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Ground Zero Mosque Debate; ABC's of Cutting Costs; Building Bridges to Save Lives; Suffer the Children; 22-Mile-Long Oil Plume in Gulf; Making E-Readers Available to Kids Around the World; XYZ: A Call For Peace

Aired August 20, 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: I want to bring you the latest on a rapidly developing medical story we've been following.

Federal officials say the salmonella outbreak linked to tainted eggs will likely grow. The outbreak has already prompted an Iowa company to recall 380 million eggs -- "million" with an "M".

Federal health authorities report nearly 2,000 cases of salmonella from May to July, when it's usually around 700 cases during that same time period. But they're not yet sure how many are linked to the recalled eggs.

They've got numbers on them. That's how you know if you've got an egg. I didn't know that. I've been meaning to get an egg so that I can actually see the numbers.

All right. Here's what I've got "On the Rundown" for you.

Crowded classes, no bus service, and paying for kindergarten, just some of what kids and parents are facing across the country as the new school year starts up. So where is all the money the Obama administration is pledging for education? We'll have a close look.

Plus, a democratic fairly stable nation could be on the brink of collapse all because of a Ponzi scheme.

And you often see them in coffee shops and airplanes, but Kindles could be the key to racing illiteracy in the developing world. It's all about one child, one Kindle, and one mission. I'll tell you about that in a bit, too.

But it is an article of faith in this country that Americans can freely worship or not according to our beliefs or our lack of belief. And we can voice our opinions about religion or politics or anything else. Those are fundamental, monumental freedoms, and they come from the very same sentence in the Bill of Rights. And thus, comes the passionate and sometimes painful exercise known as the Ground Zero mosque debate.

If you haven't been keeping up, it centers on plans to build a $100 million Islamic community center with a mosque in it two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. Opponents have argued that it dishonors the memory of the 9/11 victims, and many of them take issue with Islam itself. That view is not confined to Manhattan.

Recently, in the California town of Temecula, protesters confronted Muslim worshippers over plans to build a mosque next to a church. One of the protester's signs read "Muslims danced with joy on 9/11."

But a group of California religious leaders don't want that to be the final word. Today they gathered in Los Angeles in defense of religious liberty in General and the Ground Zero mosque in particular.

I'm joined now by Rabbi Jonathan Klein from the group called Clergy and Laity United For Economic Justice, and Jihad Turk. He is the director of Religious Affairs at the Islamic Center of Southern California. I also want to bring into this discussion CNN's own senior legal analyst, Jeff Toobin.

Jeff, good to have you here. Thank you for being with us.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: Ali.

VELSHI: I want to go out to these gentlemen. We had a great, great conversation an hour ago.

Rabbi Klein and Jihad Turk, thank you for being with us.

Jihad, I want to ask you this -- I've had a number of comments on my Facebook page, and I've seen them elsewhere, where people say moderate Islam, mainstream Islam has not done enough in America to distance itself from that that has created the impression that Islam is a religion of fundamentalists or extremists or terrorists.

Do you agree or disagree with that?

JIHAD TURK, ISLAMIC CENTER OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: I would disagree with that strongly. I mean, we're kind of the new kids on the block here in the United States, and we don't have a well-oiled media machine that can represent the views of what most Muslims believe and feel here in the United States. We tried our best.

I mean, 9/11, our community new us on the day of 9/11. The Christian and Jewish community as they came here today, they came out here and said, we know you, we know what you represent, and they came to make sure that there was no backlash against our community. And we've been receiving what I think is the great American spirit of generosity and hospitality and inclusion ever since.

But with regards to trying to shape public perspective about Islam and Muslims, that's been our biggest challenge. We tried, for example, issuing a fatwah, and we called all the major news, local and national news agencies, and we issued a fatwah.

Now, fatwah in common perception is a death threat. So we knew that the media would come.

And we got tons of media here. And we issued the fatwah in concert with every major Islamic organization in the United States and in Western Europe. And on that day we issued the fatwah stating we condemn 9/11, we condemn terrorism, and we made it mandatory in all faithful Muslims around the world and in the United States and Western Europe in particular to work with local law enforcement agencies to ensure that another attack does not happen here on U.S. soil ever again.

