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Clergy Speak out Against Intolerance; Students Need More Sleep; Discussing Immigration with Richard Florida; Buckeye Bullet Electric Car Goes 307 MPH; Rick Sanchez Looks Back on Own Family's Immigration From Cuba

Aired September 07, 2010 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And with that, at the top of the hour, CNN NEWSROOM continues with my colleague Ali Velshi.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Brooke, it was great speaking to you a little while ago. You have a fantastic rest of your day.

BALDWIN: Thank you.

VELSHI: And I'm Ali Velshi. As Brooke said, consider me your guide through the next two hours. We're mapping out important information today and tomorrow, breaking down ideas and seeking out innovation. We're about to -- giving you access and understanding what's going on.

So let's get started right now. Here's what I've got on the rundown.

The battle between -- well, the battle about immigration reform continues to play out every day in this country. But today we are going to take a fresh angle, one that translates into dollars and cents. We're going to look at whether this battle is costing the U.S. economy tons of money.

Plus, you know Rick Sanchez as the outspoken host of CNN's "RICK'S LIST," but did you know he was once an impoverished refugee? It's a side of Rick you haven't seen. I've seen it, because I've read his new book. We're going to talk about it live with Rick.

And an electric car that goes 307 miles an hour. I know you're not interested in going that fast on the highway any time soon. But the technology behind the buckeye bullet could help build our future cars. I'll talk about that, as well.

But first, defending religious freedom in this country continues to be a hot issue. There is an emergency meeting under way right now in D.C., an interfaith meeting. It is a meeting to talk about this growing Islamophobia in this country.

Now, we're going to be bringing you to that in just a moment. But I want to just obviously bring you back to why this is an issue. And it all goes back to the proposed construction of a mosque and Islamic center near Ground Zero. This is the -- the property that's being looked at. It's called Park 51. That's the project. It was an old Burlington Coat Factory. We talk about it as being -- or some people talk about it as being at Ground Zero or near Ground Zero. It's -- it's about two blocks away from the World Trade Center site, if you can see it. You can't see the World Trade Center site from it, nor can you see it from the World Trade Center site.

But the concept of building this Islamic center that has a mosque in it so close to Ground Zero has got emotions inflamed across this country. You will -- let's check in on this news conference that this group is having right now.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are using that lack of knowledge and that anxiety for ideological purposes, either because politically or religiously they simply do not like Muslims. And they are fomenting dislike and hatred against Muslims in this country in a way that's very alarming.

Having spoken to many families across the country over the last few weeks, I have heard many Muslim Americans say that they have never felt this anxious or this insecure in America since directly after September 11.

They're nervous about their children as they head back to school this week, that when they go to school, that they're going to face people who are looking at them as aliens, when, in fact, they're citizens who are born in this country.

They're afraid about going out in public. There have been a number of incidents of harassment, of just ordinary people going out about doing their daily business. And that's not something that we want to see grow and continue.

Freedom of religion is, as I say, a hallmark of this country. The Muslims who immigrated to the United States, many of them came here for religious freedom, because even if they were in the minority -- majority in their country, perhaps they were of the wrong sect or the wrong expression of Islam.

And so we know what it means to live in an environment where -- where that freedom is taken away. And that is why, as American Muslims, we also have been very assiduous in the last number of years, working with our colleagues to make sure that we use the freedom that we have in this country to also promote religious freedom and liberty as a principle of Islam.

It is why we have signed the common word document and engaged in that as a principle of religious freedom, respect and reciprocity between Christians and Muslims.

It's why we have engaged with our Jewish colleagues in education of our congregations, about each other's faiths, so that there is not distortion of what Jews are, and what they believe, and what Judaism is on the part of Muslims.

So this is something we're committed to, and we want to make sure that we're able to continue to fulfill this role, which is unique in the world. American Muslims have a unique ability to be this bridge and to show the Muslims who do not live in this kind of freedom that an open, pluralistic atmosphere, where there are diverse religions living together can really be good for everyone.

With that introduction, I would like to introduce my colleague, Rabbi David Saperstein, who's the executive director of the Religion Action Network of the Unit for Reformed Judaism to say a few words.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN, RELIGIOUS ACTION CENTER OF REFORM JUDAISM: I know like Dr. Michael Kinnerman, who is the general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ, we're really honored to have co-sponsored, to have co-hosted this with the Islamic Society of North America, and we commend both Ingrid Matson (ph) and Dr. Saeed Saeed (ph) for the extraordinary work that they did in putting this together on such short notice. We are all in their debt.

