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Oil Cap: Working, Still Testing; Swinging to Improve Education; Thanks to the Blues

Aired July 19, 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: OK. I'm Ali Velshi with you for the next hour. Here's what I've got "On the Rundown."

The feds clear BP to keep that oil well capped for at least 24 more hours amid new concerns over safety and seeping oil.

We'll tell you about that.

President Obama jumped into the battle over extending jobless benefits.

And Phil Mickelson joins us for a conversation about his passion. And by the way, it's not golf. It's got to do with teaching math and science.

Also, a story to make any art lover smile. Scientists unlock the secret finally of the Mona Lisa.

But let's get to that oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Day 91 of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and there's a test under way right now. Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander, has issued a statement. He sent a letter to BP about some unanswered questions, which, by the way, Chad is going to give a lot of.

But let me first set the stage with this statement from Thad Allen. He has said, "The federal science team got the answers they were seeking and a commitment from BP to meet their monitoring and notification obligations. I authorized BP to continue the integrity test for another 24 hours, and I restated our firm position that this test will only continue if they continue to meet their obligations to rigorously monitor for any signs that this test could worsen the overall situation. At any moment, we have the ability to return to the safe containment of oil on the surface until the time the relief well is completed and the well is permanently killed."

OK. Chad, good to see you, first of all. It's been a while.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Welcome back. Were you on a honeymoon?

VELSHI: I was on a honeymoon.

MYERS: You took her to the World Cup? VELSHI: I did.

MYERS: That was so romantic of you, sir.

VELSHI: Sweet, right?

Well, when I left, oil was flowing and everybody said, really, the only sure fix is drilling that relief well.

MYERS: Correct.

VELSHI: Now I come back and there's a new cap on here, the oil is not flowing. And I'm thinking we should be celebrating this. But I understand this is just a test. And as Thad Allen is saying here, it's possible it could worsen.

Just rewind and tell me what's going on here.

MYERS: So is the SAT a test. But if you don't take it, you don't get into college.

VELSHI: OK. Good point.

MYERS: The test that they did was to see if anything would go wrong by capping it, by stopping the oil and the natural gas from coming out, to see whether it would leak. So far, we don't think so.

Yes, there is seepage. But there's natural seepage. Forty million gallons of oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico every year all by itself.

VELSHI: Right. And as a result of that, actually, the Gulf of Mexico is better equipped than some other bodies of water to absorb some oil.

MYERS: No question about it. These little organisms are down there because of this. And this has been going on for tens of thousands of years.

VELSHI: Yes. Right. Like antibodies in your body.

MYERS: So, now that they know that they've stopped the well, they've increased the pressure. We're up to about 6,900 PSI. You can't buy a power washer at Home Depot that's going to go to 6,900 PSI. It would cut your finger off.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: Literally, the power of a pressure washer at that PSI could cut your arm off. So, the pressure inside this wellhead is now getting very high.

And they believe that they may be seeing around the wellhead here -- and the picture is a little bit different now than we had before. They're not quite as good because we're not showing oil spewing out anymore because oil is not spewing out anymore. So now we don't have great pictures anymore.

But anyway, we do have this 12-pack, we called it here, and the single pack we have. But irrelevant. Methane may be increasing in the water around the wellhead --

VELSHI: What's the thing with methane?

MYERS: It's fairy irrelevant, except that methane may be coming how of the ground because it's the first thing that can leak.

VELSHI: OK. Got it.

MYERS: If you have a bubble bath, and you shake up all the bubbles and you try to squeeze it through a hose, what's going to come out first? The air, right? Because it comes out easiest because there's no viscosity to the air.

VELSHI: So if there's leaking and we're seeing methane, something is coming out of there.

MYERS: Methane is probably coming out because it's easier. That doesn't mean oil is coming out, but that means something is coming out.

But that could be completely still natural. It could still be normal. They drilled in this spot because they saw leakage in the first place.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: If they didn't see leakage, they would have drilled somewhere else.

VELSHI: Right. So, what Thad Allen is saying is that if something about this test worsens the situation, they're in place to put those pipes back in --

MYERS: They're in perfect place to put those pipes back in.

VELSHI: And then start putting oil into those ships again.

MYERS: Do you remember that silly cap they had that the oil went around like this for days and we're going, just tighten the thing up, do -- it doesn't do that anymore. They took that away. They threw it away. They put a brand-new sealer on top, seal here, seal here, and now when they open valves with hoses on them, there won't be any oil going into the Gulf of Mexico.