So, no one ever heard of that. I mean, might have gotten coverage, but when you get someone frothing at the mouth in a cave somewhere, it just makes better media than when we try and have civil conversations with our Jewish and Christian and other American neighbors.

VELSHI: Rabbi Klein, every group you can find is divided on this issue, including the Jewish community, which has often represented the best aspects of freedom of religion and defense of people's rights to do things. New York Governor David Paterson chimed in on this --

RABBI JONATHAN KLEIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CLERGY AND LAITY UNITED FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE: Thank you. We're real proud of that.

VELSHI: Yes. Well, you should be.

David Paterson, on "LARRY KING LIVE" on Wednesday, had this to say about a potential compromise. I want to get your response to this.

First, let's listen to what Governor Paterson said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. DAVID PATERSON (D), NEW YORK: People put their heads together, maybe we could find a site that's away from the site now but still serves the area that will be a noble gesture to those who live in the area who suffered after the attack on this country, and at the same time would probably, in many ways, change a lot of people's minds about Islam, which is really a peaceful religion practiced by peace- loving people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Those are not inflammatory words, Rabbi Klein. In fact, those are sentiments that have been issued by a number of people.

What do you think of that idea, those who say you've got a right to be there but it's not so good that you're going to be there?

KLEIN: Right. I think that it's a tough position for the Muslim community today.

They're in a very tough position, because they really do want to work with the larger American society to feel safe and comfortable. And so now they're being asked to shift gears a little bit here.

I understand the sentiment of Governor Paterson, but I also understand the value of the community itself deciding, because it really does have freedom of religion, and it does have the freedoms that we all cherish in our American society. We have such a wonderful Constitution and Bill of Right that is preserves the rights of minority communities to flourish in this society.

I think the governor's sentiments are understood, and I appreciate the tone of trying to build community here. But ultimately, I think the Muslim community should come to the conclusion itself as to how they want to move forward.

TURK: And if I could say here, Ali, I think -- I was going to say, I think it's really important to consider this community in particular and what they're trying to accomplish. Calling itself the Cordoba House was an attempt to be P-savvy and try to really get the message out there to separate the mainstream Muslim community from those who would want to do harm to this country.

Cordoba is reminiscent of a time --

KLEIN: A golden era.

TURK: -- in which Muslims, Jews and Christians -- yes, a golden era according to Rabbi Moses Maimonides, who was a Jewish reformer and thinker and philosopher. He called it the golden age of Judaism, living in harmony with Muslims and Christians at that time.

VELSHI: Yes.

TURK: And I think the individuals, despite their vilification on certain unnamed news outlets, are actually very progressive and civic- minded individuals. And although Imam Rauf, who I know, might have said some critical comments about our foreign policy, I think you're going to find critical comments about our foreign policy by high- ranking government officials and policymakers.

VELSHI: Let me bring in --

TURK: So, this part of what it means to be American, is to be critical of government.

VELSHI: Let me bring Jeff Toobin into this for a second, my good friend and our senior legal analyst.

The good part about this whole discussion, in my opinion, is that we quickly establish the legality around the situation, that there is a right to set this mosque up. And it's not a legal debate, but it has -- it's got all the trappings of every legal debate you've ever been involved in, whether it's abortion or it's civil rights or anything like that. It feels like a legal debate.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: It feels like a legal debate, but in fact there is no legal controversy at the moment. In fact, the government of New York City is enthusiastically backing the Islamic center.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave an uncharacteristically emotional speech in front of the Statue of Liberty talking about how the Muslims had a right to build a cultural center wherever they wanted. But the idea that a religious group can be forced, compelled, even if it's not by law, out of something they have a right to do certainly has a legal piece to it.

VELSHI: And as somebody who follows the law, is that threat of coercion, is that dangerous to the law? In other words, we have protections, but we can coerce people into do something that the protections would otherwise protect their right to do?

TOOBIN: Well, the law can't change people's hearts. The law can only decide what the government does and what the courts do. And if people want to protest, if people want to express their feelings against Islam, for Islam, the law protects their right to do that.

But the law also says that if you want to allow religious institutions to build, you have to allow all religious institutions to build. You can't say it's OK to have a Catholic church there, it's OK to have a synagogue there, but it's not OK to have a mosque there. And that's why I think the Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan is on such strong grounds legally, because you can't draw distinctions between religions, and Mayor Bloomberg has said we're not going to do that.

