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Battling the Bullies; From the Classroom to the Kitchen; Producing More Energy Than You Use
Aired September 30, 2010 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: OK. It's a new "Rundown," a new hour. And he is back, my buddy/rival Richard Quest.
We've been apart for a while, but that means another exciting round of Q&A. Today we're talking airline mergers and whether they translate into lower fares or a better experience for us, the travelers.
Plus, you might be too nice to your doctor. Being a good patient might be bad for your health, and we've got some stunning stories to prove it.
Also, it's a different take on secondary education. You'll meet a woman who takes high school kids not into college, but into the kitchen. The results are extraordinary. That's in our "Chalk Talk."
But our first story, it's a sad one. Two young men, two very different outcomes from cyberbullying. One committed suicide, the other is fighting back.
Meet Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers in New Jersey. His family says he died after he jumped off the George Washington Bridge which connects New Jersey and New York over the Hudson River.
Two fellow students, Dharan Ravi and Molly Wei, are charged with invasion of privacy after allegedly playing a camera in -- or setting a camera in the 18-year-old's dorm room without his knowledge and broadcasting Clementi's sexual encounter. Ravi was Tyler's roommate.
He is believed to have sent out this tweet, reading, "Roommate asked for the room until midnight. I went into Molly's room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay."
Now meet Chris Armstrong. We've talked about him before. He's the first openly gay student body president at the University of Michigan and the target of a venomous blog by an assistant state attorney general named Andrew Shirvell.
Armstrong isn't being smeared for any suspected crime. Instead, Shirvell claims Armstrong is pushing a radical homosexual agenda. He calls the student a "racist, elitist liar," a "privileged pervert."
In a memorable appearance Tuesday night with my colleague Anderson Cooper, Shirvell didn't only not back down from those slurs, he defended them and he kept up the attack on Armstrong. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW SHIRVELL, MICHIGAN ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I am doing this as a private citizen, off work time as a University of Michigan alum. We're quibbling over tactics, we're not quibbling over substance.
The substance of the matter is, Anderson, Chris Armstrong is a radical homosexual activist who got elected partly funded by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund to promote a very deeply-radical agenda at the University of Michigan. And he wants to do that by --
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, his biggest issues were extending the hours of the cafeteria and lowering tuition, as well as some gender housing issues.
SHIRVELL: No, that's not correct. No, that's not correct, Anderson.
His biggest issue is gender-neutral housing. What we're talking about is anybody, any man or woman wanting to choose to live together. That's a radical redefinition of gender norms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Wow. Radical redefinition of gender norms, any man or woman choosing to live together.
For his part, Chris Armstrong isn't giving interviews, but he's not running scared either. The news and information site AnnArbor.com now reports that Armstrong is asking a judge for a personal protection order against Andrew Shirvell.
That's important, because last night on "AC 360," Mike Cox, the attorney general for Michigan, said there's not much he can do, but that might change if a court grants the personal protection order. So maybe Mike Cox will do the right thing and act on this.
There's a much broader discussion to be had here, and it goes far beyond dorm rooms, college campuses and the Internet. We're going to have that discussion straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Before the break we told you about Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers student who committed suicide after allegedly having a sexual encounter broadcast over the Internet. We also told you about Chris Armstrong, the young man at the University of Michigan who's being blasted online by that state's assistant attorney general.
But just as these young men were attacked using the Internet, there's a huge outpouring of support on the Internet. Tyler has several Facebook pages in his honor with tens of thousands of supporters. People are sending words of encouragement and support to his family and loved ones. Chris Armstrong also has several Facebook support pages with thousands of supporters. People all over the country and the world are encouraging him to keep his head up and stray strong. Both young men handling and facing cyberbullying in different ways.
Dr. Patricia Agatston is the author of "Cyberbullying: Bullying in the Digital Age." She joins us right now live in the studio.
Thank you for being with us.
I think the Internet is the greatest tool ever invented by humanity, and so much good comes out of it. This has got to be one of the uglier sides of it. It's not the Internet, it's how we use it.
Why is this acceptable, to be able to spread things about people that are that hurtful? And it doesn't seem like old-fashioned bullying. It doesn't seem as mean.
DR. PATRICIA AGATSTON, AUTHOR, CYBER BULLYING: BULLING INN THE DIGITAL AGE": Well, I think we just aren't having enough conversations about how we are going to use this incredibly powerful tool that is technology. I completely agree with you that technology is a wonderful thing, and the Internet is a wonderful thing, but we've got to think about how we use it and recognize that, you know, just as it can be used to destroy people, it can also be used to lift people up, as you're seeing from the support that's occurring.
