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Judge Blocks Offshore Drilling Ban; General McChrystal Summoned to D.C.; Interview With 8-Time NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo

Aired June 22, 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:--South Africa beat France in a soccer game. I mean, it's a remarkable story.

SESAY: Yes. No, absolutely. It's just pretty complicated, the way the tables are set up.

Basically, South Africa had to beat France handsomely. They needed to get something like five goals on the score sheet.

And then in the other match that was being played at the very same time between Uruguay and Mexico, they needed a big win for one of those teams as well. That didn't come. The final score in that second match was just 1-0 to Uruguay. They were the winners there.

So, because of the math on the table, effectively Uruguay topped the table, and Mexico go through also in the runners-up position. So, they got the victory, but it just wasn't enough. They basically needed a mathematical mirror call to get through to the second round -- Ali.

VELSHI: Talking about setting the table, set it, because I'm leaving in a week to come and join you, Isha. I will see you in South Africa, but I'll talk to you later on this week.

Isha Sesay in Johannesburg.

SESAY: See you.

VELSHI: All right. Listen, I want to bring you some breaking news right now.

A federal judge in New Orleans has blocked a six-month drilling moratorium that was imposed by President Obama in deepwater drilling off the Gulf of Mexico. In his ruling, Judge Martin Feldman (ph) has said, "After reviewing the secretary's report, the moratorium memorandum, and the notice to lessees, the court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium." And that means -- for now, at least, it means they're free to drill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Let's go straight to the White House. Suzanne Malveaux has reaction from the White House, where she was sitting in on the daily briefing with Robert Gibbs, which until that moment had been almost entirely occupied with Stanley McChrystal and his misspeaking.

But, Suzanne, what does the White House have to say about this ruling?

SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, we all got our news on our BlackBerrys at the very end of that briefing. I'll just read you very, very quickly what Robert Gibbs said, the final question he was asked about.

He said, "We're going to immediately appeal to the Fifth Circuit. The president strongly believes, as the Department of Interior and the Department of Justice argued yesterday, that continuing to drill at these depths without knowing what happened does not make any sense and puts the safety of those involved -- potentially, puts safety of those on the rigs and the safety of the environment and the Gulf at a danger that the president does not believe we can afford right now."

And Ali, this is something that the White House -- obviously a setback in moving forward on that six-month stop on the drilling, if you will, moratorium. But it's a blow here. And they're going to fight this all the way.

This is one of the things that the White House has had the most difficult time trying to convince those people in the Gulf Coast region to understand and to accept. And that is the fact that they do not believe that the continuation of the deepwater drilling should move forward, that this is something that they have reversed themselves on.

Initially, the president thought it would be a good idea to explore more options in deepwater drilling. They reversed themselves after that oil spill. They're not confident that those oil rigs out there are safe. They're trying to keep it at bay.

But the people in that region, as you know, Ali, really suffering, do not believe that that's a good idea. They only believe that it's going to add to the economic heartache.

That's why you had President Obama, before, releasing and agreeing to this $20 billion from BP for claims and $100 million for those folks who are working the oil rigs, because they're trying to compensate them, trying to say, look, we're going to help you out in the meantime, but we cannot allow this drilling to continue. Well, it looks like they can.

VELSHI: Suzanne, if you were the White House, you're not having a fantastic 24 hours. Up until this news came out, they were fighting back these comments that General Stanley McChrystal is said to have uttered in this "Rolling Stone" article. It was a pretty hot briefing today.

MALVEAUX: Oh, absolutely. I mean, it was quite incredible, what Robert Gibbs was saying, and some of the things he wasn't saying. He was given multiple times when we asked him about whether or not the president essentially is going to fire General McChrystal, whether or not he's going to keep his job.

He says all options are on the table here. It really depends on what this meeting is going to turn out to be when General McChrystal comes to the White House morning. There will be a one-on-one in the Oval Office very likely, that General McChrystal is going to have to answer to all those in the Situation Room, which he has criticized, or his senior aides have criticized.

They called them profound mistakes that he made. I mean, all of the signals certainly pointing to the fact that General McChrystal is in deep, deep trouble here. And it is very questionable whether or not he's going to be able to actually hold on and keep his job.

VELSHI: All right. Suzanne, thanks very much for that.

We'll stay on top of both of those stories, the moratorium being lifted on oil drilling off shore and General Stanley McChrystal.

