Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Alaska Plane Crash Investigation; Anti-Mosque Ad to Run on NYC Buses; No New Toyota Safety Issues; Rage in the Workplace; Man Goes For Foul Ball, Allowing Girlfriend to Get Hit; Tropical Depression in Gulf Set to Become Tropical Storm; New Spinal Tap Test Can Confirm Alzheimer's
Aired August 11, 2010 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, guys. Good morning, everybody.
Surviving Alaska's dangerous skies. Four passengers alive. But it took 12 hours, broken, stranded, and waiting for help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're going to lose your job?
STEVEN SLATER, JETBLUE FLIGHT ATTENDANT: More than likely.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: The fallout from the flip-out. The flight attendant may have lost his job but to millions of people he is now an American folk hero.
Sold for sex on Craigslist. The site promised to crack down on prostitution. Now confronting Craig from Craigslist. CNN goes under cover.
It's 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 a.m. out west. I'm Kyra Phillips and you're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.
It is just before sunrise in Alaska and investigators have a long day of work ahead of them. They're combing through the wreckage of this plane that slammed into a side of a mountain killing five people. Including former Senator Ted Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the history of the U.S. Senate.
As for the survivors, the crash site was so remote and so rugged that it took 12 hours to reach them. It's that delay that makes the stories of survival just so remarkable. Pilots who discovered the wreckage say that it appeared impossible that anyone could have survived that crash. Yet nearly half of the people aboard did.
One of the four survivors is Sean O'Keefe. The former NASA administrator was serious injured and his son who is also onboard is in serious condition.
Now as we just said, because of the remote and rugged location of this crash, one of the pilots who found the wreckage and told rescuers how to get to the crash site says he didn't even think they'd find anyone alive.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC SHADE, FOUND CRASHED PLANE: It was pretty smashed. The wings were laying beside the fuselage. On each side and I couldn't see the floats. The floats were underneath it. And -- I -- there's -- I couldn't see anything in the front of the airplane, from the window forward was the kalong and everything was gone.
There's still in one -- you had the main fuselage and the tail was in one piece. But the wings were off. And the -- I couldn't see the engine. So.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you think anybody could have survived that?
SHADE: I didn't think it was survivable. It looked pretty -- from where he hit to where the airplane came to rest was probably just 100 feet, 150 feet maybe. When you're flying down low in stuff like this, you're flying in the hills. In between the hills. And you've got to -- you have to know where they are at.
He flew into the side of the mountain. And I have no idea how he got there. I mean that -- he wasn't -- if he was flying from the end of second lake to Porter Street, he would went right down that valley. And he was going in a different direction.
I don't know how he got there.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: How did he get there and how did those passengers survive? Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, is on the line with us now.
Deborah, why don't we go ahead and begin with what are your investigators doing right now at this moment.
DEBORAH HERSMAN, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN (via phone): Well, it's 5:00 a.m. here in Alaska. So everyone is getting ready to start their day. The weather has really been a challenge for us since we arrived on scene yesterday.
And so we have investigators really standing by watching the weather to see if it's going to permit them to get access to the accident site today and so we certainly don't want to be in a dangerous situation or put any other air crews in a situation where they have to go into a limited visibility area.
So we're going to have to see what the weather looks like to get in there today. But we have a lot of work ahead of us. Collecting records and conducting interviews. We just arrived on scene yesterday. And so we have a lot of work ahead of us.
PHILLIPS: So, if indeed the weather cooperates and your investigators are able to get there to the scene, what will they actually do first? Will it be straight to the wreckage, to look at that? Is it to look for a black box if indeed that exists on this type of aircraft?
HERSMAN: Well, we don't expect a black box. We don't expect a cockpit voice recorder or a flight data recorder on an aircraft of this size. But we will look to see if there's any avionics, any devices that may have some memory associated with them that we could look and see, you know, in our labs to see what the trajectory of the aircraft was.
But we're not counting on that. You know really the wreckage is going to help to tell the tale of what happened. And our investigators are very good. They investigate hundreds of aviation accidents every year. Many of them like this without a black box and we do determine the probable cause.
Our goal here is to find out what happened and if we can make recommendations to prevent something like this from happening again, that's really what our mission is.
PHILLIPS: As you know, we've reported that there are survivors. Do you have any idea what at this point could have led to the survival of some of the passengers? Do you know if all of them had seatbelts on? Were they all still in their seats?
Anything you can tell us about that. Because obviously -- Deborah, people are, you know, paying close attention to what do you do in a case like this where do you have a chance to survive.
HERSMAN: Well, I think that's a great point. I think a lot of people have the sense that airplane accidents are not survivable and that is not what we find in our investigations. In fact, we do find that many accidents are survivable and I know that you all have seen in the last year we had a big accident in Denver where everyone walked away. We had the miracle on the Hudson.