VELSHI: Well, all of you, we could go on for hours on this, and perhaps we will actually at some point. But I want to thank you all for being here, and for such an enlightened conversation from all of you on this one.

Jeff, always great to see you.

Rabbi Jonathan Klein, the Clergy for Laity United for Economic Justice in Los Angeles --

KLEIN: Thank you.

VELSHI: -- and Jihad Turk, the religious director of the Islamic Center of Southern California.

Thanks very much to all of you. I suspect we will have another chance to talk.

All right. It is back to school time. But a word of warning. Many school districts are changing the way they're doing business because of tight budgets. What does this mean for you, your students, and what you need to stock up with before you start school?

Up net in "Chalk Talk."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. Time now for "Chalk Talk," where we look at ways to improve the public education system.

Today's topic though, some unwelcome changes ahead as students head back to school. Tight school budgets are forcing districts to lay off teachers, increase class sizes, cut programs and services.

Here are a few examples.

In one St. Louis area school district, buses have stopped running completely. In the Modesto City school district in California, the average class size in kindergarten through third grade, up from 20 to 25 kids. In Queen Creek, Arizona -- that's near Phoenix -- parents now have to pay $200 a month to enroll their kids into full-time kindergarten classes in the public school system.

Josh Levs joins me now with more on this.

Josh, we've sort of been talking about the -- what the government is doing about this, the federal government. President Obama just signed an emergency bill that was designed to stop teacher layoffs, but it still hasn't solved some of the problems you're about to tell us about.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Designed to stop some, but, yes, they can't do everything about everything.

In fact, what we saw -- and you and I have talked more about the stimulus, which was similarly designed to try to help schools avoid layoffs, but, in fact, schools are having a lot of layoffs anyway. And indeed, what President Obama just signed the other day might ultimately save 140,000 jobs in the education sector, but it's not enough to save all of them.

And our folks at CNN Money have done a really good job focusing in on the experts, what they're saying.

Schools in this country this year, public schools, might have 135,000 fewer education professionals as a result of some of the cutbacks that are going on right now. So, in terms of what's happening in our schools right there, as you just said, you have got a lot more cutbacks like that.

You've got all these places where they're having larger classrooms, they're cutting back on field trips. And what I have for you here, Ali, some things that they're asking students to bring in now. You might be amazed at what's on some of these lists.

Take a look at what the new school supplies are. "The New York Times" did a great job tacking down what different schools around the country are asking for.

Check this out here. That's a school in Moody, Alabama, asking students to provide paper towels, garbage bags and tissues.

One in this town of Nevada, Texas, asking students to provide construction paper.

Let's get to another one here -- paper plates in Joshua, Texas. The students are expected to provide paper plates and paper cups.

Printer paper -- the students need to bring their own paper in a Castle Rock, Colorado, school. And couple more here. Bringing their own plastic cutlery for meals in Seattle, Washington. They're sending out these notes to parents saying, "Please provide this."

And the one that's going to get the most people talking, Ali, right here in Honolulu, Hawaii.

VELSHI: Yes, that's definitely the one that got my attention, too.

LEVS: Look at that. I mean, they're asking students to bring a four-pack of toilet paper.

And obviously what we're seeing here is that schools are trying to cut back in every way they possibly can even to the point that they're asking kids to bring in the things that we just always took for granted would of course be at a school -- Ali.

VELSHI: So what do parents do to help their kids succeed in a tight budget environment at school?

LEVS: Yes. Well, there are a few things that you can do.

You know, we were looking online for resources that might help people find some online tutoring, or even some tutoring where you can get free tutoring help. And one thing I can show you right here, this is actually really interesting.

You never know where you're going to find great resources online. The folks at "Good Housekeeping" took some time to go through all these different Web sites that offer online tutoring. They actually tested them by providing information, seeing how well they respond to quiz questions, and breaking them down in other ways.

And they give you a link to what they say are the best online tutoring sites out there that help your kid get actual information like Info Please, Spark Notes, Fact Monster -- you don't have to write this down. I'll tell you where to find it all.

They have one over there. They even say Cliffs Notes actually has online tutoring.

And one more I'll show you right here called HippoCampus, a little pun there.

I'm going to send out links to all this stuff by Twitter. So, if you're a parent out there and you want to help your kids get some free online tutoring, this one resource might help.