VELSHI: Which is great. But in the case of the student at Rutgers -- and again, we don't know all the details about this, but his family says that he committed suicide. He jumped off the George Washington Bridge, which is a particularly horrifying way to do it.
I used to think cyberbullying was just bullying in the cyber world. What's different? What are the characteristics of cyberbullying that we need to know about and that we who are not bullies or victims can do something about?
AGATSTON: Well, there are some differences. Of course it is intentionally generated harm towards another person, and it's usually repeated in nature. But the differences are that people who might not typically engage in bullying will sometimes engage in cyberbullying because they can be anonymous. It's easier to be anonymous. And because --
VELSHI: You don't have to be the big kid. You don't have to be the popular kid.
AGATSTON: Right.
VELSHI: You don't have to be encountering whoever you're bullying on a regular basis. You can do this separately.
AGATSTON: Exactly. And you can even do the get back at revenge if you want. Where you might be afraid to face that person directly, you can do it online. VELSHI: All right. Well, what makes it acceptable and what makes it unacceptable? What can we do to make cyberbullying like drunk driving?
And by the way, I say that because in both of the cases that we're talking about right now -- in the case of Rutgers situation, these are allegations, but two people have been charged. And in the case of Michigan, we're talking about a grown man who holds office and is paid by the state of Michigan. These aren't kids in a school.
AGATSTON: No, they're not. I think we really do have to have a campaign about online civility. I think it's critical, and I think we all have to realize we all have a role to play.
VELSHI: But it seems milquetoast to talk about online civility when in fact people die from doing this.
AGATSTON: Well, sure.
VELSHI: And people's lives are shattered.
AGATSTON: Sure. And with traditional bullying, people are also at greater risk. So it's not surprising that we would see that this would occur with cyberbullying as well.
But we really need to be talking about how to be good to one another, and the bystander role. Just as we talk about it with kids or adults who witness bullying behavior, we've got to step up when we see this online, and we need to start having the conversations about --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: And what is that conversation? When you step up, when you see it online, is it to say I don't know either side if this issue but this just doesn't seem like good human behavior?
AGATSTON: Right. And that, you know, support the person who's being targeted so we can offer support, we can let the person know who's engaging in it that we don't find it acceptable.
And then we all need to, again, model civility, whether it's how we're using our own cell phones, how we're communicating with others, and just look for teachable moments. And I know these were adults, but parents have got to look at the teachable moments with their kids as well.
VELSHI: All right. Thank you for joining me. It's a very, very important issue.
Dr. Patti Agatston is the author of "Cyber Bullying: Bullying in the Digital Age."
We also want to clarify this is not just an online problem, as Dr. Agatston said. Meet Asher Brown. He was a 13-year-old boy when he shot himself last Thursday in his closet in Texas. His parents told our Anderson Cooper killed himself because he was bullied. He was allegedly picked on by four kids at school for being gay.
Bullying in our schools and now online, why do kids do it and what can be done to put an end to it? An "AC 360" special report you cannot miss, CNN, beginning Monday night at 10:00 Eastern.
Getting kids to stay in school and stay in the kitchen. Who would think that that makes sense? It's happening right now at one of the largest high schools in Pennsylvania. The results are truly amazing.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: CNN is taking a cross-country food journey all this week. We sent reporting teams to every corner of America and beyond. Actually, I'm quite certain that's an exaggeration, but our mission has been to get fresh answers about how our food is growing, how the choices we make affect our health, our state of mind, our budgets. And once in a while, I actually just want to get in some news about the pure joy of eating, or, for that matter, cooking.
So we are taking our "Chalk Talk" segment today into a culinary arts classroom. We're not talking Home Economics 101.
If you are in Mrs. Wilma Stephenson's class at Frankfort High School in Philadelphia, you will work.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILMA STEPHENSON, TEACHER: How many people heard of me? Whatever you heard, 500 times worse.
TEXT: Culinary Acts with Mrs. Stephenson.
STEPHENSON: Now, I don't care if you like it or not. Just taste it. And don't say "ooh" and all that. because that's very ghetto- minded.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Joining me now is Wilma Stephenson. She is in Philadelphia.
Wilma, thank you for being with us. You're a culinary arts teacher at Frankfort High School in Philadelphia.
Listen, do you teach cooking to kids so that it makes them better people, it makes them better cooks, or that they might have a future in cooking? What's the aim of that class?
STEPHENSON: All three. Everything that you just asked me, all three of those things, that's exactly what I do.
VELSHI: And how is that working out? How are they responding to this? You had a lot of boys in that class too.
STEPHENSON: Quite a few. Quite a few young men are in my class. I have one this year that transferred to the school just for the class.
VELSHI: What's the effect that it has on them generally?