For those of you who haven't been involved in that story, let me just bring you up to speed with what has been going on.

General Stanley McChrystal is the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He's been called back to Washington after an article appeared in "Rolling Stone."

He had been giving a journalist there access for several months. And the article had some very critical things to say.

It's called "The Runaway General." It refers to the General first encountering President Obama a week after he took office, and it says, "McChrystal thought Obama looked uncomfortable and intimidated by the roomful of military brass."

It also goes on to say that McChrystal's first one-on-one encounter with the president came four months after that. "It was only a 10-minute photo-op," says an adviser to McChrystal in the article. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him and who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run this (expletive) war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed."

"The Boss" is General Stanley McChrystal.

He also had other comments. There were other comments, some made by General Stanley McChrystal, some by some of his aides.

The result here -- by the way, he had some colorful things to say about Vice President Biden, about the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, and to Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. who is the U.S. special envoy, and about Jim Jones, who is the national security adviser.

Here's the interesting thing -- the civilian press aide who set this up has been fired. General Stanley McChrystal has been called back to Washington to answer for what he has done. And the secretary, defense secretary, Robert Gates, has said that he has made a very big mistake.

Let's go right to the Pentagon. Barbara Starr is standing by.

Barbara, what have you got on this? BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, that briefing with Robert Gibbs at the White House put some things out there that may be very hard to overcome in the next 24 hours. Robert Gibbs saying, of course, as Suzanne is reporting, that the president is angry, all options are on the table regarding General McChrystal in tomorrow's meeting at the White House, and that General McChrystal has made an enormous mistake.

I have spoken to a number of very senior U.S. military officers, and here's how they fashion the question on the table. Right now, it will be the president who must decide whether he has trust and confidence in General McChrystal to continue to command this war, or whether it is such a distraction, that General McChrystal, perhaps, needs to be replaced.

Robert Gibbs saying, of course, that all of this war, the debate, the questions, how the war is going, is all much larger than just one person, much larger than just Stanley McChrystal. So tomorrow's meeting may be very tough. And right now, I don't think anybody's predicting the outcome -- Ali.

VELSHI: Here's something that we need to understand, though. From the point of view of the casual viewer, is this a difference in policy? Does McChrystal disagree with all of those people who he and his aides were critical of in the article, or is this a personality difference, he doesn't really like them?

STARR: You know, maybe a little bit of both. Policy differences, it seems like much of that was resolved months ago.

General McChrystal pretty much got what he asked for. He wanted 40,000 troops. He got 30,000 troops.

But right now, this war is not going as planned. Even General McChrystal says the offensive upcoming into Kandahar, in the south, the bogged-down fighting in Marjah, another region in the south, all of that going slower than expected.

He's under enormous pressure. The end of the year, he has to deliver a progress report, just some six or seven months away. He has to show progress. And, of course, July, 2011, some 12, 13 months from now, the president wants to see some of the first troops start coming home from Afghanistan.

And this war is not yet quite headed in that direction, especially in southern Afghanistan. Nobody's saying they're ready for that. So, he's got -- if he stays, there's a lot of hard fighting ahead.

And I think one of the real bottom lines here is how this will play with the troops in the field. Many of the troops in the field have a lot of anxiety about General McChrystal's rules of engagement. They feel that they're fighting with one hand tied behind their back, that they can't be as much on the offensive. Casualties are up, attacks are up, violence is up. If the troops don't feel that the commander, their commander, General McChrystal, has the trust and confidence of the president of the United States, there's going to be big trouble ahead. That's the question that has to be answered -- Ali.

VELSHI: OK. There are major, major implications to this little dustup. It may seem like a little dustup in a magazine, but this is very, very important.

All right, Barbara. Thanks very much. Stay on top of this and let us know if there are new developments.

We're going to take a break. We'll come back and talk to Gloria Borger and Roland Martin about the political side of what has just happened.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. I want to continue the conversation. A couple of conversations going on right now, new developments.

One is the discussion about General Stanley McChrystal and the comments -- some say injudicious comments he made -- in fact, he says it -- in "Rolling Stone." He gave access to a journalist for several months, and it came out with a tone that suggests that McChrystal and his aides don't necessarily like the civilian leaders in the administration.

Another piece of news is that a federal judge in New Orleans has just struck down the Obama administration's moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling.