For those of us who are Jews who are part of this undertaking, both the ones who are here, Jewish leaders who are here, and some who couldn't be, because of proximity of the holiday, but were part of the preparation for this, we could be nowhere else.

We've been the quintessential victims of religious persecution and discrimination throughout history. We know what it is like when people have attacked us verbally, have attacked us physically, and others have remained silent. It cannot happen here in America in 2010 without the response of the religious community.

And we speak out, because we know that hate crimes and hate speech are not mere acts of disreputable talk, of murder, or assaults or arsons, or derisive conversation, r desecrations. They're attacks on the pillars of our republic and the guarantors of our freedom. Such actions, such speech are a betrayal of the promise of America. They erode our national well-being. And those who commit those crimes do so fully intending to pull apart the too-frayed, often-frayed -- to pull apart the too-often frayed threads that bind us together, and that makes us strong. These people seek to divide and conquer. They do package damage to America across the globe. They do damage to us internally. They seek to tear us apart from within, pitting American against American, fermenting violence, civil discord.

And we stand here to say that is not who we are as Americans, and as religious leaders. That is not what we are about. It is not what our religions are about, and it is not what this nation is about.

We are -- have released now a statement on behalf of all of us who are gathered here. We know it represents the sentiments and commitments of religious leaders throughout America. I believe you have copies or if you don't yet, they are available on the way out.

It was a powerful experience shaping this statement. We came in focused on core issues of religious liberty, and realized as we talked about this moment that Dr. Matson has so poignantly and urgently described that we ought to speak more directly to the anti-Muslim bigotry that is going on across America today. And in reshaping the statement, it was focused on that.

And I'm going to call on two of our distinguished members of our group, Dr. Gerald Durley, who is the pastor of Provident Missionary -- Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, and a well-known figure going back to the early days of the civil rights movement here in the United States. And Dr. Nancy Kramer (ph), Rabbi Kramer (ph), is a professor who specializes in intergroup relations at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

Now it is my pleasure to call on them now to read three brief excerpts from the statement that has been issued.

REV. GERALD DURLEY, PASTOR, PROVIDENCE MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH: Thank you, very much, Rabbi Saperstein. What an honor and a privilege it is for me, having stood on the Mall 47 years ago under similar circumstances, where we were talking about liberty and justice for all.

The statement that we've worked together collectively reads thusly: "Religious leaders denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and call for respect for America's tradition of religious liberty. As religious leaders in this great country, we have come together in our nation's capital to denounce, categorically, the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America's Muslim community.

"We bear a sacred responsibility to honor America's very faith- rich (ph) traditions and to promote a culture of mutual respect and the assurance of religious freedom for all. In advance of the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September the 11th, 2001, we announce a new era of interfaith cooperation."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

"We are profoundly distressed and deeply saddened by the incidents of violence committed against Muslims in our communities and by the desecration of Islamic houses of worship. We stand by the principle that to attack any religion in the United States is to do violence to the religious freedom of all Americans.

"The threatened burning of copies of the holy Koran this Saturday is a particularly egregious offense that demands the strongest possible condemnation of all who value civility in public life and seek to honor the memory of those who lost their lives on September 11.

"As religious leaders, we appalled by such disrespect for a sacred text that for centuries has shaped many of the great cultures of our world, and that continues to give spiritual comfort to more than 1 billion Muslims today."

DURLEY: "We are convinced that spiritual leaders representing the various faiths in the United States have a moral obligation to stand together and to denounce categorically derision, misinformation or outright bigotry directed against any religious group in this country. Silence. Silence. Silence is not an option. Only by taking this stand can we spiritual -- can spiritual leaders fulfill the highest calling of our respective faiths and thereby help to create a safer and stronger America for all of our people."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, so much. Now I would like to call up the Reverend Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who's the archbishop emeritus of Washington. We were together last in Rome, where we were -- we both signed a document, a statement after meeting to discuss the common word document in which we supported international religious freedom, freedom for religious minorities everywhere in the world. I was very honored to be with him there for that week in Rome, and also to join him today.