VELSHI: And they did more cutting, so it's a better fit and all that kind of stuff.

MYERS: They took this machine down there, and they literally took the bolts out of this whole nipple, and they put this in there. Where did that go? That was an awesome picture. We just lost it.

VELSHI: There you go. MYERS: Yes, there you go. This is the new one that fits. And there's no oil coming out. There's the bottom.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: There's no oil coming out anywhere. It would be coming out here, but it's not. It's a perfect fit. And this is with it closed.

You open up some pipes with some hoses coming out, you could drain off a lot of oil. You could bleed off a lot of pressure. And so -- and I think that's what's going to happen. But they want to make sure they can do this if a hurricane comes.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: Because you can't bleed with a hurricane coming because the ships have to leave.

VELSHI: All right. So we can keep our fingers crossed. This could be close to a solution.

MYERS: And every minute of the day that well -- relief well gets closer and closer and closer.

VELSHI: All right. Well, soon, we're going to be able to shift to the conversation you were having on the first day, on the day when this Deepwater Horizon went down, and that is what the long-term effects are likely to be. And we can start comparing things like that.

I'm actually glad we're getting to the day that we can at least talk about the future and not dread over this every day.

Thanks, Chad.

MYERS: Sure.

VELSHI: All right. We're going to talk about unemployment benefits in a minute.

There are more than 14 million people receiving unemployment benefits right now in the United States. Almost seven million of those people are actually not receiving any benefits at all because they've been on unemployment for so long, they've been on it for more than six months.

They're still getting some benefits, but there are fears that they're going to lose those benefits. So we want to talk about this, because tomorrow in the Senate, there's going to be a vote on this.

Every month -- we've talked about this almost every month -- there's been a vote about whether to extend the unemployment benefits for these millions who are about to fall off the rolls. Well, the issue is that in June, when they went to renew this, it didn't happen. They didn't get the votes to extend this because there are some legitimate concerns about how we're paying for all of these benefits and about how -- whether in fact they do a good job, whether they actually help people or whether they actually cause people to stay home.

President Obama, in preparation for tomorrow's vote, went out at the Rose Garden flanked by two people, two unemployed people, and took a pretty strong stand against those who would vote against extending unemployment benefits.

Listen to what the president had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have to say, after years of championing policies that turned a record surplus into a massive deficit, the same people who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are now saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle-class Americans like Jim or Leslie or Denise, who really need help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: What's different, by the way? If this thing tried and failed three times to pass in the Senate, why would it change?

This is why. Carte Goodwin is a former gubernatorial aid in West Virginia. Tomorrow he gets sworn in, in the place of Senator Robert Byrd, who passed away. That gives the Democrats the ability to block a filibuster and get this passed once again.

But this debate is not going away. We'll talk about it in a little while with Ed Henry, who's back for the stakeout.

All right. Phil Mickelson, you know his name. He's a three-time Masters champion.

His real passion isn't found on the golf course. It's in the classroom, believe it or not. Now he's spreading the knowledge so teachers can have more clubs, so to speak, in their bag.

I'm going to talk to him live coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I missed everything about this show, but one of the things I missed is doing "Chalk Talk," where we talk about better opportunities to teach young people and give them better opportunities to compete around the world.

Here's a name for you -- golfer Phil Mickelson. If you were watching the British Open this weekend, you heard his name a lot. He is a big fan of math and science, believe it or not. In fact, his wife Amy calls him an astronaut trapped in a golfer's body.

He's a self-proclaimed math geek. And he's got some arrangement with ExxonMobil where he's got the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy Camp going on right now.

He joins me now from New York.

Phil, good to have you back.

I was listening to the coverage of the tournament, and I was wondering -- I knew you were on the show today, and I was saying, is he going to get back? But it's great to see you here.

This is something I think a lot of people don't know. What is your connection to math and science? Why are you so interested in this?

PHIL MICKELSON, PRO GOLFER: Well, it's something I've always been interested in, and something that my wife and I are very passionate about. And we've realized that just a few years ago, how the United States had been falling behind in these areas, and that China and India have been having 55 percent of their college graduates in the stem fields: science, technology, engineering, mathematics. And in the United States, we've had only 15 percent.

And so, we've always been a world leader in these fields, and we've been falling behind. So, for the last six years, we've been putting together this academy to try to, at the grassroots level here, third, fourth, fifth grade, inspire our students in the math and sciences.

VELSHI: You and Amy do this in a very interesting way, Phil. You're not teaching students directly. You're teaching their teachers.