I want to get to both of those things. I want to bring in Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger. She's in Washington, D.C. Roland Martin joins us from Chicago.

Thanks to both of you for being here.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Sure.

VELSHI: Gloria, let's start with you, and let's stick with Stanley McChrystal for a moment.

He has apologized for the comments that he made, but that wasn't enough. He's been asked to come back to Washington by the secretary of Defense and by the president. And we heard Robert Gibbs, the president's press secretary, saying earlier in the White House briefing, the president is angry.

BORGER: Yes. I mean, and the big question is, can the president let him get away with this? And people I've been talking to this morning were sort of shrugging their shoulders and saying, how can the president let him get away with this? Look, this is a bad time for this to be happening, Ali. This is a very tough war. It's not a good time in the war. The president is committed to withdrawal of the troops by July 2011.

And if we were to replace McChrystal, the question is, with whom? You know? And that's something that the White House is probably trying to figure out right now.

The other question is, you know, these are his top aides talking, right? They sound like a bunch of fraternity boys talking about people like the vice president, Dick Holbrooke, Ambassador Eikenberry, calling Jim Jones, national security adviser, a clown.

I think the question is: Were his top advisers parroting what General McChrystal really thinks himself? And if that's the case, how can he possibly serve?

VELSHI: Roland, let me ask you this. We don't live in a royalty. How big a deal is this, that maybe it's McChrystal, maybe it's his aides, they maybe don't like President Obama, and they maybe don't like the vice president, and they maybe don't like Jim Jones, and they maybe don't like Richard Holbrooke, and maybe they don't like Karl Eikenberry?

Tell me how big a deal this is.

ROLAND MARTIN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: First of all, remember, according to this article, McChrystal voted for Obama. So it's not like he did not vote for him. But, three critical words I think are so important here: chain of command.

And that is, when you are a commanding officer, you are to respect the chain of command. And as the commander in chief, you are to respect the office of the president. Clearly, General McChrystal, as well as his senior aides, did not do that.

You also have to ask the question, did he give his top aides the leeway to make these comments even though they were off the record or they without --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: But it does sound to me like they gave a lot of access to this journalist. And now there's been a press aide fired for setting this up, apparently.

I guess what I'm trying to get down to is, is this a press gaffe? Is this a media relations gaffe?

BORGER: No -- well, yes.

MARTIN: No. No. No.

BORGER: Well, both.

MARTIN: This is gross disrespect for the office of the president. You already have Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr. saying he should be fired.

Look, I think tomorrow General McChrystal walks into the Oval Office, or wherever they're meeting, he has a letter of resignation. It will be up to the president to accept it or reject it.

I think he is not going to put the president in position to fire him. But I don't see how the president can allow a top general to disrespect him and his other officers. I just don't see it.

BORGER: At the very least, this is a huge lack of judgment on McChrystal's part, on the part of his aides. And Senator Levin, who is the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, told our Dana Bash that he worries whether this is going to have, in the long term, a negative effect on the implementation of the president's policy in Afghanistan.

And that, as you heard his spokesman, Robert Gibbs, say today, is the most important thing. Will this undermine our policy in Afghanistan? Because this man has been discredited and because his relationship with the president is so frayed.

VELSHI: Many layers to this.

I want to get both of you --

MARTIN: But Gloria, how can you trust him, though? If you're the president, how can you trust the guy if he disrespects your entire team?

VELSHI: Roland, I want you hold your thought on that --

BORGER: Well, you know, the president likes the team of rivals idea, remember? But, you know, reading between the lines with Gibbs, I don't think the president does --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Important for me to get your thoughts, both of you, on another topic that has just come up.

MARTIN: Sure.

VELSHI: As you know, a federal judge -- a U.S. district court judge in New Orleans has overturned the president's moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling. To some people, that seems like the obvious thing to do, because the economy of the Gulf Coast has to get back to normal. To other people, there must be people in America saying, are you kidding me?

What do you think, Roland?

MARTIN: I think first and foremost, the Obama administration has to go to the American people to fully explain why they want a six- month moratorium. And secondly, the procedures being put in place to check the safety of the rest of those rigs, that's the rationale given. But you have to have the public there recognizing that as well. And so, arguing this in a court is a whole different deal. But you need to be saying, no, we are checking every rig and it's going to take six months to do so.