CARDINAL THEODORE MCCARRICK, ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS OF WASHINGTON: Doctor, thank you.

I'm honored to be here. I'm really representing Archbishop Gregory, who's the archbishop of Atlanta, who's the chairman of our -- the Catholic Bishops' Conference on Interfaith Relations. So I'm delighted that I have a chance to be with you.

I say to my brother, I was there 47 years ago, too. And when Dr. Martin Luther King spoke so beautifully, that's one of the memories that you never forget, because that was such a powerful moment in the history of our country. This is another powerful moment. Or it's the moment that calls for a powerful response. I think that's what my brothers and sisters here have been doing, to give a prayerful and yet a firm and yet a constant response. And that's what we need. This is where we are.

Want to say just two things. First of all, why are we doing this? Well, I think for two reasons. First of all, we're doing it because we have to do it. I don't think we have a choice. I think that document that was just read talking about the responsibility of religious leaders is a document that really tells the story. Religious leaders cannot stand by in silence, when things like this are happening, when things like this are affecting the -- so many good, wonderful people around our country, who -- who have brought Islam to these shores, and who are playing a role in our society, which is constructive and which is excellent.

I think we have to reach out to them and say, "Look, we're happy you're here. We love you. And we understand that -- that bearing false witness against your neighbor is against the Koran, is against the Bible, is against the Gospels. And this is why we are here." So we have to be here.

I think there's another reason. The other reason is that I have the great fear that the story of bigotry, the story of hatred, the story of animosity to others is going to be taken by some to be the story of the real America, and it's not. This is not America. This is not our country. And we have to make sure that our country is known around the world as a place where liberty of religion, where respect for your neighbor, where love for your neighbor, where these things are, are most prominent in our society. America was not built on hatred. America was built on love. And if we get away from that, and if we try to give that message out to the world, it's the wrong message. Our message is a message of working together, working for each other, taking care of the person who needs help, and making sure that we try to live, everybody together, in a good and holy life. That's what America is. And that's the message that I pray that we will get out to all of the people of the world, so that they will know who we are, and who we're trying to be.

So it's a great joy for me and a great privilege to be here. Thank you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Cardinal McCarrick.

Next we'll hear from reverend Richard Cizik, who is the president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, a truly visionary leader.

REV. RICHARD CIZIK, NEW EVANGELICAL PARTNERSHIP FOR THE COMMON GOOD: Thank you for inviting me, Ingrid. Cardinal McCarrick, my distinguished colleagues.

We represent one of the largest constituencies that America has. That is the religious constituency, with all of its breadth that you see here from Roman Catholic to mainline Protestant to evangelical, Muslim, orthodox, we are all here. And we're here together to say what has already been said, namely that we are governed in this country by a Constitution whose First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion.

And governments at every level have understood that they have to respect that right, from the largest cities of our nation, such as New York, to the smallest, such as Murphysborough, Tennessee.

Protection of religious liberty is what evangelical Christians most of all have come to appreciate. It is the one practice, I think, that I think is most exceptional about America. And by the way, millions have come here through the centuries, because of it, including millions of evangelical Christians.

Now, we know that the controversy that began at Park 51, you see, has become Exhibit A in this contest between popular passion and constitutional principle. But that contest has moved into the smallest of communities around America.

And I'm here to say, on behalf of my community, the evangelical constituency of America, that those mainly conservative Christians who were responding to their Muslim brothers and sisters, their fellow Americans, with anti Muslim bigotry or hatred, they are openly rejecting, you see, the First Amendment principles of religious liberty, which we, as evangelical Christians, benefit daily.

And those -- to those who would exercise derision, you see, bigotry, open rejection of our fellow Americans for their religious faith, I say shame on you. As an evangelical, I say to those who do this, I say, you bring dishonor to the name of Jesus Christ. You directly disobey his commandment to love our neighbor. You violate the command, you see, not to bear false witness. And not least of all, you drive the watching world further away from any interest in our gospel message.

Lastly, let me say one more thing. Watch out for so casually trampling on the religious liberty of others. You may be able to do that when you are the majority. But if you undermine liberty for other people's children today, your own children may one day see their religious liberties deprived from them. And the principles that protect Muslims today here in this country will protect Christians, Jews and others tomorrow. And that's what makes this a great, great country.

I thank you for being here.