VELSHI: Yes. Fact Monster. You had something called Fact Monster there?

LEVS: Yes. Isn't that pretty cool?

VELSHI: I think that should be your name. You're like the fact monster. You're like CNN's fact monster. LEVS: Am I CNN's fact monster? Then, like Lady Gaga, I can call all the viewers fact monsters, too.

VELSHI: That's right. She tweets the monsters, right?

LEVS: "My monsters," yes.

VELSHI: All right. You can be my fact monster.

All right, Josh. Good to see you.

CNN fact monster Josh Levs.

All right. Saving lives by building bridges. This week's CNN Hero, you're going to want to meet him when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: More than 60,000 people drown in Africa every year. Sixty thousand people. But this week's CNN Hero is throwing a lifeline by building bridges. They help Kenyans cross treacherous rivers that are swollen with heavy rains and snapping hippos.

Every day, Harmon Parker connects thousands with life-changing resources and with one another.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HARMON PARKER, CNN HERO: What strikes me about this place is the beauty and the feeling of being insignificant. Life for people here is very difficult, very secluded. The beauty of this place also becomes dangerous because of these mountains when it rains.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): My father came to the market in the morning. He was with my mother. On the way back in the evening, they found the river was flooded. They drowned.

PARKER: I've worked all over Kenya. Every community has the same story of crocodiles and hippos, and loved ones lost.

When it floods, people really suffer not being able to get across to the clinic or to the market or to their school.

Oh, look at this. Here comes some kids helping.

The very first bridge I built, I saw how it changed lives and transformed communities, so I carried on. And I love what I do.

My name is Harmon Parker, and I build bridges to transform people's lives.

The community has to initiate the project. They have to participate and make some sort of financial contribution. I don't know how many goats I have in this region, but they always give me a goat.

I've spent half of my life in a tent. I've had malaria seven or eight times. It's hard, and it takes a lot of determination.

The bridge is a beautiful metaphor for many things. I feel I'm privileged to do what I'm doing, destined to help people, and I'm driven by that.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Harmon's work has brought 45 bridges to remote Kenya, improving the lives of tens of thousands of people. To watch the residents of one village dedicate his latest project, or to help Harmon build more bridges, go to CNNHeroes.com.

(NEWSBREAK).

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. Time for "Off the Radar," which means Chad's standing by.

NASA talking about this mosh pit way up in space. This is so off the radar, I don't even know what this is about, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, what would you consider the first mosh pit?

VELSHI: I don't know.

MYERS: Woodstock? Wouldn't you think?

VELSHI: I haven't thought about that.

MYERS: Rain, people were all kind of in there. Well, I'm pretty sure this happened and has continued to happen well before Woodstock.

A mosh pit, if you will, for those of you that are, like, my age that never really existed in one, all of these particles come piling up -- kind of like pretend that's the band and you were in the middle of the standing-room-only section out there in the front. Here's what's going on.

We have these electromagnetic particles that are coming in. Some are magnetic. Some are not. And so the ones that we're looking for are the energetic neural ones, the ones that don't have any charge, that can't get deflected by the atmosphere and the magnetosphere.

What do they do? They just keep piling up.

There's the Earth right there. And they just keep piling up in this spot 35,000 miles away from space. Then they kind of get all hot, then they get pushed around and they go away.

Now, why do we care? Well, we care only because this is happening all over the entire solar system.

This is happening in the moon. This is happening out toward Saturn. This is happening everywhere. All of these little pieces are flying around. And as they pick up these particles, they could be depositing things in the soil. Not so much our soil, but what about the soil of the moon?

What if there's stuff out there that we could use to make hydrogen or helium fuels that, once we get to the moon, we wouldn't have to take all the energy and all the gases and all the fuel to get back? We could make our own fuel when we get there.

That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

So, NASA, the IBEX satellite -- go onto NASA.gov and you can see it.

Now space weather.

Go ahead.

VELSHI: Tell me about space weather, yes.

MYERS: Space weather is becoming very important now. I wouldn't even hear about this for the pasts 10 years, because the sun has been in a very low cycle. Not very much energy, not too many of these coronal mass ejections like we had.

But now, with the sun being more active, being hotter, more sunspots, more of these energetic particles flying out, we want to know if they're going to be affecting things or not. And so there's a new space weather called AMPERE, Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamic Response Experiment.