STEPHENSON: Oh, a positive effect on them. After they get adjusted to me, which takes a while -- it does -- because it has a wonderful positive attitude because it is something that I try to offer them that they may not be getting, and they're not getting outside the home, inside the home, or in their environment. And I try to give them a type of a hope that things can be better and they can make something positive of themselves and be successful.
VELSHI: Are you teaching them sort of an advanced stage of cooking or practical cooking for day-to-day stuff? What kind of stuff to you teach them?
STEPHENSON: We start off with the basic knife skills. You know, and then we go into the different cuisines.
And the competition that they go into for these scholarships are based on -- is based on French cooking and C-CAP. An organization, C- CAP through New York, allows us to compete and helps us with those scholarships.
VELSHI: OK. So you've had some success stories --
STEPHENSON: So I try to --
VELSHI: I'm sorry to interrupt you. You've had some success stories -- we have a bit of a delay on the line, so I can't actually tell when you're done talking. You have some success stories about kids who weren't otherwise even going to finish high school who have gone on to do so or to go into the world of cooking.
STEPHENSON: Oh, I have several magnificent stories and successes of students who are coming from -- let's just call it as it is -- terrible environments. You know, maybe the father is not there or the mother is not there, or neither one are there. And they are bringing up their brothers and sisters and they're working 40 hours a day and still maintaining their grade point average and not giving up hope.
Many of them -- I see it that they use what they're in their environment to help them, to give them the motivation to go on, because they know that this is not what they want. But they know there is something else.
VELSHI: That's also getting them some money. In some cases, these competitions are getting them money to go on to school or scholarships to carry on with their education.
STEPHENSON: Oh, my, yes. Yes. Yes, my students -- through careers through the culinary arts program, they are receiving very large scholarships to Johnson & Wales, the Culinary Institute of America, Monroe College, the Art Institutes, the international schools, New England Culinary Institute.
They're doing very well. Because otherwise, these students have nothing whatsoever --
VELSHI: That's incredible. What a great story.
STEPHENSON: -- to go on.
VELSHI: You're helping them, and you're helping them to enjoy food, and enjoy making food for other people.
Wilma Stephenson, thank you for being with us. You are the culinary arts teacher at Frankfort High School. Continue with that fantastic work you're doing.
Thanks for joining us.
STEPHENSON: Thank you. Thank you.
VELSHI: If your home energy bills are skyrocketing, listen up. You can do some simple things to drastically cut your energy use and your energy costs. As a matter of fact, one guy took it to the point where he's actually producing more energy in his home than he's using.
Here's Jim Spellman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the holy grail of green living, a net-zero house.
JEFF HOHENSEE, NET-ZERO HOMEOWNER: Net-zero means that we're producing more energy in this house than we are using.
SPELLMAN: That's Jeff Hohensee in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. He's turned his home from a power user into a power producer.
HOHENSEE: The houses that most of us live in and work in and learn and play in are about as efficient as Hummers. They're just big, huge energy (INAUDIBLE) that waste a lot of energy.
SPELLMAN: So how did he convert his house from a Hummer to a Prius?
HOHENSEE: You know, the first thing that we did was get a caulk gun out, and we just started caulking all air leaks.
SPELLMAN: Next came insulating the attic, new doors, windows and appliances, plus a few lifestyle changes.
HOHENSEE: Here's another high-tech solution. This is a solar clothes dryer. Put our clothes on it in the sun --
SPELLMAN: It's no joke. Those simple measures alone cut his energy usage by 80 percent. HOHENSEE: It's not very sexy, it's not very fun, and it's very easy to make fun of. But it makes a huge difference.
SPELLMAN: But to get to net-zero, he needed his house to start making some energy.
HOHENSEE: Yes, this is solar panels. A lot more sexy than insulation.
SPELLMAN: Solar panels heat his hot water and create electricity. So far, he says it's working.
HOHENSEE: So this is our electrical meter. The meter is going backwards. We've put more energy back on to the grid than we've used.
SPELLMAN: A few miles away in Boulder, Colorado, David Johnston has been chasing the net-zero dream for 30 years. He's a green building consultant and wrote the book "Toward a Zero Energy Home."
DAVID JOHNSTON, GREEN BUILDING CONSULTANT: It's really a function of good design and great materials. That's the key.
SPELLMAN: He estimates that there are only about 100 net-zero homes in America. But new building materials and technologies, plus growing demand from homeowners, will make the net-zero dream widely accessible.
Jeff Hohensee says after tapping into several government incentives and rebates, he spent about $50,000 getting to net-zero. He hopes to break even in eight years.
HOHENSEE: Electricity and gas have been cheap. It's becoming less and less cheap, and so I think we're paying attention.