VELSHI: All right. We've been listening into leaders of various faiths in D.C., discussing not only this growing Islamophobia, but very specifically bigotry, an increasing wave of bigotry, against Muslims. Some of which, by the way, have manifested in -- in violent attacks. We saw one against a cab driver in New York last week. We've seen the arson at a mosque under construction, in Murphysborough, Tennessee. There have been other examples about this.

I want to speak to Mark Potok. He's with the Southern Poverty Law Center. He's been following this fairly closely.

Mark, I don't know if you had a chance to listen to this press conference, but it was -- it was Jewish leaders. It was Christian leaders. It was the cardinal of Washington, all speaking to why this is so dangerous, beyond the fact that it's bigotry against a particular religious group. Why this is an attack on religious freedom itself and religious liberty in America.

And the last speaker just said, if you so casually trample on the religious liberty of others, it may end up being your children whose liberties are trampled on. Your thoughts on this, Mark?

MARK POTOK, SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER (via phone): Well, I think that's absolutely correct. I couldn't agree more. I did hear much of the news conference, and virtually everything I heard seemed to be right on. This really is a question of constitutional freedoms. And arguably, the most precious freedom of all, freedom of religion.

You know, another piece of my reaction is, while I am delighted to hear this interfaith group of people really taking on a problem that has grown to quite massive proportions, what we haven't heard so much of is political leaders coming out and responding to this, especially on one particular side of the aisle.

You know, I think it is worth remembering that, immediately after 9/11, we saw anti-Muslim hate crimes in this country go up 1700 percent.

VELSHI: Right. POTOK: After that, though, President Bush came out and gave some very good speeches, which sounded rather similar to what we've been listening to at the news conference.

VELSHI: Right.

POTOK: And then the following year, those numbers dropped by over 66 percent, by over two-thirds.

VELSHI: Mark...

POTOK: So the point is that the political leaders can do something.

VELSHI: We did have President Obama come out with a fairly strong statement at the beginning of Ramadan, and he was roundly criticized by Republicans and many of his own Democrats.

Senator Harry Reid, a surprise to some, came out quite strongly opposed to where -- you know, the nucleus of this thing, which is the Islamic center in New York. It does have -- it does not appear that politicians, as you mentioned, have been -- have come down on this strongly for fear of backlash, possibly with two months to go before a midterm election.

POTOK: I think it's all about the midterm elections. I don't think there's much doubt about it at all. Because, you know, the worst players in this have been leading politicians. You know, Newt Gingrich making the comparison of Muslims and Nazis. Or the National Republican Trust Political Action Committee describing the Park 51 project as a celebration of the murders of 3,000 Americans.

I mean, these are just falsehoods, as opposed to -- you know, showing any kind of real leadership. And as I tried to suggest earlier, I think it really makes a difference.

VELSHI: Mark, I want to ask you a question. And as a journalist, I ask you this, because we have been discussing endlessly, I'm sure, in our news rooms, and I'm sure this is going on in news rooms across the country, as these incidents of hate against Muslims -- the arson of the mosque in Murphysborough, a fire burning of a mosque in Florida, the attack on the cabby in New York, hate signs and vandalism at a mosque in California, and now this issue of a pastor in Florida who has called upon people to burn Korans on September 11 -- at what point, as media and society, do we say, "This isn't just about a bunch of assorted quacks and bigots. They are tapping into some sort of a national sensibility that needs a counter attack"?

POTOK: Well, I think that moment is upon us. I do think that, you know, the most important thing, and the best role in the sense that the media can play is to call out the real liars, the people who are saying things that are really false about Muslims in general and Islam in particular. I think that that's a really salutary role that can be played.

I also think it's worth throwing light on some of the more fringe characters who are throwing in on this and trying to get their day in the kind of media sunshine.

In particular, the Dove World Outreach Center down in Florida, which is planning this Burn a Koran Day. Most of our listeners -- viewers probably don't know this, but the church, prior to attacking Muslims and the Koran in this way, went after, as they charmingly called it, the local homo mayor.

VELSHI: Wow.

POTOK: So some of the people involved in this are really on the fringe and have managed to get attention just by doing the most outrageous thing they can imagine, of course, burning the Koran. And we all remember how that turned out when there was a false report of the Koran being flushed down a toilet and what resulted in terms of fury around the globe.