Just go put in AMPERE and figure it out. We have real-time monitoring now to figure out what's bombarding our atmosphere from space.

VELSHI: All right. It adds to your responsibilities. You won't just be our severe weather -- we'll have to have a severe Earth weather center and a severe space weather center.

MYERS: I'm just a space cadet.

VELSHI: You're a space cadet.

Chad, good to see you, my friend.

My mosh pit expert, Chad Myers.

You'll be back with us in a couple minutes.

Hey, listen, these are Pakistan's children and its future, and they are the most at risk of deadly diseases unleashed by this flooding, the worst that country has seen in 80 years.

"Globe Trekking" up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Time now to go "Globe Trekking." Our first stop is Pakistan.

From the start of Pakistan's flooding through the whole time, our reporters and pictures we've told you about the devastation that has left a large chunk of that country looking like a wasteland.

The death toll is now almost 1,500 but more importantly, millions are homeless, suffering from deadly diseases. They're in desperate need of food, clean water and shelter and that means more people can die.

Those most at risk are very young children and babies, as is always the case when we're dealing with access to fresh water.

Our Sara Sidner travelled to one overwhelmed hospital in hard-hit Punjab Province. She joins us on the phone now from Multan -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Yes, in this area there is a children's hospital here and lucky for those who were in the flooding in and around this particular city of Multan, this hospital does exist. It's the close toast the flood zone and the only hospital for children that is in an area of a population of about 40 million people.

The problem is there are so many patients, doctors say they are just overwhelmed. They're working 18 to 20-hour days and they're seeing the patients come in with very similar problems.

And as you mentioned, so many children because of the airborne diseases are in this hospital, completely dehydrated. They need IV drips. A lot of them have gastroenteritis, which is basically stomach flu.

(AUDIO GAP)

And so, they really, really need to get medical treatment immediately because for children who are very weak, this is a dangerous thing that can turn into a deadly disease.

VELSHI: Sara, there's some sense that the flooding, certainly the causes for the flooding have subsided and the flooding may start to subside. What's -- there's already been a concern about the lack of urgency in the way the world's reacted to this. Is there some sense that there's a bigger calamity coming with the lack of fresh water and food and yet, we're not going to get more attention on this topic?

SIDNER: Well, some countries, including the United States, have decided to put in more money, to provide more aid. And we noticed in this area in particular there are lots of people from around the world here, from Australia to Japan, who have come into this particular place and are offering help.

Let me let you look and see exactly what we saw today inside that hospital. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Six-month-old Kalsun (ph) won't stop crying. His mother is beside herself after rushing her child to the hospital from the flood relief camp. "I'm like a rolling stone going here and there. My life is over. I've lost everything," she says. "And now I'm at the mercy of others and the government."

At this government hospital, nurses rush to give Kalsun an IV drip to rehydrate him, his tiny body is now wracked with diarrhea and fever. He's one of hundreds of young but sick survivors of the floods in Pakistan's Punjab Province.

(on camera): In the Punjab Province, this is the closest children's hospital to the flood zones. There are about 200 sick babies and children who come into this ward daily, but there are only 25 beds. So three or four children have to share a bed.

(voice-over): Others are outside on what looks like a long tabletop.

(on camera): It sounds like it's overwhelming with 200 patients.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is. It is. The 200-plus patients have been came in in 24 hours. It's a huge amount of patients to take.

SIDNER (voice-over): Overwhelmed is an understatement. This hospital is the only one dedicated to children for an area populated with an estimated 40 million people.

As Dr. Amara Ijaaz (ph) rushes around trying to keep up with the wave of flood victims, there's an urgent call about one of her regular patients, a newborn has stopped breathing. Her team is trying everything on the tiny 2-month-old Fayzahn (ph). They manage to keep him alive, but they don't know for how long.

There is no time to mentally process the suffering of each patient here. Instead, the medical team goes right back to the other 200 young patients crying out for help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're using our own resources to deal with the patients --

SIDNER (on camera): But you don't have enough to save them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don't enough. We don't have enough space, we don't have enough doctors, we don't have enough medicines.