SPELLMAN: "One Simple Thing" that starts at home: use less energy than you make, and make a difference.
Jim Spellman, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: Hey, major mergers in the airline industry. What's the effect on consumers? Richard Quest is back. That means "Q&A" is back as well.
We'll go head-to-head next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS," and so do I. We're here together in the CNN NEWSROOM around the entire world, Richard.
Hello and good to have you back.
RICHARD QUEST, HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": And good for you to be back. Good for us both to be doing this. Ali, each Thursday, once again around the world, around the United States, it's business, travel, innovation. Nothing is off limits. And today, it's the travel side of our brief the airlines.
VELSHI: A lot of airline news this week. We've had major merger news.
This week, Southwest Airlines announced it's buying up AirTran. And tomorrow, United Airlines and Continental complete their merger, forming the world's largest airline. You'll be reporting on that with a conversation with the chairman of the new airline tomorrow morning, Richard.
But is all of this -- it might be good for the airlines. Is it good for consumers? Richard, you are the travel expert at this network, so I'm going to let you go first.
You have 60 seconds.
QUEST: Which starts now.
Look, Ali, forget the idea about mergers being new. Mergers have been around. Here is a list of the mergers and acquisitions in the aviation industry in just the last 10 or 20 years.
For example, Pan Am, which bought National. Pan Am then went of course -- went out of business.
We had American, which bought TWA.
Where it gets interesting, of course, is when it's national, across borders. Air France bought KLM. Lufthansa has swallowed SWISS, Austrian and Brussels, and BMI. And British Airways, Iberia and, of course, American Airlines.
Ali, the airlines are making money at the moment, but fares have gone up by eight percent in economy. You wouldn't know that because your fare, Ali, in business class has gone up 10 percent.
Expect more fares to go up in the weeks and months ahead. Capacity is down, but fares will be up.
(BELL RINGING)
VELSHI: I'm surprised you ever walk far enough into a plane to find the economy section.
Hey, Richard, sit back and relax and enjoy my argument.
The last time there was any real good news in the airline industry was when the Wright brothers had a successful flight. The fact is that airlines have been wildly unprofitable, as you know, for years, losing about $50 billion in the last decade just here in the United States. And that's the airlines that exist.
That's starting to change, as you just mentioned, though. While anything that potentially reduces competition like mergers seems bad, airlines need these mergers as a way to cut costs and make more money.
Now, ultimately, making money allows the airlines to expand and buy new planes and fly new routes. And whether we're talking the legacy airlines here in the states, for instance, like Delta, Continental, United, US Airways and American, or the newer, smaller, generally more nimble discount carriers like JetBlue and Southwest, almost all airlines at some point or another will resort to the same tricks that we passengers despise -- extra fees, Richard.
They know it makes us mad. They do it because they can, and in some cases because they have to make money.
Bottom line, Richard, it's tough for airlines to have a positive bottom line. And until the industry is truly profitable, you and I are going to pay the price and they'll find a way to make us do it -- Richard.
QUEST: That was a few extra seconds there, Ali, which I will give you for the moment.
But now, of course, it's time for "The Voice." And for that, it's time for you and I to go head-to-head.
The Voice, the questions this week?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome back, gentlemen. You've had a few weeks off from the quiz to get your heads together and to practice with your bells.
Plus, you two might be the most frequent flyers I know, so we'll start with a tough one.
Since 2002, how many non-charter commercial passenger airlines have filed for bankruptcy? A, 29; B, 24; C, 20; or D, 17?
(BELL RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richard, that was you.
QUEST: I'm going to say 17.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richard, you are exactly right. Seventeen is the correct answer and you're on the board early.
The most recent was Mexicana Airlines, which suspended operations in August.
Now, many of these airlines like United and Delta have emerged from bankruptcy, but only after major restructuring.
Richard on the board 1-0.
Here's number two. According to Airports Council International, which region saw the largest number of airline passengers last year? A, Europe; B, North America; C, Asia Pacific region; or D, the Middle East? (BELL RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ali, that's you.
VELSHI: Asia Pacific region.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, I'm sorry. That's wrong.
Richard, care to make it 2-0?
QUEST: The most airline travelers last year has to be North America.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richard, you're proving yourself to be a frequent flyer.
VELSHI: Wow!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's exactly right. North America barely finished ahead of Europe with just over 1.46 billion passengers in 2009.
Richard, you might make it a perfect 3-0.
Ali, it's time for you to save face.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Time to stretch your legs a bit, gentlemen. Or maybe not.
What is the average amount of leg room in the economy class on most major airlines? A, 32 inches; B, 28; C, 35; or D, 24?
(BELL RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ali?