Wearing restraints is critical. Having safety devices on the aircraft and having good dispatch and flight following knowing that the airplane is overdue and looking for it to find people who might be injured. All of those things are important. And we're going to be looking at that in this accident investigation.
We've already begun talking to the emergency responders who helped at the accident site and see about restrain use. And it's really going to be important for us to talk to those survivors. They're going to give us the best account of what happened.
PHILLIPS: So, Deborah, do we know if those survivors had seatbelts on? And do we know if those who actually died in this crash had seatbelts on?
HERSMAN: We've conducted some initial interviews but I think it's important for us to be able to corroborate all of that information. We need to talk to quite a few people before we make determinations about that. And critically it's important for us to talk to the survivors and we have not yet done that. Our first priority is really their medical attention and to make sure that they are -- they're healthy. We'll talk to them when they're ready to speak with us.
PHILLIPS: And we look forward to hearing from them as well. Deborah Hersman, NTSB chair. Deborah, thanks.
Four U.S. senators want to put their hands on the Lockerbie bomber's medical records. So they're now demanding that Scotland hand them over nearly one year after Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was set free.
He returned to Libya where he was expected to die of prostate cancer within three months. But he's still alive. And the senators from New York and New Jersey want to know why he was even let go from the hospital.
Al-Megrahi was convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet that killed 270 people, most of them American.
Is a takeover under way? And has voter rebellion taken a foothold? Listen to these primary election results and decide for yourself. First, Colorado. Senator Michael Bennett beat Andrew Romanoff, capturing the Democratic nomination for Senate.
And the endorsements were definitely high profile. President Obama had Bennett's back. Former President Clinton pushed for Romanoff.
Connecticut, winning the Republican Senate primary, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive Linda McMahon. She now battles state Attorney General Dick Blumenthal for the seat.
Minnesota, former Senator Mark Dayton barely snagged the Democratic nomination for governor. He'll now take on GOP nominee Tom Emmer and independent party candidate Tom Horner.
And in Georgia, Sarah Palin may have backed Karen Handel and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee may have stumped for Nathan Deal. But the runoff for governor is too close to call.
Stowe your luggage properly and locate the emergency exits. Lessons learned on board a JetBlue plane after a flight attendant decided he just wasn't going to take it anymore. Allegedly unleashed a slew of profanities, grabbed a couple of cold ones, and slid down the emergency chute right into jail.
But now this working class hero is bailed out and talking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Tell me about what you think about all the support you've gotten. You know --
(CROSSTALK) SLATER: Wow. It's been very, very appreciated and it seems like it's something here has resonated with a few people and that's kind of neat.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You're going to lose your job?
SLATER: More than likely.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Do you care about that anymore?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Tell me about --
SLATER: No comment at this time.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, how about this? Tell me about rude passengers. Talk about that for a second.
SLATER: There's a lot of wonderful people out there.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Steven Slater is now on forced leave from JetBlue facing felony charges, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief. But he's become the watercooler talk of offices worldwide where frustrated workers are actually cheering Slater's "mad as hell" moment.
And coming up on our "AM Extra," we're taking a closer look at stressful work environments and why people snap. That's coming up in about 15 minutes right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.
Outrage over the so-called Ground Zero mosque. The project is now approved but the opponents are not giving up. You'll be surprised where this campaign is headed.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I'm Rob Marciano in the CNN Severe Weather Center. We're looking at the potential of this tropical depression, trying to make it into a tropical storm. That is the forecast and already rain bands are rolling in to New Orleans.
The forecast is coming up after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, the heated debate over the so-called Ground Zero mosque is far from over. You may remember the outrage that seemed to culminate last week. The city cleared the final hurdle for a giant mosque to be built near the site of the 9/11 terror attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARION DRYFUS, MOSQUE OPPONENT: I think the goal is very much to manifest control and insert and infiltrate into our culture. Yet more evidence of Islam and Sharia law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To build without hurting people. This hurts everybody.
ZAED RAMADAN, PRESIDENT, CARE NY: This is a victory for freedom of religion in our Constitution. People are trying to attack it through the rhetoric of fear and hate. And they did not win.
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, just as Muslim leaders invoked freedom of religion, opponents are trumpeting what they call freedom of speech. They are actually slapping anti-mosque ads on the side of city buses.
CNN's Mary Snow is in New York to give us more. Mary?
MARY SNOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kyra. Well, as you said, the plans to build the mosque have cleared all its hurdles but now an opponent of the mosque is hoping that an ad campaign on city buses will convince people to fight against the plan.