SIDNER (voice-over): If doctors here have to keep up this pace, with no additional funding they say they'll completely run out of everything for these tiny little patients in about three months.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: Now, the thing that we noticed the most while walking into that ward, the cry of the babies, it was just constant. But they are the lucky ones. We have to remember, they are actually getting some kind of medical treatment through the heroism of the doctors there -- Ali.

VELSHI: Sara, thanks very much. We will continue to follow the story.

Sara Sidner in Punjab Province in Pakistan.

An oil plume in the Gulf 22 miles long more than a mile wide and 650 feet deep, is it still there? If so, what's it going to do to us? We'll tell you about it after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for a look at some of the top stories we're following here at CNN.

We're just learning that another Iowa egg producer is recalling eggs. It comes in the wake of an initial recall due to a salmonella outbreak. The eggs were distributed under the Hillendale Farms, Sunny Farms and Sunny Meadows brands. That's in addition to the 380 million eggs that have already been recalled. Officials say hundreds of Americans have become ill in recent months, many more so than in a typical year.

In California, a mandatory furlough has gone into effect for government workers. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the move in a bid to fill the state's $19 billion budget hole. He ordered workers to take three unpaid days off per month until a new budget is in place.

All right, I want to have a conversation that I had with you earlier about the oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico. We heard there was at least one. Well, a study was underway and now the results of that study are out.

It was discovered -- the oil plume was discovered in June by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. It was thought to be -- let me show you this, first of all.

That circle on the left, the gray one, the one in the middle, that's the side of the oil spill that we think -- that's what we think it is, 4.9 million.

The little hole, the little circle right at the bottom, that's the Exxon Valdez which we thought was pretty big.

Then the blue one around the hole that's bigger, that was the 1991 Persian Gulf spill, about 5.7 million barrels of oil, that's how much oil got out there.

Now some of it was collected, some of it was skimmed, some of it was burned, some of it got on to land, some of it dispersed in the water and certainly, some formed an oil plume.

In fact, when the oil plume was discovered, it was 22 miles long, 1.2 miles wide, 650 feet high and this whole operation was half a mile down from the surface of the ocean.

Is it there? Well, let's talk to the guys who found it. Rich Camilli is a chief scientist and environmental engineer with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Chris Reddy is a co-principal investigator, he's a marine chemist and an oil spill expert at Woods Hole as well.

Gents, I'm much smarter than I was the first time I talked to you about the oil plume, but let's talk about this first. Let's get right to it.

Chris, is that oil plume still there and what are the implications of it being there if it is?

CHRIS REDDY, ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER, WHOI: I'm going to have Rich answer that.

VELSHI: OK, go ahead. Rich, you start.

RICH CAMILLI, MARINE CHEMIST, WHOI: We don't know if the oil plume is still there. It's unlikely to still be in that position because it was traveling at about 6.5 kilometers per day to the southwest.

So the spill -- I'm sorry, the well has been shut in for several weeks now, so it's likely that the hydrocarbons that were in the plume have since moved elsewhere.

VELSHI: Chris, what has been the effect of weather on the oil plume? We know that it has an effect on your ability to track that oil plume, you had to pull back as a hurricane moved in.

REDDY: I don't know how much the effect of weather would be at a plume of this depth. It would -- but certainly the weather plays an important role in terms of evaporation, which is a key role in removing oil out of the Gulf.

VELSHI: Where do we think this oil is if it's not -- we don't know where it's moved to. It may exist, it may have dispersed, is that what you're thinking?

REDDY: Rich?

CAMILLI: We don't have enough data to say one way or the other. At this point, we have not been back on -- we left the site on June 28th, we haven't been back. So we'll need more information to make an informed estimate.

VELSHI: And, Chris, what are you planning on doing with further information? What's the goal once you find out -- obviously you want to find out what happened to this thing, how these plumes work and what the impact is on the environment if there's another major spill like this?

REDDY: Yes, absolutely. We all think oil should float. The idea that oil can get trapped so deep down is our burning question that we have in terms of understanding how oil behaves in the environment.

So our next goal is to figure out -- now that we found it, we tracked it, we found the shape of it, and now we want to figure out how did it form and why.

VELSHI: All right, these guys are working on this. Meanwhile, let me bring Chad in for a second.