VELSHI: I'm just ringing it because there's no chance Richard would ever know what the average economy leg room is on a plane. I don't think he knows where economy is on a plane.
I'm going to go with 28 inches.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I'm going to say you're wrong, Ali.
VELSHI: This is rigged.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richard, care to make it 3-0?
QUEST: Thirty-two inches.
(BELL RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Richard has made it 3-0 to convincingly win this round of "Q&A." You see, gentlemen, leg room is measured by seat pitch. That's the distance from your back to the seat in front of you.
And I want to thank you both for flying Voice Airlines.
VELSHI: Wow. Richard, for a guy who never makes it to the back of a plane, I'm impressed with how much you know about this. You do have an edge on me in traveling, so we'll try a different topic next week and I'll see if I can do a little better.
QUEST: All right.
But for the moment, that will do it for this week.
Remember, we're here each week. Tomorrow, of course, around this time on your program, and on mine, Ali, we'll have that interview with the chief exec, the new chief exec of United Airlines, Jeff Smisek.
VELSHI: That is the new joint airline, United and Continental. The merger goes through tomorrow.
And of course catch us in the CNN NEWSROOM at 2:00 p.m. Eastern. Keep the topics coming on our blog, CNN.com/QMB and CNN.com/Ali. Tell us each week what you want us to debate.
Richard, see you next week.
QUEST: See you next week.
VELSHI: I'm going to need a minute to recover from that beating. The smackdown I just took from Richard Quest.
But I will be back in a minute. There's a smart phone app out there for everything else, so why not make one that will make you healthier and even maybe get me -- or you -- into a skinnier vest! That's part of our continuing Eatocracy special series, right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. I've recovered from the whole Quest situation. I don't have to deal with that for another week.
All this week, we are looking at different aspects of food in our lives in our special Eatocracy coverage. Counting calories is a little old school. These days, there's an app for that. For tracking your protein, for tracking your carbohydrates, for tracking your raw food diet. It's called Salud, and it's being developed right down the street at Georgia Tech. We've had the folks from Georgia Tech in here all week.
Doctoral student Eugene Medynskiy is with me with the details. Gene, good to see you. Thank you very much for this.
This is neat. For a guy like me, this is perfect because I don't keep track of what I eat to start with. But this helps you. This goes beyond just listing what you eat. Tell me how this works.
EUGENE MEDYNSKIY, PH.D CANDIDATE, GEORGIA TECH: That's right. Exactly. At Georgia Tech, we're trying to build an application that can help you track your health on your own terms. So whatever it is that's important for you to track, you can do it using our iPhone applications. We have an iPhone application. We have an application for the Android operating system as well. That supports a lot of different phones.
And what you can do here is say, for example, you're tracking what you eat because you try to lose weight or you're trying to exercise more. You can actually snap photos of what you eat and then as you come down here, it will keep a history. And so, you can track whatever it is you want about that --
VELSHI: And the point of snapping the photo -- it's not like the application reads the calories in there. It's that I can sit there and say, oh, this is what I ate, so I can make notes of it. I can figure out -- this will help me figure out the calories in my meal?
MEDYNSKIY: Exactly. It's so much easier to snap a photo than it is to go in there and either keep a food diary or even with these apps that allow you to kind of text in what you're doing. Using the photo triggers is just kind of -- it triggers your memory.
VELSHI: Here's something interesting. You made a point. You said -- let's try you're trying to control migraines, and there are some foods that are triggers for migraines. But you don't really know where it's going on. Explain to me how this works.
MEDYNSKIY: That's right. So, we actually allow you to track pretty much anything you want as long as you can come in and tell our system what it is you're trying to track. So, here you can see that this user is tracking their migraines with these big dots --
VELSHI: These are the migraines here?
MEDYNSKIY: Right, exactly. So you can see essentially a pattern emerging, and then go back and say OK, well, what is it that I ate right before then? Because sometimes you or your doctor may think that food is a trigger for the migraines. You can go around and see OK, what is it that I had for lunch that day or what did I have for dinner that day? Maybe it's the caffeine. Maybe it's cheese --
VELSHI: But you might be able to track that and see a pattern there. That is amazing. You can do this with diabetes, you can do it with anything.
MEDYNSKIY: That's right, exactly. We provide a couple of different templates for you to use. Then you can track exercise, how much your sleep, your weight, food. But then you can come in and actually tell the system what it is that you want to track, and the system will allow you to track that easily.
VELSHI: You have ruined it for me, man. There is no more excuse for me to eat the way I do. Good to see you. Thank you very much. Thanks for the great work you're doing over there at Georgia Tech.
Eugene Medynskiy is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate. What a great application.
