business.
CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more on how some corporations are already well into planning.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Meet Ray Thomas. He's the master of disaster for global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. He oversees risk management for some 18,000 employees. When it comes to a flu pandemic, Thomas says companies need take it seriously.
RAY THOMAS, BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON: That they can no longer just assume that it's not going to happen to us.
GUPTA: The company's avian flu disaster plan lays out how to keep employees safe and how to keep business from grinding to a halt. Step one, be prepared.
THOMAS: Second is response, third is recovery. Preparedness being the crucial step.
GUPTA: The company holds role-playing tabletop exercises.
THOMAS: First step of a tabletop might be we see evidence that avian flu is starting to mutate to pass from human to human. So that would be -- we'd stop there and say OK, what do we do collectively, what do we do within our individual corporate areas?
GUPTA: And make sure employees can work from home.
THOMAS: If we can provide them with a laptop and a cell phone,, really, they can continue to operate.
GUPTA: If a pandemic or other serious incident did strike, the company's crisis management team would meet here, in this special conference room. They could use video-conferencing, monitor the latest news and be in touch with thousands of employees and clients all over the world. But Booz Allen is an exception.
Former health and human services secretary Tommy Thompson is now a disaster planning consultant. His firm has put out a new survey that looks at how companies are preparing for a possible flu pandemic.
TOMMY THOMAS, DELOITTE CENTER FOR HEALTH SOLUTIONS: Our survey found that people are aware of avian flu, are concerned about it, but do not know how to treat it and do not know what to do.
GUPTA: Thompson's advice? Companies should prepare for a pandemic flu the way they would for a blizzard. Not three or four days, but an 18-month blizzard.
THOMAS: Transportation would be disrupted. The economy would be disrupted. You could not move around very easily.
GUPTA: But no matter how prepared Booz Allen may be, Thomas says his company still relies on others, too.
THOMAS: Anything from, you know, food for cafeteria to paper supplies or whatever it may be. Electric power, phone systems, all of these kind of things that we're relying on external parties. And they're as equally at risk of avian flu as we are. So that's the one real risks I think all companies here in the U.S. face. GUPTA: Thomas adds that having a disaster plan in place is not only crucial for protect the people, it can protect the bottom line as well.
THOMAS: Seventy-five percent of companies that suffer a significant disaster go out of business within a year if they weren't -- if they didn't have preparedness measures in place.
GUPTA: If a flu pandemic does strike, Booz Allen's master of disaster is determined to make his company a survivor.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, all this week, we're taking a special look all this week at bird flu. And this Sunday, Dr. Sanjay Gupta has a special report from the front lines. What are the chances bird flu could erupt into a global pandemic? Don't miss "Killer Flu: A Breath Away" Sunday night, 10:00 Eastern, only here on CNN.
Well, a fascinating discovery for all of you armchair archaeologists and American history buffs. New York City workers were digging around and around on the south tip of Manhattan, with the idea of extending a subway tunnel. In addition to the kind of urban decay you would expect, they turned up something no one predicted, a chunk of stone wall that may be the oldest structure in New York.
CNN's Chris Huntington is there to dust up all the details.
Chris, what do we know about this wall and the history behind it?
CHRIS HUNTINGTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra the archaeologists that are now studying it are not quite sure what they have, but they think it could be part of one of the original forts built by the Dutch, perhaps as early as about 1625.
If indeed it is -- it is part of the footing of what would have been Fort New Amsterdam, this is a remarkable find. As you mentioned, subway workers in Lower Manhattan at the southern tip of Manhattan, underneath what is now currently Battery Park -- and we can give you a zoom-in here -- in the process of building this extension of a subway tunnel, literally had to stop in their tracks because they hit this wall.
Now, to give the Transit Authority some tremendous credit, they had an archaeologist on site as part of their construction team, because they knew that they were digging in sensitive ground. So, they immediately stopped. They brought in some more archaeologists. And now they think they have what could be as much as about a 45- or 50-foot section of wall that, again, could be part of this original Dutch fort, or it could be part of a subsequent British fort.
The history of that particular fort, built by the Dutch, then taken over by the British -- it changed hands a few times. Even during the Revolutionary War, American patriots tried to partially destroy it, so the British couldn't use. It had several names, originally Fort New Amsterdam, then, later, Fort James, Ultimately, Fort George.