Pamela Gellar runs the group American Freedom Defense Initiative. She's also with the group Stop Islamization of America. She's a right-wing blogger and filed a lawsuit with the MTA. That's the agency overseeing New York city busses and trains. She cites freedom of speech to run these ads.
Now I think we have an ad and we'll put it up. And it shows a plane about to hit the World Trade Center with smoke in the background. On the other side, what she calls the World Trade Center mega-mosque. Questioning why there.
Now among other things, her lawsuit is claiming the MTA asked that the image of the World Trade Center be removed. Gellar sued, the MTA cleared away for the ads to be shown as is.
And I asked Pamela Gellar if she thought New Yorkers would object or be upset about seeing these images.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAMELA GELLER, STOP ISLAMIZATION OF AMERICA: I think that that's a piece of American history. Do they get upset with Pearl Harbor? Or Iwo Jima? I mean if this is offensive, if just showing an image of 9/11 is offensive, then what's a 15-story mega-mosque looking down on the cemetery where they're still finding human remains?
(END OF VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: That hits another part of the controversy. To be clear, the planned mosque is close to Ground Zero, but it's two blocks away, and it's part of a larger community center. One Muslim group questioning the motives of these ads is the Islamic Circle of North America
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AZEEM KHAN, ISLAMIC CIRCLE OF NORTH AMERICA: This is being orchestrated on a national level through campaigns such as this. The type of campaigns that we run are to promote tolerance and dialogue. These are the complete opposite. They promote fear and hatred.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SNOW: Azeem Khan says what's concerning him and others is seeing protests in other parts of the country, one at a planned mosque site in California, another recently in Connecticut. His group in recent years has been running ads here in New York City and other cities about -- really answering questions about the religion of Islam itself. Kyra?
PHILLIPS: Mary, thanks. And later today, Mary Snow will have more on this story in "The Situation Room." That's 5:00 PM Eastern right here on CNN.
All right, guys. I hate to break it to you. Ladies especially. But chivalry is dead. We're seeing this video from a Houston Astros game. You're going to see exactly what I'm talking about. Watch the foul ball, if you can keep your eye it. OK? Mr. Boyfriend there says to his girlfriend, "Don't worry, I'll protect you, cupcake."
So why did you jump back there, big boy? You can finally -- well, probably figure out the rest of the story. Girlfriend, right there, gets plunked by the ball. Gives the boyfriend, "Dude, what the bleep?" He tries to kiss up. Laughing, being all nice. She's in shock. She's not buying it. As for the ball, yeah, he got it. And she got a big fat goose egg right there on her arm. Nice job, Romeo. Now, Rob, what would you do? Come on.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: First of all, I wouldn't take a Yankee hat, turn it that way, nor would it be camouflaged. I mean, that gives you an idea of the character of this guy.
PHILLIPS: That's the first issue.
MARCIANO: First, number one flaw there.
PHILLIPS: OK. Number two?
MARCIANO: I don't know, maybe he wasn't wearing a cup. That thing could've been coming at him hard.
PHILLIPS: I want to know if you'd protect your sweetheart?
MARCIANO: Oh, of course! Come on!
PHILLIPS: You'd let the ball go and you would protect your woman.
MARCIANO: I would jump out there like Secret Service protecting the president. Take one in the chest.
PHILLIPS: Wait a minute. One more time. Did you see he completely ran from her and went for the ball. And she got nailed.
MARCIANO: Did he go for the ball or was he protecting himself -- Oh, that. He went for the ball, yes. That much -- that's just instinct. You can't fault him for that. Loose ball, you go after it. But the other part was probably his cowardly instinct, too.
PHILLIPS: Yes, thank you.
MARCIANO: Sorry, buddy. I'm sorry -- Nice way of describing that, by the way.
Listen, you may want to get out of the way of this if it becomes any stronger. It's Tropical Depression Number Five, and it's forecast to become a tropical storm and go towards the New Orleans area and through the Mississippi area as well.
It's pretty unorganized right now. The reason you see this circulation, it's kind of -- the way it started, broad circulation, kind of an upper-level low. And now it's made its way down to the surface. So it's trying to get its act together, but it's having a hard time doing that.
Nonetheless, here are the latest numbers from the National Hurricane Center, 30-mile-an-hour winds right now. So that has actually weakened. And it's moving northwesterly at 12, about 250 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi. Now, you're starting to see more of a flare-up of convection there, and thunderstorms around the -- at least the eastern side of the center. It may start to get its act together just a little bit here.
Here's the forecast track from the National Hurricane Center, brings it to tropical storm status later on tonight, and then maybe winds as high as 50 miles an hour. We'll see what the next advisory says.