Hey, listen, when you're sitting across from your doctor, don't be shy about expressing your opinion. I know it can be intimidating at times, but it might actually save your life. I'll explain this to you when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Checking some top stories we're following here at CNN.
Ireland's central bank is giving more cash to two struggling big banks. That will boost Ireland's fiscal deficit to as high as 32 percent of its economy. Like a lot of the world, banks there loan money to people who couldn't pay it back. Ireland is the part of the European Union, by the way. The largest economy in the world. Bigger than the U.S. So, its fate could affect the rest of us.
The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits went down last week. 453,000 people filed new claims. That is fewer than economists expected, but still extremely high. Florida had the biggest drop in claims, nearly 1,800. California had the biggest jump, more than 15,000.
The Commerce Department says the economy grew at a slightly faster pace in the second quarter of this year. The first - the second three months of this year than previously reported. The bad news: the growth of the nation's gross domestic product remains very slow. The GDP, as you know, is the broadest measure of economic activity in the country.
OK. This has probably happened to a lot of you. You tell your doctor you don't feel well. The response is to slow down, get more rest, don't worry about it. That approach could cost you your life. Joining me to explain why is CNN senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. That seems extreme.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know what? Sometimes you really do need to rest.
But if you go to the doctor and you feel like something is really wrong with you and the doctor kind of blows it off and says "Oh, you just take two aspirin, call me in the morning," you need to question that. We learned that in my family.
With the help of Turner Animation studios, we bring you my mother's story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN (voice-over): My mother, Sheila Schwartz, is a firecracker. Mother of four, grandmother of 11, wife, lawyer and social worker. She's been active and healthy her whole life. But around the time she turned 60, something changed. She began feeling achy and dizzy. Her blood pressure went up and she was so tired. My mother says her family doctor told her "don't worry about it."
(on camera): They told you, "Look lady, if you just stop working so hard, your blood pressure will come down."
SHEILA SCHWARTZ, ELIZABETH COHEN'S MOTHER: Don't get excited. Don't enjoy life so much. Don't be quite so busy.
COHEN (voice-over): If mom's doctor had only ordered a simple blood test instead of blaming her, he would have seen my mom's kidneys were in trouble. Caught early enough, a simple treatment could have fixed it. But now, it's come to this. She needs a kidney transplant to save her life.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Goodbye, darling. Thank you.
COHEN: When my mom first got sick, I wish I could have introduced her to Evan Handler.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EVAN HANDLER, ACTOR (acting): Charlotte York, will you marry me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COHEN: Evan plays Harry Goldenblatt, Charlotte York's husband, on "Sex and the City." But here's what you might not know.
HANDLER: I was 24 years old when I was diagnosed with acute myloid leukemia.
COHEN: In the hospital, Evan had to get pushy with the doctors and nurses.
HANDLER: You have, your little squeezy thing to ring the nurses' station. And I heard exasperated voices saying, "Evan, we're on a dinner break. You know, we can come to you in 20 minutes." I said "Well, okay, the drug that's been running into my vein the last 20 minutes is labeled with another patient's name." And there was a stunned silence and then someone said, "We'll be right there."
I don't completely trust anyone and it makes me difficult to deal with but it's also saved my neck.
COHEN: My mother didn't challenge things like Evan did, and it cost her her kidney.
(on camera): What advice would you give someone who's not feeling well but whose doctor says oh, don't worry about it.
SCHWARTZ: Don't take the first answer and don't take an answer that says there's nothing we can do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: How do you know when you're being too nice or when you might be feeling, "maybe I'm being a hypochondriac. I mean, the doctor says nothing is not wrong." How do you deal with that?
COHEN: Right. Sometimes there can be a fine line.
I think you have to do a gut check. And you have to ask, do I feel differently? If I've never felt like this before, maybe something is really wrong. Also, take another gut check. If you're more worried about your pleasing your doctor than you are about your health, that's a problem.
VELSHI: Right. That is a big deal. In your book, you talk about -- you almost talk about patients being a little bad. What do you mean by that.
COHEN: Right. I want patients to be a little bit bad. I always say bad, you know, with quotes around it.
What I mean by that is don't worry about pleasing the doctor, that's not your job. You need to make sure that you have the best possible health. So, I actually have three tips for being a bad patient. Number one, ask lots of questions. Even if it annoys the doctor, keep asking them. Don't worry whether your doctor likes you. Again, not your job.
And also, remember in a way that this is a business transaction. You're going to the doctor for a service. You should be getting that service and a good service in return. It's not about making each other --
VELSHI: Right. They're not friends.
COHEN: They're not friends.
VELSHI: That's not what they're there for. As we've learned in the last three years, your bank's not your friend. Hey, the doctor's not your friend, either.
COHEN: Right. Exactly.
