Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
Atlanta Federal Judge Arrested; Guilty Verdict in Connecticut Home Murders; "The Pain is Still There"; The Hidden Credit Card Fees Merchants Pay; 10-Year Census on Marine Life Unveils Mysteries of the Underwater World; Outreach to Prevent Bullying; The Future of Gaming
Aired October 05, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: And as Tony said, I'm Ali Velshi. I'm going to be with you for the next hours today and every weekday. I'll guide you through the maze of information coming your way.
Together, we're going to learn what's going on at home and around the world. I'll give you access to folks who can explain what it means today and what it means beyond today. We'll showcase the best ideas in innovation, philanthropy and public education.
My mission for the next two hours is to help you figure out how what's going on fits into your life.
Let's get started right now. Here's what I got on the rundown:
The government tried to chip away at credit card fees that are paid by merchants and that ultimately come back to you, the consumer. But one major card company is fighting back. We'll tell you who and how it affects you.
Plus, if you thought space was the final frontier, you haven't seen anything yet. We've got a result of the so-called census of the oceans. What was discovered is astonishing and what hasn't been discovered even more astonishing.
And I can't bleeping believe it. A new study says swearing can sometimes be good for you especially if your stub your toe or cut your thumb. You got to want to listen to this.
But, first --- sex, drugs gun and the gavel. Our lead story wouldn't get past the slush pile as a novel. It is too outlandish, but the people in it are real. The facts are alleged and the upshot is this: a senior federal judge here in Atlanta, Jack T. Camp, is free on $50,000 bond after an FBI sting in which he allegedly tried to buy narcotics for his stripper girlfriend.
Camp, who is 67 years old, appeared on the wrong side of the federal bench yesterday at a hearing in front of a visiting magistrate. All the judges here and prosecutors for that matter know Camp personally and can't take part in his case.
In a sizzling affidavit, an FBI special agent outlined Camp's arrest last Friday night in the parking lot of a club called the Velvet Room where he allegedly bought cocaine, marijuana and prescription painkillers from an undercover agent. He was accompanied by the stripper whom he allegedly had been paying for sex for several months and who have been secretly recording their conversations and cooperating with the feds.
Camp's legal troubles are compounded by the charge that he was carrying two handguns at the time of the buy. But his lawyer insists this is first and foremost a domestic dispute.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MORRISON, JUDGE CAMP'S ATTORNEY: Judge Camp is an Army veteran, served in Vietnam, attended the citadel and has been a judge for over 20 years. And based on all that, he's going to make it through this. This is really a case between Judge Camp and his wife. It's not a case about Judge Camp being a judge.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: I want to talk for a second about being a judge. The nation has 1,700 federal judges, give or take. They are the hugely important. They are the front line and forces of federal law and they're the defenders of federal right. They are appointed by presidents for life (AUDIO BREAK) removed for misdeeds, this isn't easy. They only can be removed after impeachment from the House of Representatives and a trial and conviction by the Senate.
In the history of the republic, only seven federal judges have been impeached, convicted and removed. Thomas Porteous may be the eight. That federal judge from New Orleans has a Senate trial just last month on corruption charges.
Bill Torpy is a reporter for "The Atlanta Journal Constitution" and has been following the Camp saga. He joins me on the phone for two at the top.
Bill, this is a remarkable story. It seems outlandish on the top of it. What are you getting from it?
BILL TORPY, ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION (via telephone): Well, it was one of those cases that surprised everybody. In fact, it just started kind of -- the word came out yesterday around noon. Lawyers started calling all over the place, you know, asking if it was true and did you hear. And it's one of those things that before I came out in court, because he's a long time judge, 22 years -- yes, 22 years, on the federal bench, suspenders wearing, quotes Shakespeare, Reagan appointee and a relatively tough judge on sentencing. So, it was a surprise.
VELSHI: Bill, who's going to prosecute -- who's going to prosecute this? Who's going to hear this? Because as we just said, everybody around here knows this guy. Federal judges are particularly important in the justice system.
TORPY: Right. It would be someone from another circuit. Whether they have a special prosecutor come in and probably another judge from -- you know, they had a judge in yesterday from Alabama, I believe. So, that will be, you know, someone who's just not from this circuit, who's not friends with him and hasn't been on the bench or working with him elbow with elbow for years.
VELSHI: Let's just talk about the fact that he has known as a tough sentencer. If you think back to the case of Chris Benoit, the pro-wrestler who killed his wife and his son and himself back in 2007. Phi Asten was the doctor in that case and Camp sentenced him to 10 years in prison for providing the drugs that Chris Benoit used.
TORPY: Right. And there was a plea for leniency from lawyers and from the doctor, that he was, you know, a generous person. That he worried about people's pain and, you know, that he was trying to do well -- although, you know, the charges were that he was a pill dispensary, a pill mill, and that two people at least other than outside of this wrestler case, had died of overdoses. So, the judge said, you know, well, the harm that you've done outweighs all the good you may have done.