Thursday afternoon, making maybe -- actually a very similar track. I wouldn't want -- very similar track, if this verifies, to Andrew five years ago. Almost exact. Obviously, not the same strength. But similar track.
Tropical storm warnings are up from the Chapolia (ph) Basin back through parts of Destin, Florida. The other big story we're working on is a couple of thunderstorms now moving across Wisconsin and some heat there. Whistling Straits, Kyra. PGA championship happening there.
PHILLIPS: There we go.
MARCIANO: They just had rough thunderstorms roll across Lake Michigan now. Softening up the greens for the last championship of the year.
PHILLIPS: Beautiful place to play, too.
MARCIANO: I've never been.
PHILLIPS: Rain or shine. Head out that way and you can hit the other part. You can go to Door County in Wisconsin. That's always nice, too.
MARCIANO: All right.
PHILLIPS: There you go. I'll plan your vacation. MARCIANO: You are the tour guide. I like it.
PHILLIPS: There you go. Thank you, Rob.
MARCIANO: See you, Kyra.
We've got a medical breakthrough to tell you about. We actually mentioned it yesterday, and we got so much response that we're bringing our Dr. Sanjay Gupta back. What a spinal tap can reveal, this morning, about Alzheimer's.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Checking top stories. Investigators looking into the cause of that Alaska plane crash that killed former senator Ted Stevens and four others. Remarkably, there are four survivors. They had to way 12 hours for rescuers to get to them because of the remote and rugged area.
A Jet Blue flight attendant is out of jail, but still facing charges for his meltdown. Steven Slater cussed out passengers before leaving the plane on the emergency slide. Slater says he's grateful for all the online support that he's getting.
And a tropical depression has pushed back the work on a permanent seal for the ruptured oil well in the Gulf. Drilling on a relief well has been suspended. The relief well was scheduled to be finished this weekend. Now they're looking at next week.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: This story got so much response yesterday, we have brought our Dr. Sanjay Gupta back. We're actually talking about the fight against Alzheimer's and this breakthrough that you were talking about yesterday. We got so many questions on the blog, tweets, you name it, that we wanted to go more in depth and actually answer some of the viewers' questions, if that's all right. Do you want to start by what exactly has been discovered and then we will --
SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. F
PHILLIPS: OK.
GUPTA: It's sort of this age-old question. Someone is having some memory problems. Is this going to turn into Alzheimer's? That's sort of the genesis of the whole thing. It's a question a lot of people ask at some point in their lives. That's what this research is all about.
What they found is that by doing a spinal tap, they get really important clues. This is a model of the spine.
PHILLIPS: OK.
GUPTA: This is the back of the spine here. A spinal tap involves -- just want to show you is -- somebody usually hunches over, they bend their back out. They put a needle right through a couple of the bones over here and right through the spinal sack and take a little bit of fluid out from that area.
PHILLIPS: Have you actually done that before?
GUPTA: Yes.
PHILLIPS: Or did somebody else do that before you take a look at the --
GUPTA: No. I've done this procedure.
PHILLIPS: OK.
GUPTA: I think a lot of people in the world of neurology and neurosurgery do this procedure quite often.
PHILLIPS: Got it.
GUPTA: But to your point, a lot of primary care doctors don't do this regularly.
PHILLIPS: OK.
GUPTA: So this is --
PHILLIPS: We'd have to see somebody like you, who's a a neurosurgeon in order --
GUPTA: Or if this became a more widely screening test, then this would have to be -- people would have to be trained, certainly, to do this.
PHILLIPS: OK.
GUPTA: What they found was when they took that fluid and they examined it for a couple of proteins. It was a very good predictor of the likelihood of someone developing Alzheimer's. In fact, people who just had mild memory problems, if they got that test done, they found those proteins in that fluid, every single one of them in this particular study went on to develop Alzheimer's within five years. That's a screening test that has a very good accuracy.
PHILLLIPS: And I had asked you about, is there any way -- First of all, I know the proteins, I will never remember the names because I can never remember the technical medical terms. But the two proteins are?
GUPTA: Amyloid and tau proteins.
PHILLIPS: OK, Amyloid and tau proteins. So, if the doctor discovers these proteins, no matter what your age or what condition you are in, is there anything at this point that can be done? Or is this just one of these, "OK, we've got a breakthrough, we discovered these proteins. Now we've got to figure out what we do when we discover these proteins." GUPTA: That's right. And that -- probably out of all the responses on the blogs yesterday, that was the biggest question.
PHILLIPS: OK.
GUPTA: People are really divided on this. Some people say, "I'd want to know despite the fact that there isn't a lot that can be done medically." We're not very good at preventing it from getting worse. We're not very good at treating it if it's all right pretty bad. There aren't a lot of options.