And I guess this is interesting, because school teachers, elementary school teachers, have a whole lot of subjects to cover. So you're trying to make them better at dealing with the math and science?

MICKELSON: That's exactly right, because 90 percent of our teachers teaching science and math don't have any accreditation. And when you don't feel confident in what you're teaching, a lot of times you just go by the book and you teach without passion. And so our academy here is giving these teachers the confidence, the ability and the tools to go back to the classroom and inspire their kids, teach with passion, and feel confident with what they're teaching so that, hopefully, we can grasp their attention and keep it on all the way through college.

VELSHI: All right. And you focus on some basic areas: motion and forces, action and reaction, Newton's second and third laws, graphing on coordinate plane, linear growth, measurement estimation and data collection. Not terribly complicated stuff, but can be intimidating and can sound boring.

So what do you guys do?

MICKELSON: Well, we try to create fun ways to give the teacher an opportunity to grab the attention of the student. And so we have some egg drop drills and some other racecar -- balloon races, things that you can get the attention of the kids, first and foremost, and then be able to teach them about the laws of motion and so forth.

VELSHI: All right. Now, how do you choose the teachers who attend this?

MICKELSON: Well, we had 1,200 teachers apply on our Web site, sendmyteacher.com, and we were able to select 200 for this week's academy. We have three academies with 200 teachers each, and that's the best way to get teachers in, is through the Web site, sendmyteacher.com.

VELSHI: And you've got a couple of academies. You had -- was it Houston and New Orleans? And now you've got the one in New Jersey?

MICKELSON: That's correct. And so this is will be our third one this year. We now will have 2,600 teachers that we've taught, impacting over 40,000 students.

VELSHI: Now, obviously, one of the issues with funding, particularly in public schools, is cost and the fact that so many teachers have to put out their own money to better their own skills.

Does this cost the teachers anything?

MICKELSON: Oh, no, no. This is all expenses paid. And we try to do it first class so that they have the nicest accommodations and they have the best service, because we want to treat these teachers like the professional that they are, because they're the ones having a direct impact with our students.

VELSHI: OK. I have to ask you, does this give you some kind of an edge on the golf course? I mean, clearly, there are a lot of calculations that go into a good golf game. How do you apply your love of math and science, your geekiness, to golf?

MICKELSON: Well, it's important for me to understand my equipment. So I work with all the engineers at Callaway on my golf equipment, whether it's driver, golf ball. And we work on moment of inertia and coefficient of restitution, all these things that help me drive the golf ball better.

But I also use science, math and statistics in helping me practice. By understanding what areas of the game are most important and stressing those, I realize that the numbers show that short game is most important and that I've got to get the ball close to the hole. And so I spend 80 percent of my practice working on short game.

VELSHI: Wow.

Phil, what a pleasure to have you here. Thanks for the great work you do. On this show we have a lot of passion for people who do things to help our kids get better educated.

And continued great luck in your sideline of golf.

MICKELSON: Thank you, Ali.

VELSHI: All right.

Phil Mickelson, co-founder of the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy, along with his wife Amy.

First, it was Hurricane Katrina, then the recession hit. Now it's the Gulf oil spill.

Boy, Mississippi -- we talk a lot about Louisiana. Mississippi takes a licking, but it keeps on ticking. How about the Magnolia State, how it keeps the money rolling in, after the break?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Well, Mississippi is hoping that when you think of it, you don't think of oil on the beaches, you think of some of the nicer parts of Mississippi, including some people who think about it as the birthplace of American music. But this place has been hammered over the last few years -- Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf oil disaster. And the whole Gulf Coast is feeling the pinch on tourism in particular, but in Mississippi things might be a lit better thanks to the blues.

Tom Foreman is "Building up America" in the Delta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Any time, any day, you can hear blues in the Delta. This is the land of legends Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and it is home to their musical heirs like Terry "Big T" Williams.

TERRY "BIG T" WILLIAMS, BLUES MUSICIAN: I don't care if it is a fast-played blues or a slow-played blues, it is still saying something about, I'm feeling bad, but yet and still life is okay.

FOREMAN: And lately life has been more than okay here, even in the wake of the oil spill, Katrina and all the economic turmoil, because of a rising tide of blues tourism. At the Delta Blues Museum, the crowds are growing so steadily with people from every state and dozens of foreign countries, that it will soon be expanded to more than twice its size.

This town alone pulled in $54 million from visitors last year. People are tracing the history of blues and rock through a string of historic sites throughout the region called The Blues Trail.

Kappi Allen is with the county tourism commission.