Chad, how -- what these gentlemen have to say, how does that square with what NOAA has to say about oil plumes?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, and another thing with NOAA as well is that when they went down there and they took samples of the water and oil mixture down there, they did not find that there was no oxygen left, which means that the microbes had not been eating this as we had expected all these microbes to just bloom up and eat it and it would all go away. That does not look like it's actually happening at that depth.

So if you think this is all over and all the oil is gone, I have a bridge in Manhattan for you, Ali, that's for sale.

VELSHI: I want to ask you, Rich or Chris, I don't know whose got the better answer for this, but the fact it this was an opportunity in this area of study because you were able to deploy some experimental methods for learning about this.

Tell us a bit about that.

CAMILLI: Yes, we used some advanced robotic technologies that are experimental. This was funded by the National Science Foundation. That allowed us to bring these new technologies to bear. It greatly accelerated our ability to track the plume and thereby collect the samples more efficiently. The traditional sample collection and analysis is a laborious task and it takes some time.

So there's data that's still rolling in that will help to complete the picture, but the findings that we present in the paper in "Science" describe these initial results that were generally gathered by the reconnaissance systems and some of them through the NRDA, the Natural Resource -- NRDA?

REDDY: Damage Assessment.

CAMILLI: Damage Assessment -- I'm not one for acronyms.

So that data, as it is completed, we will use it to further refine our estimate and hopefully it will allow us to understand more about this plume in terms of the amount of oil that was contained within it. Also, its composition and that is useful for the analysis in terms of the bioactivity and toxicity and things like that that the ecologists will use to assess damages.

VELSHI: All right. Well, great talking to you guys. I'm not one for acronyms either. I never get it right. I also can't say -- I could never work for you guys because I can't say that oceanography word all that well.

MYERS: Just hang with CNN, that's the only one you need to know.

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: That's right, that's the only acronym you need to know.

Rich Camilli is the chief scientist environmental engineer at Woods Hole and Chris Reddy is the co-principal investigator on this report, he's a marine chemist and an oil spill expert; and Chad is our mosh-pit guy and weather guy.

All right, guys, thanks very much.

For more information on this oil plume, go to my blog page, CNN.com/Ali, I'll link you to everything you need to know about this. It's actually pretty interesting stuff.

Kindling, that's a love for reading, I guess. A plan to get the Kindle into hands of all children in the developing world. Kind of like one laptop per child, well how about one Kindle per child? You'll meet the man behind it. "Mission Possible" coming up next.

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VELSHI: "Mission Possible" today. Interesting story about the idea of taking digital books, Kindles, and getting them out to kids in impoverished places, kids without access to books. Sounds like a good idea. I mean, we know that getting cell phones out to people was easier than putting land lines in.

Let's talk to the guy whose idea this is. He's the president and cofounder of Worldreader.org. David Risher joins me from San Francisco.

David, you were actually with Amazon. Involved in Kindle or not?

DAVID RISHER, PRESIDENT & COFOUNDER, WORLDREADER.ORG: I was at Amazon before the Kindle really came to market. But I've been doing a lot of traveling over the last bunch of years.

VELSHI: And you use a Kindle. You like this idea of a Kindle being the main point of access for a bunch of kids under what circumstances?

RISHER: Well, in a developing world, people have access to very, very few books. You look at a country like Botswana in Africa, and there are maybe five to ten bookstores there.

So when you think of the possibility of getting a book in less than 60 seconds anywhere you are in the world, that's a pretty astonishing possibility and that's really the idea behind Worldreader.org.

VELSHI: So what does Worldreader.org do exactly? We've got -- I mean, this is a Kindle. What do you do to get these in the hands of people and make it work for them?

RISHER: Right. Well, our idea is that we want to put thousands -- hundreds of thousands ultimately of books into kids' hands all throughout the developing world using e-readers.

And you know, the idea really occurred to us when I was talking to a cofounder, our cofounder, Colin McElwee. I had been with my family at a girls' orphanage in Ecuador, and we looked at a small building and said, what's that? And the building sort of was a dusty building that you would see some books through the windows. And they said, well that used to be our library but now there's a large padlock across it. And we said, well, can we take a look and they said, we're honestly lost the key to it.

What had happened was the girls in that orphanage lost interest in reading because they didn't have access to the books they wanted. And you realize all of a sudden now we have this device, you know, an electronic reader that's portable and easy to use, easy to recharge and you can get a book in 60 seconds anywhere in the world. And that was really the origin of Worldreader.org.