VELSHI: Mark, for what it's worth, this is a very holy week for -- for a few religious, Islam and Judaism, and it's bringing people of those faiths together, if for no other reason than to denounce the attacks on religious freedom. So maybe some good comes of it.

Mark, thank you for a great conversation.

POTOK: Thanks for having me.

VELSHI: All right. Mark Potok with the Southern Poverty Law Center.

We will be bringing you a lot more about this in the next hour, by the way. I'll be breaking down some of the uglier episodes in American history when it comes to religious freedom.

I also want to talk about the debate over immigration, which gets ugly from time to time. And it comes down to dollars and cents. How is this battle hurting our economy, hurting you? You don't to miss this discussion, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Teens and sleep. Does getting more of it actually improve their performance at school? CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's 5:22 in the morning, and 16-year-old Rene Carrasquilla is already getting up for school. A junior at Park View High School in Lilburn, Georgia, his bus comes at 6:20. The first bell rings at 7:25.

RENE CARRASQUILLA, STUDENT: Yes, 6:15.

COHEN: Rene's parents say he's not getting enough sleep.

CHRISTAL CARRASQUILLA, PARENT: His normal bedtime is around 11, and he wakes up around 5, so he gets about six hours.

COHEN: Doctors say teens need nine hours of sleep. Rene says that's never going to happen.

R. CARRASQUILLA: Nine hours of sleep? I don't think that's possible for high school, if you have to get up at 5 or 6. It means you're going to be in bed by 8 or 9. And I'm not trying to be in bed by 8 or 9.

COHEN: Experts say about 80 percent of high-school students are sleep deprived. So why don't they just stop playing video games and go to bed earlier?

Teen sleep expert Judith Owen says don't blame the teens. She says they're biologically programmed to stay up later.

JUDITH OWEN, SLEEP EXPERT: There clearly is a shift in adolescence to a natural bedtime and wake time being two or even three hours later than it was when they were, say, in elementary school.

COHEN: She wants high schools to consider starting later. She did a study at St. George's school in Rhode Island where they delayed start time by 30 minutes and the results were stunning. Kids were much more alert.

ERIC PETERSON, DEAN, ST. GEORGE'S SCHOOL: What we learned and what we saw was so overwhelmingly positive that I think all of us were probably taken a little bit aback by that. Starting school later actually got kids to bed earlier. And we think that was in large part because by virtue of them being better rested, they were able to be more efficient and get their work done.

COHEN: Emory University sleep expert Dr. David Schulman says starting high school before 8:30 a.m. is short-changing students and endangering their overall health.

DR. DAVID SCHULMAN, EMORY UNIVERSITY: It's asking for trouble. They're going to be sleep deprived and they're going to have poor academic and interpersonal performance.

COHEN: Rene's parents would love it if school started later and their son could get even just a few more precious minutes of sleep.

C. CARRASQUILLA: If you have more sleep, then you can be a better athlete, you can be a better student, you can do everything more productive because you're functioning better on better sleep.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VELSHI: Time now for your money. Could the battle over immigration and so-called Islamaphobia in this country actually be hurting our economy?

Let's talk about immigration. You hear it being debated all the time. Immigrants are taking American jobs. We have too many immigrants, illegal immigrants. Let's dissect this for a second.

Joining me is the author of the book "The Great Reset," Richard Florida. If you want to know about stuff in this economy read Richard Florida's books.

Richard, always a pleasure to see you. Thank you for being back here.

I want to tap into a conversation that you've been having lately. It's in your book. But this idea that our fear of immigration, this growing phobia of immigrants and what appears to be a negative impact on our economy, is actually going to make America less competitive in the years ahead. A controversial thesis.

Tell me about it.

RICHARD FLORIDA, AUTHOR/PROFESSOR: Well, immigrants have powered our economy since its inception from the birth of the steel industry, with Andrew Carnegie, a Scottsman; to the rise of semiconductors, with a guy from Hungary named Andy Grove; to the both of those Silicon Valley companies, half of which the Googles, the Yahoos, the companies that power the U.S. economies, were founded by an immigrant to the fact that half all our science and technology PhDs come from foreign countries.

The U.S. is a high-tech country in large measure because it's been open to the best and brightest from throughout the world. And closing the door on immigration or even mounting anti-immigrant sentiment is not good for the economy because people who go with talent -- they'll stay home or they'll go elsewhere and start those companies that we need to provide to jobs for Americans.