So it's more about people saying, "Look. I saw my parent go through this. I want to make sure I get my own affairs in order. I want to make sure I can prepare my family for what is about to happen to me." Which is a frightening, frightening thing. No question. There are a lot of people who said, "I simply don't want to know if there is nothing that can be done."
PHILLIPS: Let's get to some of these viewer questions. This one comes from Nate. This was on our CNN blog. He said, "This is all well and good. But are you going to conduct a spinal tap object every middle-aged bloke that walks into your office complaining of mild memory loss?"
GUPTA: Where's Nate from?
PHILLIPS: Yes, he must be from England.
GUPTA: That's right.
PHILLIPS: OK, bloke, here we go.
GUPTA: It's important to point out that this is -- in the news business, we report things as they are happening. This is literally unfolding over the last couple of days. So this isn't ready for widespread screening right now. It's the test -- the study's going to have to be done again, duplicated. But it was really good study, and I think a lot of people are excited about the fact this might happen, be available.
Right now, I think that for the average person, if they really got curious about this, went to their doctor and asked asked for the test, they could probably have it done. You can do the procedure, you can test for these proteins. There are also research trials that are going on if you have a family history, for example.
PHILLIPS: OK. Well, then, the test, this brings up the insurance question. There were a lot of questions about insurance. This blogger, VCM, writes -- "Is your insurance going to pay for this? Now they get to know and you are the owner of the pre-existing condition." Right?
GUPTA: Yes. This comes -- we talk about this all the time. Especially with regard to health care reform. Right now, we dug into this a bit. Insurance is probably not going to cover it. This is brand-new. You can get a spinal tap for meningitis, for example. Kids who we're worried about that sort of thing, or adults.
But as far as the -- it costs about $300 to $500, which you pay out of your pocket. As far as pre-existing condition goes, it's a fascinating thing. If health care reform plays out the way it's been passed, there should be no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions. Your premiums shouldn't go up, you shouldn't have more out of pocket costs. And for adults, that should take place by 2014.
So you should be able to safely get this test no matter the result and not be discriminated against. B that's going to be a question I think that comes up a lot of times. Will your employer treat you differently? Might your health care provider find some way to treat you differently despite the laws? Who knows? I think that's something that's going to have to be settled.
PHILLIPS: And how about this? I thought about this, too. BTBSinger actually tweeted, "By the way, would anyone want to know if it's incurable?" That's a great point.
GUPTA: Yes, it really is. And, I don't know, Kyra --
PHILLIPS: That could lead to depression.
GUPTA: Would you -- I mean, I --
PHILLIPS: I don't know if I would want to know. Not if there isn't a cure, I wouldn't want to know.
GUPTA: I think it goes back to that same point. Would you conduct your life differently? For the average person, would they live their life differently if they knew? Would they get their affairs in order? Would they spend more time with their families? Who knows?
But from a medical perspective, is this an opportunity to build on the science that we just learned? Will we build on this and hopefully find better preventative strategies and better treatments at some point as well? We're not there yet, frankly. Everybody wishes we were.
PHILLIPS: Let's keep talking about it. Because it is, it's a great breakthrough. We just want some more answers. Thanks, Sanjay.
GUPTA: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: For anybody who's ever wanted to say, "Take this job and shove it," America's most famous flight attendant may be your new hero. But workplace flip-outs are nothing new. We're taking a closer look at why people snap.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: And the opening bell, stock markets around the world selling off today, and in the first few minutes of trading, it's happening here, too. Investors have not one, not two, but three signs of the global economy is slowing down. The Bank of England says that Britain faces a choppy recovery, and we got similar comments in the U.S. Federal Reserve yesterday.
It said that the recovery here is slowing and that came after report showed growth in China is slowing, too. Rolled that together and it's trouble for your investments. We're going to be following the markets all day.
And remember those acceleration problems that put the brakes on the sales of millions of Toyota and Lexus models? Today, the Japanese auto giant gets a green light from the feds. Government tests reveal that no evidence of faulty electronics in 58 vehicles involved in crashes blamed on acceleration. The U.S. Department of Transportation examined the vehicles' data recorders. In most cases, it revealed that brakes were not applied before impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The guy has become a folk hero now. And he really went crazy. He went so crazy, the good news, terrorists are now afraid to fly JetBlue. So, that's good news tonight. Anyway, he -- he got arrested, the flight attendant. And how is this for karma, you know? He asked a jail guard for blanket and he said that will be eight bucks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Steven Slater may be the subject of a lot of punch lines these days, but American workers do have a new folk hero. And he just got bailed out of jail. He was nearly 100,000 Facebook fans. A number that's growing by the minute, by the way. And he's not feeling disgruntled worker to quit in a rage. Listen to this radio deejay who decided, enough was enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't take it. I'm not going to take it. I don't have to take it. I'm not a dummy. I know how to find another job. For the last six years, I made $6 an hour. That ain't nothing. I just got a raise after six years. I know I'm qualified, and after saying this, I don't care if I ever get another job in radio, period. So, if you're confused about what I'm saying, listen very carefully. I quit this (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Or how about a co-worker who flies into a rage when a co- worker bumps his desk? Papers fly, computer screens tumble, and curious co-workers pop their heads above the cubicles. The question is -- why are people so on edge? How about money woes, unemployment, job security?