VELSHI: Right. Excellent.
And don't forget, Elizabeth's special report airs this Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, right here on CNN. "The Empowered Patient." It's also the name of her book. It's excellent. It's an easy read, and it's something everybody needs to read.
So, Elizabeth, thank you for the great advice in there. I'm even going to take some of it.
COHEN: Great.
VELSHI: Good to see you. All right. Ed Henry is in Chicago today on "The Stakeout." He's got some new developments to report on Rahm Emanuel's future. I'll go talk to him right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent and my good friend. The purveyor of "The Stakeout" everyday is in one of my favorite cities in the entire world. He's in Chicago for "The Stakeout" today.
And I don't know whether -- is it something he knew the rest of us didn't know, because we hear that there's going to be a personnel announcement made tomorrow at 11:00 by the president. Eleven in the morning Eastern time. I imagine the president doesn't get involved in a lot of personnel announcements, so the speculation is it has to do with Rahm Emanuel who wants to, by the way, run for the mayor of Chicago. What do you know that we don't know?
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. Remember we were on "The Stakeout" last week where we reported this, and we knew several days ago this was going to happen. The president will make it official tomorrow. You're right, it's pretty rare for the president to get involved in a personnel announcement unless it's a very senior staffer or Cabinet secretary.
What's fascinating about it and the reason why we decided to come to Chicago the next couple of days is that while everyone will be covering it from Washington -- and inside Washington there's all this buzz about how Rahm is so powerful. It's going to be maybe a slam dunk, it's obvious he'll become mayor, it's not so obvious here because there are a lot of candidates running for the Democratic nomination.
And while he's a big player back there, it doesn't necessarily translate into this being a slam dunk. In fact, in talking to some of Rahm Emanuel's advisers, he realizes that, and that's why he's getting out of the White House so quickly and not sticking around. He realizes he needs to get here and do a lot of hard work to sort of build this support, Ali.
VELSHI: Now, you went to his house. I mean, were you there as an invited guest or staking it out, as we like to say?
HENRY: I wasn't exactly invited. The reason why we went a little earlier is because Rahm Emanuel has a house here in Chicago on the north side of town. He was a congressman who was going back and forth. But then when he went to the White House, he moved his family to D.C., rented his house out here.
There's an interesting little behind-the-scenes story "The Chicago Sun-Times" has been reporting on, which is that in recent days, apparently some of Rahm's friends reached out to the guy who's renting the house and said, look, he may want to move back in because he may run for mayor. And the guy basically said, "I've got a lease for another year." And it turns out that he signed that lease about six days before Mayor Daley announced his retirement.
Rahm Emanuel wanted to run for mayor for a long time, but he assumed Mayor Daley was running for re-election -
VELSHI: Sure.
HENRY: -- and he was going to stay on as White House chief of staff until the spring of 2011. Now all of a sudden, Mayor Daley surprises him right after he signed this lease, and the guy who's got the house says, look. A deal's a deal. And you know, Chicago pols better than anyone know, a deal's a deal, Ali.
(LAUGHTER)
VELSHI: And it may not look good for the prospective mayor to be throwing some guy out of the house.
Any residency issues?
HENRY: No. No, and you know, his advisers basically say, he's going to end up renting it as some sort of other house. He's been here in Chicago a long time. They think legally it will be fine.
But take a listen. I just went over to city hall a couple of minutes ago, and we were trying to scour some people. There's a farmers market there. We were basically saying, look, is he a Washington insider or do you think he could be a good mayor? Take a listen to what this one woman had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: So what do you think about Rahm Emanuel?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he's very handsome.
(LAUGHTER)
HENRY: But what about him as a politician?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As a politician, he's got experience. He got ability. I think he should be an awesome mayor for us.
HENRY: Really?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
HENRY: But there's a lot of other Democrats who want to run. Do you think it's going to be easy for him or a hard battle?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It will be easy for him. He has all the connection, all the night work, all the money, all the power. He should be fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: So, she thinks he's handsome; that's among the qualities she thinks that Rahm Emanuel brings to the table. But also, in all seriousness she was saying, look, he brings a lot of clout to the table.
There was another woman I spoke to there outside city hallm and I was pressing her on the notion that look, maybe sometimes he throws his elbows around too much. Is Rahm Emanuel really the guy who can bring this city together? And the woman said you know what? Sometimes as mayor of Chicago, you've got to be nice. Other times not so nice.
VELSHI: Yes, yes. They're not shy about -
HENRY: People -
VELSHI: Throwing your elbows around may not hurt as much in Chicago as it hurts in other places.
Ed, good to see you. Give my best to one of my favorite cities. And I will see you soon.