VELSHI: One of the places you have talked about them going is where you are right now. You're in Toronto. You've talked about the fact that Canada -- and listen, let's not sugar-coat it. It's not that everybody in Canada thinks that there are no issues with immigration. But Canada has developed a different view of immigrants that you argue is more welcoming.

FLORIDA: Well, I just looked at the data. You know, people are yelling and screaming about this in Arizona. And 15 percent of the work force or the population is immigrants.

In the United States, the city with the highest percentage of immigrants is Miami. It's about 35 percent. In Toronto or Vancouver, virtually half the people are immigrants or what we call in Canada, "New Canadians. And I think, yes, there are problems here in Canada. But the problem is, should the immigrant who is driving a cab but has a degree in dentistry or law or health care, should they be able to use their skills fully and build the economy?

And I'll tell you what's really interesting, over in Vancouver, which has an equal percentage of immigrants and have been attracting immigrants from Asia over the past 20 years, when Microsoft had to build a new laboratory, it said we can't get the skilled people in the Seattle area. They put that new lab in Vancouver, not because the people they needed were in Vancouver, because they could bring people from Asia, from India, from Europe, get them the visas and the work permits they need and put them to work making that high-tech software. Jobs that should have been or could have been in Seattle, ended up in Vancouver, as a result of restrictions on immigrants in the U.S. It's not a good thing for the U.S. economy.

VELSHI: All right. I want to tap into that when we come back. What exactly is the U.S. losing out on? What can they lose out on specifically, because of what might be an anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States.

Richard, stay there. I'll be back with you.

More from Richard Florida after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: You know, I follow so much of Richard's stuff and I read so much of it that I assume people know about Richard Florida. Some may not, though.

Let me just tell you. He's a professor of business in Toronto right now at the Rotman School of Management, the University of Toronto. He's been a professor at George Mason University, Carnegie Melon; he's been a visiting professor at Harvard and MIT. He's got his PhD from Columbia University.

And your book, Richard, your latest book is sort of a way to live and work in this post-crash environment. The thing about you is you're data-driven so you tend to get caught up in emotional discussion. There is a very emotional discussion going on in America, which may or may not be tied to the type of sentiment we have about immigrants and it is the growing sentiment we have about Muslims in America.

Do you foresee in your data-driven world evidence that that hurts us in any way?

FLORIDA: I think so. I think -- what I found is, when there is prejudice or discrimination or backlash against any ethnic group or immigrant group, it chills the climate for immigrants to come to the United States. And I think that climate has been chilling now ever since 9/11.

So what I'm finding is a lot of talented people who would have come to the United States from India, from China, are deciding to stay home, or going where they're being welcome, whether that's Australia or New Zealand or they're coming up to Toronto or Vancouver, where they feel more welcome.

And also with these times of crises, what I call these great resets, these are times where the global flow of ambitious people shifts. One of the things that really benefited the United States in the last crisis, the 1930s, we attracted all of the Jewish-European, Jewish-Americans who helped build our technology industries. People like Albert Einstein or Europeans like Fritz Lang, who helped build our Hollywood industry.

So this is the worst time to have an anti0Islamic sentiment or anti-immigrant sentiment in general, because it's going to hurt the economy at the time we need job creation most. VELSHI: Richard, We could talk for hours. Hopefully you'll come back and we'll continue this conversation because it's an important one. Richard Florida, an author and professor and author of "The Great Reset," which is a great book for everybody to read.

Richard, thanks very much for being with us.

FLORIDA: Thank you, Ali. It's great being with you again.

VELSHI: All right. Talk about great ideas. How about an electric car that goes 307 miles per hour? I don't know why you need one that goes that fast but it's these developments that change our world. So what does that mean for the cars in the future? I'll tell you about it. Our "Big I" is up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: I wanted to tell you something about the Buckeye Bullet. It was developed at the Ohio State University. It is a car, an electric car, that just clocked a speed of 307 miles per hour. We're going to talk about why you need an electric car to go 307 miles per hour in a minute, but that is a land speed record.

It's this vehicle called the Buckeye Bullet. In 2007, they had it going 200 miles per hour. If I were making an electric car, I'd be quite proud of that. But they kept on going. They tweaked this little guy to get to 223 miles per hour in October of 2007. So just a couple months later. But they kept on going with this thing.