That's a look at a map that was drawn to depict what the scene would have looked like in about 1745. So, if, indeed it is part of that fort, it is a remarkable and very, very valuable find.
The New York City Parks commissioner, which is one of the groups that is trying to preserve this, put the find into historical perspective.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADRIAN BENEPE, NEW YORK CITY PARKS COMMISSIONER: Where we are standing is literally the birthplace of New York City. This is where the Dutch East India Company came in first to set up shop in 1624. And this is where history was born in New York City. So, it's not surprising to find artifacts. What did surprise us was the extent and the incredibly good condition of this large stretch of wall that was found here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNTINGTON: Now, other artifacts found in this same construct site include some very, very rare coins. These -- the gentleman there is from the Transit Authority, holding up coins believed to be British coins from the 1700s.
That one in particular, that bronze one there, has been identified as a British coin. The larger one, they're not quite sure what they have there.
But, Kyra, this has been a big issue here in New York, the preserving of historical sites, as the city is constantly rebuilding. And there's always concern about, when they these find historical sites, are they going to preserve it? The promise in this case is that some of that wall will be raised and put into the -- into Battery Park, above ground, so people can see it for the future.
PHILLIPS: So, it's not the type of thing we will be able to go and tour it and see that whole area, right? It's -- is it going to -- you are saying part it's going to be -- part of it is going to be taken out of there?
HUNTINGTON: The -- right now, everybody's hedging exactly what they're promising, because, keep in mind, you have got the Transit Authority trying to finish a tunneling project on time and on budget.
And, suddenly, they literally hit a wall. And the notion of bringing 50 feet of ancient wall up or creating, somehow, a viewing area down there and diverting the tunnel as planned, that's not going to happen.
What the folks, the Parks commissioners and various conservation groups, are promising is that some portion of the wall, so perhaps a few of the wall stones, will be brought up to make kind of a memorial -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: It's pretty cool stuff.
Chris Huntington, thanks so much.
HUNTINGTON: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Well, we're going to talk about -- or talk to Ali Velshi coming up about his Christmas list. Wait until you hear what's on it, right, Ali?
(LAUGHTER)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Snowflakes over Ali Velshi -- well, this time of year, sleigh bells ring, and so do cash registers. But how about some phones, as in folks making some dates?
Ali Velshi -- Ali Velshi joins us live from New York with an idea of what to get all your single friends -- maybe not your single friends -- for the holiday season -- Ali.
ALI VELSHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is great.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: This is one of the best lists I have seen.
According to an organization named -- called engage.com, which can be described as being in the love business -- they surveyed 800 single workers. And here's what they came up with. Sixty-two percent of singles would like a date better than anything else on their list for Christmas.
They feel that their friends are the best matchmakers they have got. Their -- their mothers are the worst. And co-workers are somewhere in between. Men would like a date better than -- this one kills me -- better than electronics, tools, booze, event tickets and music. Women would like a date better than jewelry, clothing, art, books and music.
Now, I -- I get, as a guy, that you might a date better than a C.D. or maybe even an event ticket, but more than tools and electronics? Kyra, there's a couple tips here.
PHILLIPS: Of course. Ali, come on. When it comes to down to it, we all...
VELSHI: I'm just saying, I love my electronics.
PHILLIPS: We all want to, you know, feel that soul connection to someone special, right?
VELSHI: Well, you know what? Since you feel that way, I'm going to tell you... (LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: ... the five tips on how to help set your -- your co- workers up, your tips for matchmakers.
PHILLIPS: OK.
VELSHI: I have changed them into my words here.
PHILLIPS: I do it already, by the way. Where is Simon (ph)?
VELSHI: I know.
PHILLIPS: Where is Simon, my segment producer?
VELSHI: And you could probably -- you can probably do better than this -- than this list.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: But you can tell me if this works.
Great matchmakers are good listeners, which you are.
PHILLIPS: Thank you, Ali.
VELSHI: Don't feed the jingle bell blues. Everybody's kind of feeling -- 52 percent -- or 53 percent of the respondents said, they don't expect to have a date for the holiday season. Let them just mull on their own. Wait until January to set them up.
Trust your hunches, which you do.
PHILLIPS: That's true. I do always go with my hunch.
VELSHI: A Democrat could love a Republican.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: So, in other words, it's not all about -- opposites do attract. That's the point.
And be ready to sell the introduction a little bit, you know, work it. You can't just assume that...