VELSHI: But are kids who don't have books, can't afford books, are they going to be able to deal with the hardware, the fact that you have to have Internet access and you have to buy books to get on this reader?

Tell me how you get all around these fixed costs, cause we're still -- look, prices of these e-readers have come down so dramatically in the last couple years, but they're still out of the reach of lots of people.

RISHER: Right, it's a great point. The amazing thing is, as you say, the prices are coming down so fast, this used to be a $400 product, now it's less than $200. I think in 18 months, it will be less than $100. And so, those prices are coming down very fast.

And then when you think about things like internet connectivity, the e-readers use the cell phone network, and the cell phone network has really paved the way for all sorts of power and infrastructure that didn't exist five years ago or so.

So, so many of the costs are coming down very, very quickly, but at the same time, the social good of reading, being able to get any book you're interested in, not just maybe the five or ten on your shelf, but anything you can think of, is pretty extraordinary.

VELSHI: How do you alleviate the costs right now though?

RISHER: Right now, we're raiding money to subsidize the cost. So today, in fact this is something that we've just put up on our website over the last couple of days, the ability for people to make donations.

Of course, we're financing this privately ourselves with our own credit cards, Colin's and mine work, along with the volunteer work of a lot of people. But yes, in the short term, it's donation funded. In the long term, though, we think there's a whole economy and a whole marketplace for these as the prices keep coming down and the governments realize how valuable it is to have an educated population.

VELSHI: Great conversation. David, thanks very much and we'll follow your progress on this.

David Risher is the president and cofounder of Worldreader.org, joining me from San Francisco.

You can learn more about Worldreader and its plan for helping children learn to read in developing countries, go to my page, CNN.com/Ali, we'll link you to the information you need to see.

If you don't believe it's better to give than to receive, you'll want to keep an eye on "Wordplay" when we come back.

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VELSHI: Time now for an abbreviated edition of "Wordplay." I don't mean that it's going to be shorter, just that our word is actually three words in one -- IOU. It means what it sounds like, acknowledgment of a debt that isn't going to be paid right away. You also know it as credit.

It's in the news because a state we used to call "The Golden State," California, is once again in serious trouble. Eight weeks into the 2011 fiscal year, California still does not have a state budget. It does have a $19 billion gap between revenues and expenses.

As we've reported and for the second year in a row, the governor is ordering state workers to take days off without pay. And for the second year in a row, he expects to issue IOUs when the state can no longer pay its bill. The California state controller says more than $2 billion in bills to vendor, social services and schools will likely go unpaid this month alone.

All right, it's a plea for peace. I'm going to make one in my "XYZ" coming up.

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VELSHI: Time now for "The XYZ of It."

There used to be a time, it seems like a simpler time, when tensions in the Middle East, specifically between Palestinians and Israelis, seemed to be at the heart of global unrest. Sadly, the world is much more complex today and solving the generational disputes between Israelis and Palestinians may no longer be a potent enough solution to the global threat posed by religious extremism and fanaticism.

But the holy land remains the most potent symbol of both peace and unrest to Islam, Judaism and Christianity and the problems there need to be solved. America needs to show leadership and ongoing and active support for peace efforts between Israel and its neighbors. After a summer of simmering tensions in the region, we saw a step today. The U.S. has invited Israeli and Palestinian Authority to hold direct peace talks for the first time since 2008. So far, neither side has accepted the invitation, but as these international diplomatic efforts go, I assume both sides knew the offer would be coming so I'm going to assume the offer would be accepted under some terms.

But here we are, barely four hours have passed since the announcement was made and if you Google "Mid East peace talks," you'll be bombarded with more articles and blogs saying it won't work than those saying it will; quick reader polls with majorities voting that it will fail as opposed to it succeeding.

True, it may be another false start or it may be a turning point. I choose turning point and not because of the Israelis or the Palestinians or what is at the heart of their conflict. I choose turning point because we have to. I choose turning point for one simple thing -- peace.

In a world where building a house of worship becomes a national debate, in a world where it takes two hours to get on a plane, in a world where kids have to walk through metal detectors to go to math and English class I choose peace.

That's it for me. Time now for "RICK'S LIST" and Don Lemon.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Ali Velshi, thank you very much, appreciate it.