By September of 2009, a year ago, 302 miles per hour. This thing is doing crazy stuff to me. And they kept on going. And now in August of 2010, a year later, look at that, 307 miles per hour.

Why do we need this? Well, let's talk to a guy who actually knows about this. He is at the Ohio State University. His name is Georgio Rizzoni, he's the director for the Center for Automotive Research and he is going to tell us about this.

Georgio, thank you for being with us. We really appreciate this.

Tell me why it matters that we have a car, an electric car, that goes 307 miles per hour.

Well, first of all, thank you, Ali, great to be here.

PROF. GEORGIO RIZZONI, CENTER FOR AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY: Well, if you think about the history and developments in technology, the quest for reaching the ultimate limit, in whatever technology you're looking at, as always been a driver for technological improvements. And so things that today may seem a little bit crazy and at the leading edge of things, tomorrow will just be conventional technology.

So for us to look at pushing the extreme of electric vehicle propulsion systems, battery systems, is just one way of approaching the limits of technology in and discovering new things. VELSHI: So do we think about it like NASA, for instance, there are all these developments we have had, I don't really need to ever go to space, but things have been improved here on earth because of those. So I don't think we're going to be driving 307 miles per hour, electric vehicles, but somehow it's going to improve the electric vehicles we do buy?

RIZZONI: Sure. Well, first of all just to give you a couple of quick examples, we're developing new technology for the power electronics that drive the electric motors. We're looking at new materials and designs for high-efficiency electric machines. And most important, we're looking at technology for tomorrow's batteries, for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. And that is probably the subject area that needs the most work and the most study at this point. So looking at the extreme conditions.

VELSHI: Sorry, Georgio. For those of us who are neophytes at this, we know the battery issue is the big deal.

Tell me in a nutshell what the challenges are.

RIZZONI: Well, first of all, the simplest challenge with batteries today is that they're still quite expensive some. So you're looking at electric vehicles that might have a battery pack that is equal in cost to about half the price of a car. So that's subject number one, how do we bring the cost down of these batteries.

But then you have to worry about the life span of these batteries. Because batteries in an electric chemical system are much like the human body. And just like us, we start aging the day we're born, and batteries do the same thing, they age. One of the things we're trying to understand is how to prolong the life of batteries and manage them in such a way that we can extend their life such that they would be compatible with the life of a vehicle.

So aging and cost issues, which are related to the use of materials, but also the electronics that manage the batteries are very, very important topics today.

VELSHI: All right. You've got probably one of the best jobs around. You work in cars, you are building racing cars, and you're at the head of a remarkable technology. And my executive producer says something to me like if I give you a big O-H, you give me a?

RIZZONI: I-O!

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: All right.

RIZZONI: That was exactly the way it works.

VELSHI: Go, Buckeyes!

Georgio Rizzoni, thank you very much for being with us. Georgio Rizzoni is the director for the Center for Automotive Research at the Ohio University. We're going to continue this conversation another time, because it's fascinating. Thanks for being with us.

RIZZONI: Thank you very much.

VELSHI: My pleasure.

And listen, if you want to know more about that, go to CNN.com/Ali.

Listen, a long, long time before Rick Sanchez was the host of "RICK'S LIST" here on CNN, he was a young refugee from Cuba. He looks back on those days in his new book, and he's going to join me for a very personal chat about it coming up next.

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VELSHI: My buddy Rick Sanchez, you all know him, he has written a book, it's called "Conventional Idiocy: Why the New America is Sick of Old Politics." And every day this week I'm talking to him about it, partially because he put me in the book, but more importantly, because there is stuff peppered through this book, Rick. You've got great ideas about history and about America and things that you've had, you've got from your viewers by e-mail, by Twitter, on Facebook, but peppered in there are stories about your own history. And when I first read this book, that's what stood out to me. That I get Rick now, because I see things like this.

And in here, you've got a chapter about -- or you've got a part about poverty and about when you were young, and your brother didn't come with you from Cuba to Miami. Tell me that story.

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN HOST, "RICK'S LIST": Communism is a funny thing, especially when totalitarianism takes over a country as it did in Cuba. So when my mom needed to get out of Cuba, essentially what she did is she was able to get one of the last Freedom Flights out that Castro was letting people get out on if they were older, like my parents were, or very young, as I was, because I was because I was about two years old or three years old at the time.