Without that, I don't see the justification. And so I can see why the judge makes the point that, look, these are businesses in operation, and, look, are they going to employ these people, keep paying them? They've got houses, kids in college. It goes beyond just the issue of the environment.

VELSHI: Gloria, last word to you.

BORGER: Well, you know, the administration is clearly going to appeal this. But I think Roland's right, there's a large question here about jobs and employment.

And Ali, you were just down there. You know all about this.

The president has a commission that's supposed to look into it. He can't take six months for the commission to figure out what we ought to be doing. They need to speed that up and make a decision on this very quickly.

VELSHI: Gloria and Roland, thanks for being with me. I always appreciate having you both here.

BORGER: Sure.

VELSHI: Gloria Borger in Washington. Roland Martin in Chicago.

MARTIN: Thanks so much.

VELSHI: All right.

Africa holding its first World Cup, a world class opportunity if the continent can seize it. Keep some of that benefit from the World Cup. We're going to talk to a native son, an NBA millionaire, doing good back home.

Dikembe Mutombo is live in studio with me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. As many of you know, I've always talked about the fact that my family came from Africa. I'm particularly close to this World Cup because I'd like to see it have some really great effect on Africa.

I'm here with a good friend who is also from Africa. You'll know him as the famous Dikembe Mutombo.

And let me just tell you, the magic of TV is that he appears to be about the same size as me on TV. He's not on a chair. I think he's kneeling or something like that.

Let's show how tall you are.

DIKEMBE MUTOMBO, EIGHT-TIME NBA ALL-STAR: Are you sure?

VELSHI: Yes. All right. Let's take a look at this.

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Apparently, we're not the same size. We'll go back to sitting down.

Great to see you, my friend.

MUTOMBO: Good to see you.

VELSHI: You are leaving for South Africa tonight.

MUTOMBO: Tonight.

VELSHI: And you're going to be there. But what I want to talk to you about is, as a guy who's come from Africa -- and you came to the United States and you did very, very well, you have always wanted to try to bring Africa along. And you've done a lot.

You've gone back to your home in Kachasa and you've done stuff there.

MUTOMBO: Yes. I have an organization, the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, which (INAUDIBLE) donate $22 million for the construction. And the hospital is almost two years old now. We treat more than 59,000 patients.

VELSHI: You actually wanted to be a doctor. That's why you came to America.

MUTOMBO: Yes.

VELSHI: You thought you'd be a doctor, and you ended up being a basketball star.

MUTOMBO: Yes, I was lucky having a chance to go to a great school like Georgetown University, where I got a scholarship to study medicine, fortunately. But I didn't study medicine. I ended up studying something else.

VELSHI: Let's talk a little about Africa.

What good can come -- I mean, this is great, that the World Cup is in Africa for the first time.

MUTOMBO: Yes.

VELSHI: Can there be some lasting effect? Because what you don't want to see is that they've built all these stadiums and they've got themselves into debt, and there's no particular lasting effect. Is there going to be a lasting effect on youth in Africa because of the World Cup there?

MUTOMBO: I think so, Ali. I think the World Cup will be a great benefit for the continent.

(INAUDIBLE) the world has a chance -- we have a chance to change the world. And soccer definitely is changing the African continent. It will change in a positive way -- economically, socially -- and it will give Africa more sports, especially (INAUDIBLE). And people will know more about our continent than they've ever known before.

VELSHI: At least they know the sport of soccer, or football in South Africa.

You're trying to get basketball into Africa.

MUTOMBO: Yes.

VELSHI: How is that working out?

MUTOMBO: It's working out. I'm one of them.

VELSHI: There you go.

MUTOMBO: Manute Bol, the one we just lost two days ago.

VELSHI: You were friends with Manute Bol.

MUTOMBO: Very friendly, Manute Bol. He was like a big brother to me. He inspired all of us from Africa to get an opportunity to play basketball.

VELSHI: And you weren't on the Sixers together, but you both played in Philly.

MUTOMBO: We played -- I think the NBA lost a great hero and a great son.

VELSHI: Well, this is interesting. For people who don't know as much about Manute Bol -- they may just know that he was a remarkably tall guy and a skilled basketball player -- this is another guy from Sudan who took his wealth and really worked hard to try and make his country a better place.

MUTOMBO: In Africa, they teach us something -- that when you make (ph) it, don't forgot about the place where you come from. And you can (INAUDIBLE). Some of us from Africa, we have done well and not forgot about where we come from.