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIPS: Like, give me an example.
VELSHI: Well, so, you know, you can't just say, Ali, meet so- and-so. See you. You have got to say, I know -- I know she's 3', 2'', but, you know, you got to look beyond that.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: You got to look... PHILLIPS: You know what's funny? The -- my very -- one of my best friends, Phyllis (ph) in Los Angeles, I -- the way I -- you know, I love to, every now and then, set her up.
And I always say, she's got a Ph.D. She runs the highly gifted magnet at North Hollywood High School. And she speaks five languages.
VELSHI: Do you have a picture of her? We can put her on TV right now.
PHILLIPS: Oh, I wonder if I...
VELSHI: She will have 4,000 dates.
PHILLIPS: Oh. You know what? You're right. We could...
VELSHI: This is it. Phyllis, I hope you're listening.
PHILLIPS: We could -- this is it right now. Phyllis Batafora (ph).
Yes, speaks five languages.
VELSHI: Democrat, Republican? Does it matter?
PHILLIPS: Oh, she's -- she's -- you know what? She's one of the smartest people I know. She got her Ph.D. in, like, Proust, seriously.
VELSHI: If Phyllis does not have whatever she wants date-wise within 48 hours...
PHILLIPS: Are you available?
VELSHI: I'm telling you, listen, we will work something out.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: OK. All right.
Well, if you're not into the date, I guess gold is still hot.
VELSHI: Yes. If -- if the date does work out, think about gold.
You know, I'm not a big fan of diamonds, but gold at $519.50 an ounce, about 50 cents away from the highest it has been in 25 years. So, you know, get the gold now and hope that you get the date soon enough to do something with it.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: Yes, but you don't always need gold, right?
VELSHI: No.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIPS: It's not the things. How many times do we talk about that, Ali?
VELSHI: It's true.
PHILLIPS: All right, we are going to see you at the end of the hour for the closing bell.
VELSHI: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Right?
VELSHI: Tell you what's going on with markets and all sorts of things. See you in a little while.
PHILLIPS: Sounds great.
Thanks, Ali.
Well, would you have paid more attention in history class if you knew it was all about rum and Coca-Cola, or perhaps the search for the perfect cup of coffee? As home run hitter Hank Aaron and director John Ford enjoy the java, just ahead on LIVE FROM, a man who says you can trace the history of the world through six beverages.
We are pouring up some cold ones right after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: So, if you thought history was a dry subject, you obviously haven't read a new book that basically makes history one big drinking game. The book is called "A History of the World in Six Glasses," and in it, the author traces the six refreshing beverages that have shaped the world.
So indulge us in this quick history of the world in a few drinks. Britain's Winston Churchill downs a pint before finishing a campaign speech in 1945. Probably could have toasted the ancient Sumerians. They developed the fine art of brewing, and apparently sipped it through this very long straw as this ancient artifact shows.
And while wine shaped the Greek and Roman cultures, it also apparently inspired this cultural cross dressing by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani sipping the local vintage in Portugal.
Then there's rum, vital to the trade during the colonization of America, but then banned by America during prohibition. In 1931, these models showed off ways to sneak the banned beverage into the United States. Coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola also shaped the planet and overcaffeinated all of us.
The author of "History of the World in Six Glasses," Tom Standage, joins me now live from where else? Of course, O'Reilly's Pub in London. Great to see you, Tom.
TOM STANDAGE, AUTHOR: Good evening. Hello, and a cold winter's night in London.
PHILLIPS: Oh, but I'm sure you'll warm up quickly after this live shot. You'll drink that rum. But let's start with the beer, shall we? And in your book, you lay out the history, the ancient Sumerians. I mean, this started 6,000 years ago.
STANDAGE: Oh, yes, it's probably even older than that, actually. Basically, my idea is instead of talking about the Stone Age and the Bronze Age and things like that, forget all of that. We should have the beer age, which is basically the same as the Stone Age. And then the Bronze Age was really the wine age and so on.
So beer probably goes back to about 10,000 years ago. It's just that it was invented before writing was. So there was nobody to write down that they had invented it. By the time writing comes along, an awful lot of stuff that's written down when writing's first invented is actually about beer. And in fact, writing is invented as a means of keeping track how much beer and bread you've given to people in the Sumerian temple economy.