KAPPI ALLEN, DIRECTOR OF TOURISM: this year so far we have seen an increase of 13 percent in our tourism tax numbers.

FOREMAN (on camera): And all of that in the middle of the recession?

ALLEN: Absolutely. We are open for business. FOREMAN (voice-over): Some say the surge is because the blues speak to folks in hard times. Some say it is because people here are doing a better job marketing their attractions. But Bill Luckett, an owner of the Ground Zero Blues Club, says whatever the cause, the results are undeniable.

(on camera): How important do you think it is to building this part of America in these hard times?

BILL LUCKETT, GROUND ZERO BLUES CLUB: Well, we have lost a lot of our factories, a lot of our base manufacturing lines, but Blues music and tourism and interest in Blues music is replacing that as an industry.

FOREMAN (voice-over): According to lore, the great blues man, Robert Johnson, met the devil at this crossroads and traded his soul for the gift of music. That's just a legend, but this is the fact.

WILLIAMS: The tourist attraction used to be seasonal, now it is year round. They come all the time.

FOREMAN: And in the wake of so many problems for many folks, that feels heaven-sent.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: My word, I had no idea of what I just saw in that last scene. I will come back to that in just a second.

Is this -- so it's been something -- the blues have been around for a long time. It's great that that continues to help tourism in Mississippi, Tom.

Is that going to grow? Are they thinking of growing this industry? Are more places opening to listen to the blues?

FOREMAN: It's not just a matter of places opening, Ali. They are trying to get a little more action there with restaurants and hotels and things to support the tourist trade.

Really, ,what people are coming here to see is not only these many, many places where you can hear music already, but also the sights connected, whether it was a hotel where the blues musician stayed, or someplace where they were recorded, or someplace that they ate, or someplace where somebody met somebody else, all of that. It really is fascinating.

And I'll tell you what they're selling, Ali. They're selling something that there's always a market for. What they're selling is authenticity.

They're saying, look, you've had it with all the pretend acts, you've had it with all the people out there who say they're about something. Come to a place where it really started, because this -- the Delta is north of here, Clarksdale, where we were, and all the towns around there -- that's where this form of music again. VELSHI: And one of the things I've always loved about the blues is, you're right, it does -- nobody's all that happy in the blues. They're struggling through stuff, but they're making it work. So it does speak to people in tough times, and this is a state that continues to experience tough times, and yet continue to try and overcome them.

FOREMAN: Yes. You know, Ali, Somebody said something to me a long time ago about places that suffer a lot, that have a lot of hard times. And Mississippi has suffered through a lot of hard things.

They say, look, when you go through a lot of hard times, you get good at handling hard times. And I'll tell you, people here are very good at it and they're very smart about it. And they see an opportunity here to say, look, we all get down.

A hurricane hits, the recession hits, the oil hits, those are all bad things, they know it, they won't deny knit a minute. But they also say there's nothing to do except put your head down and play on, which is what the blues have always been about anyway.

And I'm telling you, it's quite an experience to be there. I've been around this country many times. A great, great place to visit on a vacation and see the people and get a sense of what's going on, and you help build up Mississippi in the process.

VELSHI: Are you going to be playing on, on that guitar? Is there a bit of a future for you in that?

(LAUGHTER)

FOREMAN: You know, I used to have a band in New Orleans.

VELSHI: I didn't. I thought I knew a lot about you, Tom. We spent a lot of time together. You were holding that back.

FOREMAN: Yes. Well, that was a while back. We were pretty good. You should have been there. We were hot. We had our mojo working.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Tom, it's always a pleasure to see you and to see the beautiful CNN Express behind you. You have a great time. We'll talk to you again soon. All right?

FOREMAN: All right, Ali. Good talking to you.

VELSHI: Tom Foreman in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Much has changed since I've been away. The oil has stopped flowing, sort of, in the Gulf of Mexico, and Chad Myers has become our resident art expert.

I didn't know this about you.

MYERS: Yes. You didn't realize this. Yes.

VELSHI: You know, the Mona Lisa, I have to tell you, just between us -- and I hope nobody's listening -- I've never been all that fascinated by her smile. She's sort of smiling, sort of not smiling. But until now, that's been the big question, who is Lisa del Giocondo and what was she thinking, or is that a smile, is it a smirk?

What is it?

MYERS: You just got married, right?

VELSHI: Yes.

MYERS: You're trying to figure out -- never mind.

VELSHI: What expressions look like, yes, what they mean.

MYERS: Never mind. I'm not even going to go there. Really, you have a lot to learn, my friend.