VELSHI: How does it feel when you go back -- and I've seen video of you back in Kachasa. I mean, you're a hero there.

MUTOMBO: Yes, a little bit. I just have great respect around the continent. And people appreciate for the fact that I've gone away, but I've not forgot them, and the pain and the suffering that's going on.

VELSHI: Yes. You actually remember your mother a lot, because you named your hospital after her. Am I right?

MUTOMBO: Yes. The 300-bed is named after my mom. And we are very happy.

Now we're just asking for more help from the people. And our goal is to get 100,000 people who will donate $10 or $20 a year to keep the hospital open.

VELSHI: One hundred thousand people donating $10 or $20 a year.

MUTOMBO: Yes.

VELSHI: Where do they go to make these donations.

MUTOMBO: They can go to DMF.org or call 1-888-DMF-FUND.

VELSHI: OK, DMF.org. That's the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation.

You're going to go to South Africa. Are you going to any games?

MUTOMBO: I'm going to the game on Thursday. I'm going to the semifinal. Then I'm coaching the Special Olympics game.

VELSHI: Is that right?

MUTOMBO: Yes, for Coca-Cola.

VELSHI: Is it going to feel good to be down there?

MUTOMBO: I'm going to be home. It doesn't matter where I am in Africa. I am home.

VELSHI: Yes. It's different. The sun sets a little differently.

MUTOMBO: Absolutely.

VELSHI: It's fun. Well, maybe I'll run into you when I'm down there.

MUTOMBO: You're coming in a week.

VELSHI: I'm going in a week.

MUTOMBO: Just look for me. I'll be the tallest one.

VELSHI: You'll be an easy guy to find.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Dikembe, good to see you again.

MUTOMBO: Thank you. VELSHI: Congratulations for all your great work.

MUTOMBO: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

VELSHI: Dikembe Mutombo. He needs no other introduction.

All right. An amazing discovery in space by a group of seventh- graders. I am not kidding. Wait until you see what they found -- where? On Mars.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right. We want to tell you a little story about seventh-graders who have found a cave on Mars. I can't imagine a better introduction to the story than that.

Chad Myers is joining me now for "Off the Radar."

What on earth is this about?

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's the Mars Imaging Program. You can do this. The kids do it through NASA and through Arizona State.

Cottonwood Middle School -- now, this was Dennis Mitchell's seventh grade class. They were looking for lava tubes. Lava tubes, fairly common on Mars.

Lava would come out. The lava would maybe make it all the way to the top or not, and then sink back down and there would be a tube. It kind of looks like a cave.

OK. There are a lot of them on Mars. But not like this.

This turned out to be something completely different that they found. Not a lava tube, the size of four football fields all put together, and about a football field deep.

So there's Mars (INAUDBILE)That's the TV here. And then they took the camera and they were able to move it around. And what did they find? They found something that has never, ever been seen before? The next image is a hole. That looks like a black hole but not in a true sense of the word. It is a hole in what could be a giant cave system underground in Mars. This is called the Mars student imaging program.

VELSHI: One has to have a very open mind to look at that picture and think that might be the hint of a giant cave system underground. Because I look at and think it looks like a hole .

MYERS: It looks like a hole. But that's why I'm here and not discovering Mars.

And you know they're going to do a lot more research on it. They've given this site so speak, this lat and lon on Mars to the big scientists now and they're going to try to dig deeper. That's what we do here at CNN. Don't we always drill down? They're going to dig deeper at Mars and they're going to look to see what that little spot could be. That little spot is in fact four football fields pasted side by side --

VELSHI: That little dot?

That little dot is 600 feet one way and almost 350 feet the other way and 400 feet straight down. In Mexico, you'd call that a giant Sinota (ph). In Mars we don't know what that it is, but the kids at Dennis Mitchell School found it. So there they go.

VELSHI: My executive producer says that's why I'm not smarter than a seventh-grader.

MYERS: And not taller.

VELSHI: And not taller (INAUDBILE) . Good to see you, Chad.

All right. We live in a world saturated with information. The internet, cell phones, ipads. How do we process it? How do we organize it? Well you're about to meet the man who coined the phrase information architect.

What he does to make our world understandable.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

"Mission Possible" is all about making our world more understandable and easier to access. Today we introduce you to another person you might not know but should. Richard Wurman coined the phrase information architect back in 1976, way before the internet before cell phones.