Similarly in Egypt, in ancient Egypt, the guys who built the pyramids were paid in bread and beer. And that's because all of these civilizations at that time were founded on cereal grains, on wheat and barley. And they were money, but they were also what you would consume. And so beer was sort of the mainstay of the economy.
PHILLIPS: And I understand the pilgrims even were mad that they were running out of beer as they were making their way to America, is that true?
STANDAGE: That's right. Yes, the pilgrims actually had not intended to land where they did. They wanted to be further south. But the crew on the ship that was taking them over was running out of beer. And at time they believed, wrongly, that beer protected you against scurvy.
So they wanted to make sure they had enough beer for the return journey, so they basically chucked them out and said this will have to do, sorry. And off they went. So this is one of the many ways in which beer has shaped history.
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk about wine, how wine has shaped history. Of course, we can go back to the Greek gods, right? Is it Dionysus? Am I saying that right?
STANDAGE: Absolutely.
PHILLIPS: Yes, OK. I remember. I was able to go to Greece for a short period of time, my favorite goddess.
STANDAGE: Yes, it's Dionysus and his Roman friend, Bacchus. And, yes, the Greeks and the Romans were very into wine because it was -- it showed that they were better than the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians because they had only had beer except the for the absolute richest. And in Greece and Rome, even the slaves got to drink wine. And this was one of the ways in which the Greeks and the Romans looked down their noses at other cultures. And in fact, this idea that wine is better than beer is still around today. Wine is the sophisticate drink, the drink of kings and the king of drinks, whereas beer is just, you know, the honest drink of the working man.
And these are two incredibly ancient ideas. The pyramid builders would have agreed with me about beer, the honest drink of the working man. And the Romans would have agreed with me about the wine, the idea that the wine should reflect the status of the drinker. This is a Roman idea, the idea that you get a slightly better of bottle of wine out of the cellar when your boss comes to dinner. The Romans would have completely understood what was go on there.
PHILLIPS: All right. Let's talk spirits. Rum -- this was a great thing for trade, right, among Britain -- or I guess Britain, Africa and North American colonies, right?
STANDAGE: Yes. It's a sad history -- it's a sad chapter in the history of drinking. Essentially, when you go on long sea voyages, beer and wine aren't much good. The beer goes off, and the wine last a bit longer, but it goes off too. So you really want something a bit stronger.
And so you get something like rum. In fact, they started off with brandy and they used brandy as a currency to buy -- the Europeans did -- to buy slaves on the west coast of Africa and, of course, they set up sugar plantations in the New World. And then they figured out they could make run from the leftovers of the sugar.
And so you ended up with what's sometimes called the triangular trade. They bought the slaves in Africa using rum, they took them to the New World to make sugar, they sent the sugar back to Europe and then they took the rum back to Africa and bought more slaves. And it all just went round and round like this. So it's actually a symbol of a rather sad period in mankind's history.
PHILLIPS: Well, let's not forget Great Britain's long-time superiority, the Navy. You know, they made that grog, right, with the rum? They became very popular for that.
STANDAGE: Absolutely. That's part of it, too. So on long trips, the British Navy would use rum instead of beer because the beer would go off. And it was so disgusting that they'd mix it with water and a bit of lime juice, which is why British sailors are called limeys.
And the amazing thing about this mixture, it was just to make the taste better, but they had the accidental effect of preventing scurvy. And so the British Navy was much more effective than the French Navy because they didn't have this magical mixture called grog. And that's one of the reasons that we won at Trafalgar and the French didn't. So, again, it ensured British supremacy over the seas.
PHILLIPS: OK, and of course, you talk about tea, you know, the first cup brewed by the emperor of China, that background. Coca-Cola, you know, started by the pharmacist John Styth in 1886 as something to cure ailments.
But coffee, I mean, coffee to this day -- we can go back to Galileo and the university there in Padua where they used to gather at the coffee house and talk about life and spirituality and everything else, right?
STANDAGE: Well, yes. But actually, it was London. It was right here that was the real center of the coffee network. So what happened was that these coffee houses sprung up all over the place. They were a much better place do business than in the taverns. They were respectable.
And different professions would meet in different coffee houses. So the lawyers all went to one, and the ship captains went to another and so on. And I call it the coffee house Internet, because it was a way of exchanging information.