My older brother was already about five or six, and the Castro government didn't let him get out. There's pictures of my mom and dad, as a matter of fact, back then. They didn't let young men at the age of six or seven because they would put them in indoctrination camps. They're called Young Pioneers, Los Pioneros, and it was part of the communist indoctrination.

So my mother was totally frightened by the idea that she would had to leave Cuba without my older brother. This happened to, by the way, countless people who came from Cuba. So she eventually put him on something called the Peter Pan flights orchestrated by the Catholic charities, and he was sent to some convent in Arizona where he lived by himself. We finally came to the United States, but we were without my big brother and every night my mother cried and cried and cried because she couldn't be with her oldest son.

Finally, she collected enough money, change essentially, from working to make it down to the Greyhound Bus terminal where she would get a combination of trains and buses to make her way to Tucson. But on the way there --

VELSHI: Which is where your brother was, right? Your brother was in Tucson.

SANCHEZ: Which is where -- my brother was in Tucson, she was going to go pick him up.

VELSHI: Hold on right there.

SANCHEZ: Instead, she was mugged.

VELSHI: Hold on, I want to discuss what happened to her when she did that. Let me just take a break. We're going to talk about what happened right after this. Stay with us.

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VELSHI: All right, Rick has written his new book "Conventional Idiocy," it's available now. He was just telling us his story. His mother scraped together enough money to go meet his older brother who had arrived in Tucson, Arizona. She's on the way, the first leg of her journey, to take a bus, she never makes it to the bus because she gets mugged.

SANCHEZ: That's right, she was mugged.

And what this story reflects, I think, is there's a lot in this book which is about an immigrant's perspective, what it's like to be in this country, be confused and be pained and make sacrifices because you want to make sure you live in a democracy, you want to make sure you live in the greatest country of all. And the goodness, what's good or great about America and what's bad about America came out in that story.

Yep, she was mugged. They took all of her money and she sat there on the stool at the greyhound terminal crying with her elbows on her knees. Here's what's good about America, enough people saw what had happened to her, they collected themselves, got enough funds together and what was missing, they talked the folks there at the Greyhound terminal into giving my mom a fare so she could go to Tucson, get my brother, bring him back and together we were able to be together and raised together in south Florida.

And my brother to this day runs a power plant in south Florida. And I got this job doing news that nobody would have thought that a kid who has English as a second language would have been able to get.

So these are inspirational stories because they're really about what everybody in this country can achieve, not just me.

VELSHI: And it's the stuff that makes you you, and this is what I like about this book. Somebody actually asked me -- we've been getting a lot of tweets about this, you and I, in the last couple days about this, and somebody said, why do you need to talk to Rick for five days about this? Because you talk to people every single day and this tells me about you. This informs your perspective, it tells me why you think the way you do.

SANCHEZ: I think this way because I connect now with 140,000 people on Twitter every day who also share with me their stories that also go untold, unfortunately.

You know, the reason I call this book "Conventional Idiocy" is because too often we think conventional wisdom is the only thing that's out there. Conventional wisdom is all too often what the pundits and the so-called experts say this is the way things you are and you have to accept it that way. Well, no, we don't. We don't have to accept it that way.

As a matter of fact, there's a lot of great Americans out there who talk to me and they talk to you and they say, I don't understand this. I don't understand why these politicians are locked ideologically on their ground whether they're on the left or on the right and they're not doing things that are good for me.

VELSHI: Because the rest of us have to solve problems.

SANCHEZ: That's exactly right. And I think it's time for Americans to connect with each other, talk to each other and use our institutional media along with this social media so that we can come together again as a country, and I think it's very possible.

VELSHI: It's a great read, it's goes very quickly. I appreciate you writing it and hope you're having a good time up in New York.

Rick, we'll talk again tomorrow, OK?

SANCHEZ: It's always a pleasure, Ali, thanks so much.

VELSHI: All right, buddy.

Listen, Rick and I were just talking about everything that's going on right now. So much of it is motivated by the midterm elections. Fifty-six days away, but some candidates are already thinking -- oh my, God -- about 2012. Wait till you see who is headed to Iowa. "CNN Equals Politics" update up next.

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