That's exactly what brings us to our "A.M. Extra." John Roberts is joining us live from New York. You know, a lot of people are praising Steven Slater for lashing out, John, and grabbing out a couple of cold ones, sliding down the chute, but you actually got a different take this morning from a psychologist and also an anger management counselor. JOHN ROBERTS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The things just went a little bit too far. I mean, this guy acted out what Peter Finch did as Howard Beal, a network, (ph) on the big screen, and he has, as you said, become a folk hero for it. So, we examine today on "American Morning," what is it that makes people snap. And Jeff Gardere, our noted (ph) psychologist who's joined us many times, very familiar with people who watch CNN, this fellow had been having some problems.
We know that his father died. His mother is battling cancer. He might have been some problems with alcohol, somewhere in there. And Jeff figures that this guy is sort of playing this over and over in his head and then push came to shove and it was this incident probably combined with a bad day. It's never just one thing that causes people to snap. But there's no question that a lot of us had thought about doing the same thing.
How many of you out there have sat back and said, you know, as David Allan Coe wrote, take this job and shove it, but you just haven't gone over the edge. This guy did. Jeff Gardere talked to us about that, and then Janet Pfeiffer who is an anger management specialist talked to us about what she is concerned could be the potential consequences of this. Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF GARDERE, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: A lot of people have this fantasy in their head, John, that they just love to say to an employer someone who's been rude to them, take this and shove it. And we play it out all the time, but we don't say it. We don't do it because there are consequences. I'm not surprised what kind of anti- government these days, you know, kind of anti-corporation. And we know the abuse that flight attendants get each and every day.
It's a tough job, but it was totally inappropriate. And as you said, he flipped out. And I don't trust someone on an airline that I'd be riding with who could flip out in that way.
JANET PFEIFFER, ANGER MANAGEMENT COUNSELOR: There is a part of me that feels like he had this planned because he wanted that 15 minutes of fame and that really distresses me. Oh, yes. That distresses me a lot because in this country, we do tend to glorify bad behavior and we reward it. And so, I'm concerned about the consequences that this is going to have on the rest of society as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: This is definitely a totally different take on -- with regard to where we were yesterday. And it seems like people are starting to look at this in more of a serious manner, especially like you pointed out, John, we're learning more about his background. Life may not be so good for him right now. So, do they say anything -- any kind of advice that's not cliche that if you get into a position where you feel like it's building up, where you want to snap, what do you do?
ROBERTS: So many of us have felt that sort of volcano building inside. Janet Pfeiffer uses a technique that she calls SWAT. It's stop, walk and talk. Basically, it's -- if you start to feel that volcano building, the magma flowing up from within and about to blow out the top of your head, stop, and realize, OK, I'm in a situation here where things could potentially get out of hand because she says you never make a good decision when you're emotional.
The next is walk away, walk way from the situation. So, what Steven Slater could have done is instead of taking on that person just sort of walk away and say OK, I'm going to get myself away from the situation, and then some self-talk to take a moment and say, what are the potential consequences of my actions here? And what is the most appropriate way to handle the situation? You know, in terms too of the glorification of what happens to Steven Slater, Jeff Gardere is worried that copycats will be out there.
We had one person who wrote us this morning saying, oh my God, he set such a high bar for an epic withdrawal from work. What do we do to try to top that? Jeff's worried that some people may try to do that because bad behavior, to some degree, is rewarded in this country, and you know, while it's very interesting what Steven Slater did, there's no question that by popping open that door, activating that emergency chute, with all the ground crew around the aircraft, he could have hurt someone very severely.
PHILLIPS: Wow. I think number of people are saying now is, oh, boy. Is the reality show just around the corner? You know, it's interesting you're saying that your anger management counselor said SWAT, stop, what was it?
ROBERTS: Stop, walk, and talk.
PHILLIPS: Stop, walk, and talk.
ROBERTS: Not my anger management counselor. The one we had on the program this morning.
PHILLIPS: Yes, really. SWAT, if you think of a SWAT team, it's all about, you know, the escalating, the threat of violence or anything drastic, so I wonder she event thought about that and it works. All right. So, we just got to remember SWAT. And that doesn't mean hitting somebody over the head.