And one of the things that came out of this was the scientific revolution. Newton's theory of gravity came out of a coffee house argument. Lloyd's of London, originally a coffee house. The British Stock Market, originally a coffee house. The financial revolution, even the French Revolution in Paris starts in a coffee house. It's a revolutionary drink that's associated with commerce, and it always has been and it still is today.
When you have a business meeting today, what do you drink? You drink coffee, because it's all about networking and collaboration and sharing, and it's never quite lost that revolutionary air.
PHILLIPS: Well, we always make our coffee run before we start our day here on our team. Tom Standage, the book is great, the world in a glass, six drinks that change history. Tom, what a pleasure. Are you going to drink that rum now, I'm just curious?
STANDAGE: I think I need something to warm me up a bit, actually, yes.
PHILLIPS: Tom Standage, cheers. "The History of World in Six Glasses." Tom Standage.
Well some of the faithful see it as a story of Jesus. Others believe it's fantasy adventure. Whichever, Disney is trying for the best of both worlds with "The Chronicles of Narnia." Details now when LIVE FROM continues.
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PHILLIPS: Carol Lin in the newsroom now with an update on the Debra LaFave, that teacher you may have heard of, Carol?
LIN: That's right, Kyra. We have heard of her because she was accused of having sex at least four times with one of her students, a 14-year-old boy. Now, she made a plea deal in one county, Hillsborough County, where she managed to get off with three years house arrest and seven years probation. But we just found that a different county judge in Marion County, Florida, says that she will have to stand trial. She rejects any sort of a plea deal.
So Debra LaFave, it looks she's going to go on trial for child molestation charges, guilty -- whether she's guilty of having sex with a student. She's already admitted it in one county, Kyra, so it looks like she's going to go to trial in a different county. She could face a lot of time in prison.
PHILLIPS: Carol Lin, we'll follow it up. Thank you so much. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to really switch gears now, talking -- going from that story to actually faith and values. Don't go away.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a beaver.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here, boy. Here boy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I ain't going to smell it if that's what you want.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a talking beaver.
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PHILLIPS: Well this weekend, religion may be coming back to the big screen in the form of a lion, a witch, and a wardrobe.
Disney's mainstream marketing plan for "The Chronicles of Narnia" doesn't highlight it as a faith-based film, but a second marketing push does. CNN faith and values correspondent Delia Gallagher has the story.
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DELIA GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If you're the average moviegoer, Walt Disney Pictures has a message for you. If you like fun for the whole family movies like "Harry Potter," you'll love the Disney's hugely expensive new film "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Impossible.
GALLAGHER: Another special effects-laden fantasy adventure. That's what all of America has been hearing for weeks.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They take them.
GALLAGHER: But for nearly a year Disney has been sending one group a very different message. Telling them that you will like this movie if you liked this movie. That's right. Mel Gibson's deeply controversial ultra violent "Passion of the Christ." The faithful stunned Hollywood by flocking to "The Passion."
The take so far, more than $600 million worldwide and still counting so Disney's trying to rake in those "Passion" dollars quietly but aggressively marketing "Narnia" to evangelicals as a Christian movie. It's a risky strategy. The studio doesn't want to alienate all those families who like their fantasy adventures but would avoid a spiritual tie-in. It is walking a fine line.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Enjoy your show.
GALLAGHER: Studio executives didn't really want to talk about their huge faith-based marketing effort. So we traveled to First Baptist Church in Fort Lauderdale to see for ourselves.
REV. LARRY THOMPSON, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH: I want to welcome to you to this unique sneak peek of what I believe is going to be one of the greatest films of all time.
GALLAGHER: Pastor Larry Thompson has invited several hundred children to a special Narnia celebration, a chance to see an extended trailer for the film.
THOMPSON: Four, 3, 2, 1. Go to Narnia with me.
GALLAGHER: The movie is based on the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia. A beloved seven volume series by the late British author C.S. Lewis. Seven volumes. It's a safe bet Disney execs are thinking Harry Potter meets "The Passion of the Christ" box office with lots of sequels.
"The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" tells the tale of four children who discover a magical wardrobe. A door into a wondrous land torn apart by a cruel witch and later saved by its true king, a noble lion.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need your help.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I know. But understand, the future of Narnia rests on your courage.
GALLAGHER: It doesn't seem deeply spiritual but for many evangelicals, that's exactly what it is.
THOMPSON: How many of you remember the name of the lion? What's its name? Aslan. In the movie, who does Aslan represent?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jesus.