Mona Lisa, CNN.com, what's new about her today -- have you seen it in person?

VELSHI: Yes.

MYERS: Have you been to the Louvre?

VELSHI: Yes.

MYERS: Very small. You'd expect, oh, it's the Mona Lisa.

VELSHI: Yes. Yes.

MYERS: No. It's the Mona Lisa, right? But very small.

But how many layers of paint do you think are around that part of the smile there and around her eyes? Layers of paint?

VELSHI: Well, I didn't take an art history course, but in "The Da Vinci Code," I understood that there's some process that involved lots more than you would think.

MYERS: Scumano (ph).

VELSHI: Scumano (ph), that's right.

MYERS: That's easy for me to say.

Forty layers. Forty layers of paint, all less than a thickness of a hair. Not that you would know how thick that is.

VELSHI: I wouldn't know about that either. (LAUGHTER)

MYERS: So, the thickness of a hair, less than that. He used a lot of glaze and he used very little paint.

And so, it's almost like glazing your wall. Right? You're trying to get a lot of different images here, a lot of different textures, a lot of different colors.

VELSHI: Right, as opposed to a coloring book or paint by number.

MYERS: There you go. One color. And so, didn't do that.

How they did it? X-ray fluorescence. They shot x-rays -- and not harming the picture or the painting.

(CROSSTALK)

MYERS: Shot this and then looked for the distances between the paint layers. There are 40 layers of paint -- 40 -- to make the eyes and 40 layers to make the smile. And it's just a little bit of color here, little bit of color here. And it makes it more looking like a haze rather than looking like every little line is perfectly smooth.

VELSHI: All right. So next time I'm at the Louvre, I'll start what sounds like a smart conversation about this as opposed to my normal, "I don't know what the big deal is about this."

MYERS: Right.

VELSHI: I'll actually sound like a smart guy about the 40 layers of paint, the scumano (ph).

MYERS: You know, and it took 350 years for this guy to be popular. And now look.

VELSHI: But, you see, everybody who thought he was good back then is now on to something. Now you could say, see, I knew there was something about this, 40 layers of paint.

MYERS: That's right.

VELSHI: Very good. I don't know what you're going to surprise us with next.

MYERS: Welcome back.

VELSHI: But you seem to -- you know a lot about a lot.

That's what we love about Chad.

All right. When we come back, I'm going to take you "Globe Trekking" around the world. There's been a bit of a train disaster in India that we're going to tell you about. Dozens are dead. Some suspect that rebels were behind the accident.

I'm going to give you details on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time to go "Globe Trekking". Let's start in India. Not a great story I want to tell you about unfortunately. In the western Bengal state, there was a train crash-- deadly train crash. A speeding express train slammed into another train that was waiting at a station.

There's what we're talking about. At least 60 people were killed. More than 90 people were injured. People have been trying to -- rescue crews have been trying to cut people out of the mangled wreckage. They're trying to determine if the crash was caused by maliced rebels. .

In May, more than 100 died in the same area when a train derailed but it was hit by a freight train. The Malice rebels by the way have denied the allegation that they were involved in this.

Let's go to Pakistan now. There we go. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, very close to Afghanistan where Pakistan has been considered one of the main allies to the United States in the fight against terror.

Part of the issue here is that the U.S. -- there's growing anti- U.S. sentiment in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan is one of the biggest recipients of U.S. aid. They're going to get $7.5 billion over the next five years in aid from the U.S. that's one of the biggest recipients of U.S. aid.

In exchange, they've been asked to step up the fight against Al Qaeda, particularly in this mountainous region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. For a very good explanation as to what Hillary Clinton has been saying in Pakistan, here's CNN's Reza Sayah reporter in Islamabad.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REZA SAYAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Washington has made it clear that it desperately needs Pakistan's help in the fight against militants. And when you need someone's help, you obviously have to be nice to them, you have to say nice things and it doesn't hurt if you do nice things for them.

That's what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was doing during her one-day visit here in the federal capital of Islamabad. Mrs. Clinton on a 24-hour charm offensive to win as many Pakistani hearts and minds as possible. Mrs. Clinton unveiling a number of aid projects paid for by U.S. aid money approved by Congress.

The programs are designed to address Pakistan's biggest concerns and needs, among them, an energy crisis, a water shortage and jobs. The plans include the building of several hospitals, the building of hydroelectric dams. And revamping Pakistan's aging power grid.

One of the projects calls for the increase of the export of Pakistan's world-famous mangos. Th U.S. hoping that project generates jobs in Pakistan.

HILARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE : We know there is a perception held by too many Pakistanis, that American's commitment to them begins and ends with security. But in fact our partnership with Pakistan goes far beyond security. It is economic, political, educational, cultural, historical, rooted in family ties. That this misperception has persisted for so long tells us we have not done a good enough job of connecting our partnership with concrete improvements in the lives of Pakistanis.

SAYAH: Make no mistake, the ultimate goal for Washington is the fight against militants. The Obama administration has said over and over again that there cannot be any success in Afghanistan if there is no help from Pakistan, if Pakistan doesn't do more against militants. The militants especially, who are taking refuge on Pakistani soil. But fueling the insurgency across the border in Afghanistan, it hasn't always been easy for the U.S. to get Pakistan to do more because of the huge trust deficit here. Mrs. Clinton hoping some of these projects will bridge that trust deficit. Reza Sayah, CNN Islamabad..

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: And on a lighter note, let's go to Indonesia the world's most populous Muslim nation. Now as you know, when you pray in a Mosque, you are supposed to face Mecca. For some reason--this is Indonesia, Mecca is basically over here somewhere.

For some reason in, Indonesia, in Jakarta in particular , people have been facing west, which I guess they were told was the direction to face. But if you, if your west from Jakarta, you actually end up in Africa. So authorities have gone in have told them to change that a little bit, change their orientation to northwest. A lot of mosques are oriented in the direction of prayer. That might take a little bit of construction work. But that's the story in Indonesia and That's "Globe Trekking" for today.

Hiking, kayaking, camping, all of these things possible in the great outdoors. But one camp is teaching others lessons that make its founder our "Mission Possible" coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Friday was a rough day on American markets. Dow losing about 2 percent and then this morning, overnight in Asia, very rough night. We were worried that would continue on into today. But the Dow has stayed up about 45 points now to 10, 143. We always keep an eye on that for you, especially on this show.

Time for "Mission Possible" where we introduce you to somebody doing something incredible. See that number, 75,000? That is the number of young adults, people between the age of 18 and 39, who will be diagnosed with cancer this year. That is a remarkable, remarkable number. That brings us to our next guest.

I want to introduce you to three people -- Brad Ludden, is a professional kayaker and the founder of something called First Descents. We're going to talk about that. On the right of your screen, Amira Duck is one of the First Descent's campers.

She's going to be attending her third camp this year. She is in remission gladly from thyroid cancer. And Ryan Sutter is embarking on a fantastic mission to help Brad's mission. He's going to try to get 10,000 people to donate $10 each, and enduring (ph) 10 sporting challenges to celebrate the tenth year of First Descent. So let's talk about what First Descent is. Thank you first of all to all of you for being here. Brad, what does First Descent even mean? It s it a kayaking term or a rafting term?

BRAD LUDDEN, FOUNDER, FIRST DESCENT: Yes, it's actually a kayaking term. It's--for me, an extreme Kayak athlete it's the pinnacle achievement that I can accomplish.

That's the first time anyone's ever Kayaked a section of river successfully. And with that comes all these inherent challenges and those challenges are kind of, and that experience is metaphorical for what the young adults experience at a week at one of our programs.

VELSHI: How did you involved with this? What did you do with this program?

LUDDEN: I got involved after my aunt was diagnosed I started teaching her how to Kayak and saw what a difference it was making. Then I realized that especially for young adults, there are very few resources available. I decided to start my own program. And the programs are a week long they're free, 15 young adults from around the U.S. and Canada are flown out.. And we use kayaking and other outdoor adventures as a form of therapy to recover from a lot of the psychosocial impacts from a diagnosis of cancer at that age.

VELSHI: Amir talk to me about the psychosocial impacts. It seems obvious but what kinds of things do you go through as a young person diagnosed with cancer?

AMIRA DUCK, DIAGNOSED WITH CANCER: Well I was in college what I was diagnosed. It's just hard when nobody else is going through what you're going through and you want to talk about it with someone. No one can really relate. Maybe their grandparents or parents have been affected by cancer but they haven't been personally. So they kind of shy away and isolate you and don't really want to talk to you or are uncomfortable talking about it with you.

VELSHI: And what's the camp experience done for you?

DUCK: It was a great experience. As soon as you get there, you have this warm feeling because you know everybody at camp has been through what you've been through. There's understood love between each other that you're kind of curious as to what kind of cancer each person's had and -- what were your side effects and how did the radiation affect you?