ROBERTS: Acronyms stand for completely different things, though. One is stop, walk, and talk, the other special weapons and tactics. I don't know that they go together.
PHILLIPS: OK. Just look at the -- they're not supposed to get violent. Not supposed to use the weapons, OK? Just the tactic, so --
ROBERTS: All right.
PHILLIPS: You remember that SWAT. I guess, you and I both can practice that next time.
ROBERTS: I'll introduce you to the anger management counselor.
PHILLIPS: Yes. You can meet with the psychologist. You need a lot of clinical psychology. All right. Love you. Bye.
Sex for sale on craigslist. Police say that they found posts for under aged girls. Is the website doing enough to police itself? For the answer, we went to the man behind Craigslist. Craig.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are you, guys, doing to protect these girls?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: That was an awkward moment. The search for answers and the view from within. We're going to talk to the women who say they're virtual slaves in the online sex trade.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: It's a takeover under way and has voter rebellion taken a foothold. Listen to these primary election results and you can decide for yourself. First, Colorado. Senator Michael Bennett beat Andrew Romanoff, capturing the Democratic nomination for Senate, and the endorsements were definitely high profile. President Barack Obama had Bennett's back while former president, Bill Clinton, pushed for Romanoff.
Connecticut, winning the Republican Senate primary, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive, Linda McMahon. She'll now battle State Attorney General, Dick Blumenthal for the seat.
Minnesota: former Senator Mark Dayton barely snagged the Democratic nomination for governor. He'll now take on GOP nominee Tom Emmer and independent party Tom Horner.
And in Georgia, Sarah Palin may have backed Karen Handel and Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee may have stumped for Nathan Deal but the runoff for governor is too close to call.
Back to Connecticut and that senate race. Perhaps money can buy you love.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, that's Linda McMahon way back when she first announced this September of last year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: That's former wrestling executive Linda McMahon who spent $22 million of her own fortune in the Republican primary campaign. And she secured her party's nomination in a three-way race. She says voters are sending a message.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDA MCMAHON (R), CONNECTICUT SENATE CANDIDATE: What I am finding all across Connecticut as I've traveled across the state and talked to the people of Connecticut, is that they really want a change. They don't want to send the same politicians to Washington and get the same politics out of Washington. They want someone that's an outsider who's had real-life business experience.
They really hope that someone who built the business and created jobs and understands the impact of taxes and regulations on small businesses can have more of an impact on the economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: McMahon has fended off charges from her opponent that she tried to buy the election. She's also defended herself from steroid scandals that have rocked professional wrestling.
A fallout from the flip out, the flight attendant may have lost his job but to millions of people -- he's an American folk hero.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, the JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater is, without a doubt, America's most famous flight attendant right now. He's an instant rock star to frustrated workers worldwide after unleashing a string of profanities and making a grand exit down the emergency chute.
106,000 Facebook fans and counting right now, a string of t-shirts praising him; you can go online and order them right now, and these words of wisdom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me about what you think about all the support you've gotten? You know what --
STEVEN SLATER, JETBLUE FLIGHT ATTENDANT: It's been very, very appreciated, and it seems like that something here has resonated with a few people and that's -- that's kind of neat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to lose your job?
SLATER: More than likely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Tell me about rude passengers? Talk about that --
SLATER: There's a lot of wonderful people out there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: He says what he did is resonating with people. Well, that's putting it lightly. His story has become so popular around the globe that this company in Taiwan has even animated Steven Slater from the confrontation to the PA cuss out, to grabbing the brews and sliding down the chute.
But who exactly is this guy? We have been checking out his MySpace page, too. He posted this picture with the caption, "My other home" and he says that his friends have quote, "Given me new wings to fly, see above the clouds".
Maybe that's why several JetBlue employees have reportedly told TMZ he was sipping the blue juice days before the meltdown. What's blue juice you ask? Well, apparently it's the company's equivalent to school spirit. Who knew that Stevens now infamous rant and run was lurking right around the corner?
So what really gets you at work? Tell us. Go to my blog at CNN.com/kyra. We'll share your thoughts in the next hour.
Let's get a look at what's ahead the next hour. Let's go and start with you Josh.
JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi Kyra, what happens when workplace rage is caught on tape or how about when it takes place on live, national television? Don't get the wrong idea. It's not going to happen here but it did happen on live national television and I will have a report for you about that Kyra, in the next hour.
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: If your job has you contemplating your own rage and run, well, take heart. There are jobs out there and in about ten minutes, the Labor Department will tell us just how many. I'll have that at the top of the next hour.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And I'm Rob Marciano in the CNN Severe Weather Center, tropical storm warnings are up for the northern Gulf Coast but the tropical depression has yet to strengthen. I'll talk about its track in the next hour.