THOMPSON: That's right. Aslan represents Jesus Christ.
GALLAGHER: C.S. Lewis is best known for Narnia but he was also one of the 20th century's foremost Christian writers. And it's widely accepted that he wrote Narnia as a biblical allegory. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aslan is on the move.
GALLAGHER: That's why in the story ...
THOMPSON: Everything is frozen. It's always winter and it's never Christmas.
GALLAGHER: Events like the one at First Baptist happen over and over again, 140 churches across the country so far. In fact, Disney hired the same team that marketed "The Passion" to churches to preach the gospel of Narnia.
Do you think it is going to be good?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not good. Great. More than great, better.
GALLAGHER: Just as Disney hopes they spread the word about the movie, pastors hope the movie will spread the word about Jesus Christ.
(on camera): Do you think it's a movie to bring people to Christ?
THOMPSON: Oh, absolutely. Everything we do here has that goal to ultimately bring people to Christ.
All right. That is your lion.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): Pastor Thompson is weaving Narnia into his Christmas season sermons.
THOMPSON: So that we can keep the children, the family all engaged at the same time.
GALLAGHER: Remember that fine marketing line Disney walks with Narnia?
DENNIS RICE, SVP, WALT DISNEY STUDIOS: It's a fantasy adventure. It is about four kids who are taken away from war torn London during World War II.
GALLAGHER (on camera): Is it also a Christian story?
RICE: If C.S. Lewis were here he would tell you that he didn't write a Christian book. And we don't think we've made a Christian movie.
GALLAGHER (voice-over): But they're hoping for a marketing miracle. And we know in Disney's magic kingdom, sometimes a lion is not just a lion.
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PHILLIPS: Delia Gallagher with us now. So why is Disney so squeamish? You think about Mel Gibson and "The Passion" and he really pushed it as a Christian-based film and, wow, look at how well it did. GALLAGHER: Yes. And you understand, to a certain extent, that Disney done want to alienate any one group of people. On the other hand, with the success of "The Passion," one has to say, well, why is it that still you can't admit that there is a Christian message to a movie? Why would you be afraid, considering the success of Christian audiences with "The Passion"? So there that is part of the story.
PHILLIPS: Now, I wonder what C.S. Lewis really would think about this. Look, you went to Oxford and you used to go to this coffee house.
GALLAGHER: The pub. The pub that he went to. He used...
PHILLIPS: Where he used to hang out?
GALLAGHER: Well...
PHILLIPS: Did you have conversations with C.S. Lewis?
GALLAGHER: I didn't go very frequently. He went more frequently than I did.
PHILLIPS: You were studying.
GALLAGHER: Sure. The Eagle and Childe is very famous in Oxford for, you know, being a place that he hung out and wrote in. But I think it's interesting to think about this. Because in sort of defense of Disney, one has to say, C.S. Lewis wrote some overtly Christian text. This was not one of them. There are seven books in the series. "The Narnia Chronicles," he wrote them specifically for children.
And would he really have wanted to have people sort of bashed over the head with a Christian message? I think no. In fact, in some of his letters you can read, he talks a lot about this series and he answers kids' questions about it and so on.
And he says, you know, I wrote this so that kids, when they reach an age later on and are confronted with religion and Christianity and that kind of thing, will have a sort of reference point. But it will always be that imaginary story. So I think there is a case to be made that it doesn't have to be this kind of overtly bang them over the head with your Christian message.
PHILLIPS: Which is exactly what he believed because this is someone who didn't believe in God and all of a sudden, through his research and his writing, discovered I do believe in God and became this very strong Christian.
GALLAGHER: Yes, and that's one of the reasons that he is such a sort of hero for a lot of the Christian apologetics. Because he's a very persuasive writer and he himself was thinking about those things and really covered the gamut from writing for children to writing for adults and difficult kind of theological issues, putting them into understandable lingo, which is not easy. PHILLIPS: I know, you still have to read the books like six times. But Delia Gallagher, our faith and values correspondent. Welcome once again. It's the first time you've been with us live.
GALLAGHER: Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here in the studio.
PHILLIPS: Yes. We can't wait for more pieces and conversation about the subject.
GALLAGHER: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Thanks, Delia.
GALLAGHER: Thanks.
PHILLIPS: All right. We're getting close to the closing bell, which means time for our dear Ali Velshi, once again, right after a break.
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