VELSHI: Ryan, you are -- you're a friend of Brad's and you are showing him support in the tenth year of this thing. This started with one camp in Vail, Colorado. Nine programs in six different states now. And it's the tenth year. and you've got the 10-10-10 challenge you've put out. Tell us about it.

RYAN SUTTER, PROGRAM ASSISTANT: 10, 10 ,10 challenge is just ten big races. We're trying to raise awareness and fund some-and do some fund-raising for First Descent. I was inspired by people like Amira.

I saw sort of what they went through as young adults with cancer. The depth of strength they had to summon to get through the disease and get through their lives. And that really impacted me in a profound way.

I sort of decided that I needed to do more with my life, both as a person and also try and give back to this organization that I had gained so much inspiration for.

So Brad and I got together and we talked about it and decided to come up with this list of pretty challenging events over the course of the summer so that I would be personally challenged and then we'd also be able to spread the word of First Descent.

VELSHI Well I wish you all continued success. You all have different goals. You're working together. Really proud to have you on the show. Thanks to each of you. Brad, Amira and Ryan, thanks for being with us.

LUDDEN: Thanks for having us.

VELSHI: For more information and to get involved, go to firstdescents.org.

It's that time again. Is he there? I have missed him so. Ed Henry, our Senior White House correspondent, there he is. I see him.

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Are you at work today?

VELSHI: What's that? I'm at work. I'm back.

HENRY: Ali's working today? Ali, you're in? Wow.

VELSHI: Ed Henry is at his stakeout position as he always is. At some point, we'll cut his mic and come back to him after this break. We'll be right back with that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Running a little late for this segment. Because, we should have been there a few minutes ago. But as my producer says I'm a bit of a blow hard, who talks too much. But it is time for "The Stakeout" with Ed Henry.

Great to see you because I've been away for a few weeks. And you were away before that. So I haven't seen you for like a month.

HENRY: It's been forever. I was on my honeymoon. And I think you were on yours maybe right after that?

VELSHI: Totally separate honeymoons in different places.

HENRY: Here's the is the deal this is how crazy it is.. We go to St. Thomas right, get to the hotel, got this long trip. We get there. And this gentleman welcomes me to the hotel his name was Hadley (ph). I think he watches the segment every day because after welcoming me and my wife, he says, next time, you must bring Ali.

And I thought, here I am on my honeymoon and I've got somebody who watches "The Stakeout" asking about Ali Velshi. So you do have a fan in St. Thomas I found that one fan.

VELSHI: Very nice. Let's get a little business out of the way. Tomorrow, first of all, this morning, the president came out and talked about unemployment insurance, the extension of those benefits. He had some unemployed Americans near him. And he was really sort of scathing about people who were not wanting to extend these benefits. That vote is going to go to the Senate tomorrow and it's probably going to pass.

HENRY: And Robert Gibbs was just getting pushed on this because of the fact that reporters are skeptical about the fact the president game out and was beating on the Republicans saying, we have to end the politics, let's pass the unemployment insurance. Reporters are skeptical right now. Because it looks like the Democrats have the 60 votes in the Senate to get this passed tomorrow.

So was the president as he was saying, let's stop playing politics, playing a little politics himself by beating up on the Republicans. Robert Gibbs' answer to that is basically that look, this is the fourth time the Democrats have had to have a vote on extending unemployment insurance.

This used to be a no-brainer, just get it passed. But now that we're in the election season there's been some back and forth. The Republicans' point is that they think, the unemployment benefits should be extended but it should be paid for as Robert Gibbs was just pointing out.

Republicans though, back in the Bush days, earlier here as well, have passed unemployment benefits extensions without paying for it. There's also been some wars that have been waged without it being paid for. There have been prescription drug benefits passed by Republican Congress that were not paid for.

So there's a of talk right now here in Washington about balancing the budget and cutting the deficit. But there also a lot of people in Washington in both parties who have been spent an awful lot of money before and that's how we got --

VELSHI: Yes it's an important debate it's going to occur every month because they've got to revote on this every month. It's going to be an election issue and I'm going to have more on it on "XYZ". So you were telling me about St. Thomas. I was in South Africa. I sort of got a little World Cup in on my honeymoon. HENRY:: How did that go?. I was watching (INAUDBILE) and I saw Wolf was sitting next to former president Clinton, I think maybe even Mick Jagger at some point. Were you rubbing elbows --

VELSHI: No, I was in the cheap seats. But I did get out in long enough time to get you a little something Ed.. I got you first of all I this tie. It's in a box. I'll send it to you.

HENRY: Oh, man.