We create so much information but we don't often devote enough effort to organizing it and making it understandable. Richard is a prolific author, he's written more than 80 books. He's an architect, he's a graphic designer. He created the T.E.D. You'll know about those, T.ED. stands for technology entertainment, design. . He created those in mid '80s, now they are a place that gives birth to some of the finest ideas of our time.

He's moved on to other things now. He joins us from Providence, Rhode Island. We always love meeting people like you, Richard, who have done things and left them behind, that continue to grow and flourish and find out what it is you're doing to solve today's problems.

Just give me a sense, let us into your head for just a moment, how you think about the world and what made you come up with all these ways to try to make the world a better place?

RICHARD WURMAN, ARCHITECT, CREATIVE DESGINER: Well, I believe I embrace my ignorance more than perhaps even you do. VELSHI: Ha! And I embrace it pretty well.

WURMAN: Not embrace my ignorance, embrace my own ignorance. And I have a heightened sense of curiosity. And that leads to me trying to make things understandable for myself, which leads to me doing a book about it or a conference about it.

I'm trying to fill up that black hole of not understanding. And most things are not put in understandable form. I just listened to the story about those schoolchildren. And I would have also said that those four football fields are actually equals four acres because some people might know acres better than football fields and some people, football fields more than acres.

And I would never use the number trillion, which is used often now, because it's a number that's impossible to understand. I could tell you if we have the time how hard it is to understand. It would take about 20 seconds.

VELSHI: So your view -- sorry to interrupt you. The prism then by which you see the world is that which makes things accessible to more people and in that way, we solve more problems?

WURMAN: No, you said it your introduction to me, understanding. Understanding -- I worship the word understanding. I think the president's cabinet should have a secretary of understanding. I think everything should go through the filter of the secretary of understanding.

There is virtually nothing that comes out of Washington or New York or almost any place and many news shows that is understandable. Understandable in a way that you can turn around and tell that and answer questions to a literate 12-year-old.

I'm talking about the fundamental sense of understanding the news, the numbers, the oil spill, health, wealth, the issues that surround ourselves.

VELSHI: Tell me how you build on that. You need to -- obviously we need to try and break things down in a way that makes things very understandable to people and then somehow we have to build that knowledge up so that we solve problems.

WURMAN: Well, I suggest to you that throughout your schooling, you were focused on one way of organizing information, the alphabet. We sang it a b c d e f g. One time, I thought l, m, n, o, p q was one letter. Because we said it so fast. But there are, five ways of organizing information

We are not told the other four besides the alphabet, we're not taught in grammar school, junior high school, high school at a university. And that's the fundamental way you begin to understand almost any subject.

You can understand things by location by the alphabet, by time, category and hierarchy. That happens to spell latch. Now when you start to explain any story yourself, you should think of the way in for somebody to understand it. Is it through time, is it through a storytelling, is it a sequence events, is it a category, is it by the smallest to the largest in hierarchy, is it by where it is on the human body --

VELSHI: Are you saying that by choosing the right method to explain that, you're more effective?

WURMAN: Well, that's rule No. 1. There's about 20 rules that I call Wurman's laws of how you understand something. You only understand something relative to something you understand. You won't believe this at first, I've done proof of concept with my two partners.

No two cities in the world do their maps to the same scale or with the same legends. There is no methodology for drawing the boundary to a city. Not two cities ask the same questions or display their information similarly You might not think that's important but the cities of the world hold 51 percent of the population of the world and there's no way of comparing one to another.

You can't compare Shanghai to Beijing or to Sao Paulo or to New York or to London. Paris--

VELSHI: So you take Wurman's rules and you apply them to something. What's the next thing you're applying it to? Because what we need, is to figure out how to take all the stuff that you know and improve on situations that we have or solve problems that we.

WURMAN: Well I have a conference called TEDMED which does it for medicine,. And I have a book on understanding health care. I have a major -- and it's really major -- project called 19, 20, 21 that focuses on 19 cities of the world that will have more than 20 million people in the 21st century and developing a common metaphor, common method, a common set of templates so that all the cities in the world can at least put your base information in the same way.

For instance, Tokyo, which is considered the largest city in the world, you can legitimately look at certain prefectures of Tokyo, depending on which ones you choose, and have an 8.6 million people and it can go to 45 million people and they're all valid.