PHILLIPS: Thanks guys.
And a disabled firefighter awarded millions of dollars for his injuries but now he's caught on camera, dancing, playing sports, chopping wood. Should the city of Seattle still have to pay him millions of dollars?
That's coming up in the next hour of CNN NEWSROOM.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: So if you want to sell an old couch or a new cell phone, there may be no better place than Craigslist, but the Web site is now tied to a more seedy commerce, the selling of sex, even sometimes underage sex.
So, why is the illegal trade still posted for all to see when the company vowed to be more diligent.
CNN's Amber Lyon investigates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. Men just disgust me, everything about them. They just disgust me. You know, doing the things that I do with them is not what I pictured myself doing when I was a kid. I wanted to work with animals or be a meteorologist or a doctor or something, not a whore.
AMBER LYON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Why Craigslist?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because this is just the quickest, fastest easiest way to get money.
LYON: We found 20-year-old Jessica after spotting her ad on the Virginia adult services section of Craigslist.
You spend most of your life in a hotel room like this?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For the past two to three years, yes.
LYON: How many guys do you sleep with on an average day?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three to five on an average day.
LYON: How much money is that?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I get 150 for half an hour and 250 for the hour. That's what I charge.
LYON: Jessica says she and most of the girls she knows who sell sex on Craigslist are being trafficked by pimps who take their money and their freedom.
What would happen if you said, I'm sick of this? I'm done selling myself on Craigslist. I want to leave?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't leave. I cannot leave. I'm his. I'm his property. He owns me. I cannot leave him. That's how it is with most girls, I would think. They can't.
LYON: Since our investigation aired last week, anti-sex trafficking organizations took out an ad in the "Washington Post" and in it two girls who claim they were sold for sex on Craigslist plea with Craig to shut down the adult services section. They even addressed the letter to Craig.
One of the girl says, "I was sold for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels. Ten hours with 10 different men every night. This became my life. Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me."
Another one of these girls was underage when she was being sold on Craigslist. She writes, "Dear Craig, I'm MC. I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28-year-old man. I'm not an exception."
So Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster wrote al response to the "Washington Post" ad. He wrote this blog.
Buckmaster says Craigslist is anxious to know that the perpetrators in these girl's cases are behind bars. He asks the advocates to e-mail him the police reports so Craigslist can improve preventative measures.
CNN has seen the police report for the so-called AK. MC is still a minor, so her records could not be released but two sources tell us they have seen her arrest records for prostitution.
This is Malika with the Rebecca Project, and her organization posted the ad in the "Washington Post".
MALIKA SAADA SAAR, REBECCA PROJECT: I think that it's also important for him to acknowledge that the stories of these girls are true. It's thoughtful that he wants to catch the perpetrators. I think if he wants to catch the perpetrators then he ought to create better screening processes so that children aren't raped and sold online.
LYON: Sex for hire ads are against Craigslist's stated policy. The company says it, quote, manually screens all adult services ad and will reject any that look or sound like they're selling sex.
We caught up with the Craig in Craigslist, Craig Newmark, at a speech he was giving in Washington, D.C. on trust. He agreed to this interview on trust on the Internet.
What are you guys doing to protect these girls?
You guys say in the blog that you will remove any ad that looks like the person might be suggesting that they're offering sex. Look at this ad. It says "young, sexy, sweet and bubbly". Clearly here she writes $250 an hour. What do you think she's selling in her bra and underwear? A dinner date? And she's in her bra and underwear?
CRAIG NEWMARK, CRAIGSLIST: Have you reported this to us?
LYON: What are you guys doing? You guys say you screen all these ads manually in your blogs.
NEWMARK: Have you -- I've never -- I don't know what this is.
LYON: But in Jim Buckmaster's blog, he says they're being screened.
NEWMARK: Have you reported this to us?
LYON: Why do I have the responsibility to report this to you when it's your Web site? You're the one posting this online.
Under the Communications Decency Act, Craigslist is not liable for what users publish on its site but if Craigslist knows it's happening and vows to stop it, why do they allow it to continue? Victims' advocates say it's about one thing, money.
The Internet research firm Aim Group projects the site will make $36.5 million, a third of its total revenue from the adult services ad this year.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LYON (on camera): After our story aired, we were contacted by Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and he sent CNN this response. He said "Craigslist is vigilant in barring child sex ads and prominently features anti-trafficking and exploitation sites." He also says "We will continue to work tirelessly in tandem with law enforcement and key nonprofits to ensure that any of these victims receive the assistance they desperately need and deserve.
Amber Lyon, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