VELSHI: If you look at this, it's hard to tell, looks like just a stylish tie but it's got little soccer balls all over it and it's got the little World Cup emblem in the corner.

HENRY: That's really nice of you.

VELSHI: That's not all. I got more.

HENRY: There's more?

VELSHI: With the tie, I got you these little World Cup cuff links that have the little World Cup emblem on them. So there you go. You've got the tie and the cuff links. I hope you're okay for socks and underwear.

HENRY: I am, thank you. I bought you about five or six gifts over the last year or so it's nice to see you catching up. I don't want people to think the scoreboard has dramatically changed. You're catching up. Number one.

Number two. Here's how I knew I really missed you. Last year, Warren Buffett, billionaire is here meeting with the president in the Oval Office it turns out he had this frayed necktie.

The president started razzing him about it and brought out an official White House necktie to give to Warren Buffett. And It was pointed out to me, I think by T.J. that it's too bad Ali wasn't here because it would have been a great sort of little necktie segment for you and I to beat around.

But I also wanted to just kind of refresh your memory a little bit about me. I told you I was in St. Thomas. My name's Ed henry, as you know. I work at the White House. Located in Washington. Just elected the president of the White House Correspondents' Association while you were away.

I want to catch you up on that.

VELSHI: I tweeted a congratulations to you on that

HENRY: You tweeted about it. And you live in Atlanta. I'm told by sources that your team sits on the fifth floor. They want everyone to know the diner is on the fourth floor just to remind you. You've been away for a while, Ali. And that Chick-Fil-a is located in the atrium. VELSHI: Ed, I have sworn to eat healthy but I hit it this morning. I walked past that Chick-Fil-a and there it was. It was the new spicy chicken sandwich. I couldn't resist.

HENRY: You probably missed it because you've been in South Africa. They don't have Chick-fil-a there, I'm assuming, and you missed it, and I understand. I don't blame you.

VELSHI: Chick Fila-we like the Chick-Fil-a. Ed, great to see you, my friend. Let's do this every day

HENRY: Good to see you. I'm all for the bromance. But I don't want you coming on my honeymoon, so when this guy suggested that you should have been at St. Thomas, that's where I draw the line

VELSHI: We're good with that, let's-we'll just write to each other and tweet. Ed Henry our Senior White House Correspondent, every day right here, on "The Stakeout"

Thousands of asteroids some here-- somewhere out there but also some close to Earth.. How close? Well it depends on your definition of what close is. We're going to break it down in "Wordplay".

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time for "Wordplay" now. I want to talk about our neighborhood. The term near earth is what we're talking about. Astronomers say they spotted 25,000 new asteroids out there in space. 95 of them are considered to be near Earth asteroids. Oh my God this is an Armageddon moment!

Are we in imminent danger? Don't worry, astronomers have a very different definition of what near earth means than you or I probably have. We'd probably consider the space station and the moon to be near earth. But for astronomers, near could be as far as 30 million miles, which, by the way is a third of the way to the sun.

The new asteroids were spotted with WISE, which stands for wide field infrared survey explorer. It's a $320 million space telescope. This is actually one of the pictures that it took from space. It has just finished WISE-has just finished its full survey of space.

OK. Straight ahead, short-term help for the long-term unemployed. Relief may depend on a man from West Virginia you've never heard of I'll have some thoughts and name some names when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it. Unemployment benefits, the ones we pay for through unemployment insurance premiums while we work have been extended with federal help in some cases to 99 weeks. But for 2.5 million Americans, the aid has run out and the number grows every week. Historically with jobless rates north of 9 percent, Congress would keep those benefits coming until the unemployment rate came down a lot. But recently and repeatedly, a vote has been stalled by some senators who believe rightly or wrongly that extending benefits isn't the solution or at least not one we can afford.

With the passing of Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia, the Democrats don't have the votes just yet to stop a Republican filibuster that is preventing the vote from taking place and preventing checks from going out to chose who are going to get the extensions.

That should get sorted out tomorrow when Carte Goodwin is sworn in as the temporary Senator from West Virginia. A vote is expected tomorrow in the Senate and the checks will likely go out. But there will be unanswered questions. What will the long-term unemployed do when one day an extension doesn't pass, and congress moves on? Why do some people believe that unemployment benefits which are usually a fraction of what you earn when you're working, actually cause people to stay home and not get a job?

And finally, even if it does seem like a waste of money, could it just be the right thing to do?

Think about it because it's going to come up a lot now between now and the mid term elections in November. That's my "XYZ" here's "RICK'S LIST"