So you really don't have a way of comparing one city to another. In New York City, you could look at just the five boroughs, but we know New York City as much more of a city state. You can look at the Port Authority, and which, where it has you can look at lights at night, you can look at satellite images form land set of where the concrete is as a way of measuring human development.

You can look at transportation areas. Each one gives you a slightly different boundary to the city, which is a working base, a tax base, it's the operational base of a city. There's no common buy- in or agreement on how you do that. So I'm developing a series of ways of doing that. VELSHI: Seems like you have -- I know you're busy with other stuff. But it seems like you could give us some good ideas on how to make the news more understandable to people.

WURMAN: Absolutely. And I did a book called "Information Anxiety" that has several chapters on how to make what you do clearer. Sanjay, by the way, one of your friends, comes to my TEDMED conference. And he makes thing understandable there. He does a pretty good job.

VELSHI: He does do a pretty good job. All right I'm going to read it and then Sanjay will work on it together.

Richard, good to see you thank you for being with us. I hope you'll come back. Maybe you could even critique what we do a little bit and say this is how we can do it better

WURMAN: I'd be happy to do that. I'm abrasive and clear.

VELSHI: OK. We like it we need to better so that's good. Richard Wurman, what a pleasure to meet you. He is the creator of the T.E.D conference, now the creator of the TEDMED, author of more than 80 books, one of which I'm going to read. Because it's going to make me be able to do my job better. Richard, thanks for being with us.

WURMAN: I'll send you a care package.

VELSHI: Excellent. And we will have you back for sure. Because I think this is good we need to critique what we do and make it better for our audience. Because we want our audience, we want them back. We are building up America with a plea from the Florida tourism industry. What are they doing to lure oil-fearing tourists back to their beach? I'm going to tell you about it after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well the oil in the Gulf hasn't reached many of Florida's famous beaches but just the threat of it is still scaring tourists away. Now the state is spending a lot of money to convince people not to change their vacation plans. Tom Foreman joins us from Panama city beach California,-- Florida sorry.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT( voice over) This was supposed to be a record-breaking summer for Panama city beach. With a new airport expected to bring thousands of additional tourists and millions of extra dollars.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: White sand, people having fun, crystal clear water.

FOREMAN: Instead, hotel and condo operators are sweating out every weekend. Like Michelle Lacewell. MICHELLE LACEWELL, EDGEWATER BEACH RESORT: We are way below our normal occupancy. We're significantly below our normal occupancy. Normally, you see beach umbrellas all up and down that beach and it's completely packed.

FOREMAN: So this town is making a dramatic push to build up its tourist trade even as the threat of oil is tearing it down and that starts with recognizing how important vacation time and money are for most tourists. Dan Rowe heads of the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the most precious dollars that people spent on a yearly basis.

FOREMAN (on camera): And you really want your visitors to know you respect that investment. You're going to help them protect that vacation money and everybody's in this together?

DAN ROWE, CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU: We are all in this together. June, July and August make up half of our business for the entire year. This is the time now that we really do need our visitors to hang in there with us.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're watching the situation very closely and we're going to protect your investment of your beach vacation.

FOREMAN (voice-over): To make that happen, many hotels have sharply reduced or eliminated late cancellation fees. The town has stepped up promotion of events and attractions beyond the beach. And electronic billboards for hundreds of miles showed daily honest updates on beach conditions, which most days are still excellent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are just hesitant and I don't blame them.

FOREMAN: The efforts are a Godsend for small businesses like Rick Dorman's newly opened ice cream shop. He needs outsiders to know that oil is appearing, but only in very small amounts and it is cleaned up very quickly.

RICK DORMAN, PINK PELICAN ICE CREAM: They're thinking they're going to see an oil slick covering the beach. That's not the case. But they're not here to see that that's not the case.

FOREMAN: The result of all this? Sure, business is down, but --

ROWE: We're not seeing the decrease that we've heard about this other places. It's not going to be a record-breaker for us, but it's not going to be a horrible year, at least not yet.

FOREMAN: And on the Gulf Coast these days that is saying something.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN: Make no mistake about it. They have lost some business here, Ali. This property and the other ones owned by this company say they lost about $100,000 in reservations, but they're fighting really hard to keep those who are committed to come here coming back. They think images like this one will help -- Ali.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Tom, good to see you, my friend. Thanks very much for that. Tom Foreman in Panama City Beach, Florida.