Ed Henry on "The Stakeout." Our senior White House correspondent joins me every day to tell us what is going on.
Hey. A write-in candidate is drawing the ire of the Tea PartyExpress. Your CNNpolitics.com update coming up on the other side of the break. Stay with me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It is time now for a CNNpolitics.com update. CNN chief political correspondent Candy Crowley watching developments from the CNNpolitics.com desk in Washington.
Candy, what a treat and a pleasure to have you on the show. What's crossing the desk?
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.
Well, you know, I was trying to think back as to whether we have had any kind of political day in the past couple of months where we haven't mentioned the Tea Party, so that's pretty much where we're going to start here, because the Tea Party is going back to Alaska.
You may remember that Senator Lisa Murkowski, who was the sitting Republican from Alaska, got tossed out in the primary from a guy named Joe Miller. She's now running as a write-in. The Tea Party is going to come back to help Joe Miller. They're going to have two hours on the radio entitled, "No Means No," so they are going after her -- and probably with good reason because we had a poll a couple of days ago that shows they're basically tied. So, that is a great race up in Alaska.
I also want to tell you a little bit about -- this is sort of SOP for Congress, but they're going to leave town without actually having passed the appropriations bills, so they do what they call a stopgap measure. A CR in congressional terms, continuing resolution. If they left without passing this, the government wouldn't be funded, so they give it this short-term bill that will take them through December because frankly if they went home without having kept the government in funds, it probably wouldn't play all that well back in Peoria, as we say.
And finally this guy behind me -- a lot of you may recognize him. He is the president's top political adviser, was with him all the way through the campaign, a Chicagoian, actually and lives back there. He's just blasted out some e-mail to some of the president's supporters, and here's a real surprise for you. In it, he said that the president has been really good to the middle class and that the Republicans are holding the middle-class tax cut hostage to help the rich.
So, you can tell this is an election season. Why? Because this isn't aimed so much at trying to convince people, because his mailing list is pretty much those already convinced Democrats, but because it's important to get out to vote. So you say to the faithful, remember this, remember that? And the president did that for the middle class, and it drives them out.
And I'm going to cheat a littleand give you a fourth one because it'll be up here on the Ticker fairly soon here, and that is Joe Biden is going back to Ohio to campaign for Ted Strickland. He's running for the governor there. The fact of the matter is this is Joe Biden's fourth trip to Ohio in two months. Really huge, big state there, Ali.
VELSHI: And it's a microcosm of the entire nation and the economic problems the nation faces. Candy, always a pleasure to see you. Our chief political correspondent, Candy Crowley.
Be sure to stay with CNN for complete coverage of the key races and key issues heading into the midterm elections. Your next CNNpolitics.com update is just an hour away.
We have talked a lot this hour about cyberbullying and how the Internet age has taken so called old-fashioned bullying to an all new and often tragic level. I've got more to say about it in my "XYZ," coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it.
I've been exploring the power of the Internet and its potential for abuse. I brought up the case of Chris Armstrong, an openly gay University of Michigan student elected to lead his high school's - his students' - his school's student assembly, and how that set off an Internet smear campaign by one blogger, Andrew Shirvell, a conservative alum who happens to be an assistant attorney general for the state.
Now, that a public official charged with upholding the law would bully an 18-year-old student in his off hours is disturbing to say the least. Shirvell's blog charged Armstrong with, quote, "engaging in flagrant sexual promiscuity and blasted him as "Satan's representative on the student assembly." Shirvell's boss, Michigan attorney general Mike Cox, agrees that Shirvell is a bully, but defends his right to blog during his off hours, citing freedom of speech.
But Cox is missing a valuable point. Bullying and harassment can be even more sinister when it's done online. Unlike a playground bully, cyber bullies don't have to see the harm or damage they inflict upon their victims. So, while a playground bully may show remorse when his victim sheds tears or experience pain, the online bully isn't troubled by any of that because they're not there.
But the damage from bullying online is very real. Consider Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi. His dorm roommate and another student are charged with invasion of privacy for allegedly placing a camera in Clementi's dorm room without his knowledge and broadcasting him engaging in an intimate encounter on the Internet. Clementi is said by his family to have been so distraught that he committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge that connects New York to New Jersey.
This needs to stop. As a society, we need to make cyberbullying at every level unacceptable. Hiding behind a keyboard is cowardly, encouraging not just traditional bullies, but a new breed of bullies who lack the physical size or force of personality to harass and inflict pain on others. And unlike traditional bullies, the damage goes further and deeper, because the meanest gets to more people.
We'll be following this, and I'll keep taking a stand against using the Internet, the greatest tool ever invented, to hurt people.
That's it for me. Time now for my friend Rick and "RICK'S LIST."