All right, when we come back, we're going to talk about the moratorium that's been lifted. A judge in New Orleans has struck down President Obama's moratorium on deep water offshore drilling. Poppy Harlow tells us who this affects when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, breaking news. We've been telling you about and that is a judge, a federal district court judge in New Orleans has struck down the administration's ban, the moratorium, on offshore drilling.

You'll remember after the deepwater horizon exploded causing the oil leak that we've been following, the administration put a six-month ban on deepwater drilling, which means drilling in water that is deeper than 500 feet. This well was a mile under water. Let's go to Poppy Harlow of cnnmoney.com to tell us who's affected by this -- Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNNMONEY.COM: Yes, well, you know, big oil is affected by this. BP is one of the key players that could benefit from this. I just want to mention, Ali, that judge said in the decision that just came down that the court cannot find a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium that the president has put a moratorium on deepwater exploration of 33 of the 70 rigs in the gulf that we have in this chart.

I want to try to take this full so people can look at the biggest players that this really could affect. It could be very good, folks. Look right there on your screen at BP and Anadarko, all of those dots. Those are the two biggest deepwater drillers in the Gulf of Mexico.

Of those two, they have nine rigs that right now are offline. They were drilling for oil when the president put that moratorium in place. They had to stop production. These are also, Ali as you know the two companies that were the biggest players in that deepwater horizon rig that exploded.

VELSHI: I have people who are saying on Facebook, how can this possibly be that they would strike this down? But I just spent a week in the gulf where a lot of people who work in the local economies are saying, this is really going to kill us. First, the shrimp are gone and the oysters are gone. Now you take away the ability to work offshore. So for local economies, this is a really tricky topic.

HARLOW: It is, but look at these numbers, $65 billion of just Louisiana's $210 billion economy every year, Ali, is energy. It's all about oil in the gulf and it is about fishing and it is about tourism, but it's all about oil.

I just talked to the guy that heads up the American Petroleum Institute, represents this industry and he said, listen, you have to bring these jobs back. You're talking about tens of thousands of jobs. That could be good for those jobs.

But we should say the White House immediately said they're appealing to the Fifth Circuit. It's going to be a long process. But the big beneficiaries could be the jobs down there and also it could be BP and Anadarko and these big oil companies that could bring those rigs right back online now.

VELSHI: All right, Poppy, thanks for coming up for us. You'll stay on top of it. Poppy Harlow at cnnmoney.com. You can see all the good work that she does by clicking on to cnnmoney.com.

All right, today's "Wordplay" has nothing to do with where you keep your firewood and everything to do with a general whose job might just be on the chopping block. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: All right, it's time for "Wordplay" because words are serious business. Just ask General Stanley McChrystal. He is the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, for at least another day.

The words he and his top aides uttered to a reporter for "Rolling Stone" magazine are the inspiration for our "Wordplay" today and that is woodshed. It's a shed, holds wood but it's shorthand for a public scolding.

The public part is ironic since and here I'm quoting the late language guru William Sapphire, "the term arose from taking a child out of the presence of others for punishment."

Now as far as woodsheds go, General McChrystal's is going to be a nice into the situation room at the White House and for saying unflattering things about the people who work there, he won't be paddled with a hickory switch, but he may wish he had been.

When we come back, I'll give you some of my thoughts in my "XYZ" today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it. The World Cup is in full swing, the first time it's ever been held on African soil. Host President Jacob Zuma called it the single greatest opportunity we've ever had to showcase our diversity and potential to the world.

And that's probably true besides the fantastic showcase and some great moments on the soccer pitch, it's also an opportunity for the continent to continue to develop itself, to parlay this month-long tournament into a long lasting economic and social benefit.

As you know, former South African Nelson Mandela played a key role in bringing the World Cup to South Africa, but he's 91. Even a giant among men has to pass the ball to maybe another giant among men and his friend, giant-hearted people like our guest today.

You saw him here, Dikembe Mutombo. He's made multimillions here in United States in the NBA and he promptly shipped millions of it back to his home country of Congo building hospitals and other health care facilities.

He retired from the league last year, but not from his humanitarian work. He wants to promote unity and leadership through sport. The folks across Africa can get a similar boost from the World Cup. That's my "XYZ." Now time now for "Rick's List" and here is Rick.