VELSHI: All right. So, he came down tough on sentencing when it came to drugs.
Bill Torpy of the "Atlanta Journal Constitution" -- thank you for joining us.
We'll continue to follow this case with great interest. We'll also follow and find out whether there are cases that this Judge Camp ruled in that may be in jeopardy now knowing what he has been involved or he's allegedly involved in.
OK. We're following some breaking news out of Connecticut right now. A jury has just found Steven Hayes guilty of murder in brutal 2007 home invasion. This is a tragic, tragic story. Hayes and another man who was yet to be tried were can accused of killing a mother and her two daughters and burning their house down.
The father of the family, a prominent doctor, was tied up, severely beaten. He managed to escape and alert authorities.
Hayes could face the death penalty in the sentencing phase of his trial. We're going to keep a close eye on this story.
And with the midterm elections just around the corner, candidates are campaigning hard and trying to save face. One of the most interesting if not unusual, of course, is Christine O'Donnell, the Republican Senate nominee from Delaware. She has quickly made a name for herself. Not by what she does, but by what comes out of her mouth.
Her remarks, often controversial, are nothing new. Back in 1999, in an interview with Bill Maher, O'Donnell said she had tried every other kind of religion including witchcraft. Now, she's out with a new campaign. The message apparently being: Don't take everything she says so literally. It's our sound effect along with Bill Maher's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS) CHRISTINE O'DONNELL (R), DELAWARE SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm not a witch. I'm nothing you've heard. I'm you.
None of us are perfect. But none of us can be happy with what we see around us. Politicians who think spending, trading favors and back room deals are the ways to stay in office.
I'll go to Washington and do what you'd do. I'm Christine O'Donnell and I approve this message. I'm you.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN HOST: I think when you have to start your campaign with ad with, "I'm not a witch," the battle has been lost. I think she would have been much smarter to ignore that, but, you know, being much smarter is not her strong suit.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
VELSHI: Bill Maher is never short of opinions. Tonight, he talks politics with John King. Be sure to watch them on "JOHN KING, USA" starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
The right to speak versus the right to grieve in peace. A heart- rending conflict lands at the doorstep of the Supreme Court. You are going to meet the people involved when we come back.
You go to stay tuned for this. It's a heart-wrenching, dramatic story.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: We were telling you about a new ruling that had just come down. It is in the case of a very dramatic story in Connecticut of home invasion robbery. Here is the family issuing a statement.
DR. WILLIAM PETIT, VICTIM: Cards, prayers, e-mails, texts, donations to the foundation. There's just been a support from all over. We did our best to keep our faith in God that justice will be served. We really thank the jury for their due diligence and careful consideration of the charges in reaching what we feel has been an appropriate verdict. And we hope they will continue to use the same diligence and clarity of thought as they consider arguments in the penalty phase of the trial.
REPORTER: Dr. Petit, even though there was a sense of inevitability, was there is a sense of relief when it came down for you?
PETIT: There is some relief, but my -- my family is still gone. It doesn't bring them back. It doesn't bring back the home that we had. But certainly guilty verdict is much better sense of relief than a guilty of verdict of not guilty.
REPORTER: Dr. Petit what do Jennifer and the girls saying right now with this verdict?
PETIT: I think Jennifer would say that she never prayed to God to ask for specific things. She prayed to God to ask for the strength to be able to handle the things that occurred to her in her life such as the M.S., and I think probably they were all praying for our strength to be able to be here beginning back in January of this year when jury selection began.
REPORTER: Dr. Petit, is there a point in this trial where you felt that maybe this outcome would have not turned out the way it did?
PETIT: No, I thought -- I thought the evidence was fairly overwhelming and I thought Mr. Deerington (ph) and Mr. Nicholson did a very nice job in presenting the state's case.
(INAUDIBLE)
PETIT: I don't know if it was the reaction I think the family thought from the beginning that each of the defendants would point the finger at the other that's being more culpable. So, we sort of expected it three years ago.
REPORTER: Are you disappointed that (INAUDIBLE).
PETIT: No.
REPORTER: Are you going to be able to do it again? I mean, you've got a penalty phase, another trial, another penalty phase, three more trials.
PETIT: People keep asking that question. Why do you do it or how do you do it? I think most of you out here, you know, are good human beings. I think that you probably would all do the same for your families. If your family was destroyed by evil, I think you would all try to do the same thing and be there for your family.
I mean, it's the one thing you can do. So, do I really -- do I really want to do it? Do I look forward every day? No, you know, I have a little nausea every day I get off the exit ramp, a little nausea every time I get out of the car and walk across the street. But I think -- I do it for my family, but I think all of you, I think would do the same thing for your families.
REPORTER: How will you spend the next week and a half when you don't have to do that?
PETIT: I haven't really thought about it. Have a couple of golf invitations from some good friends if the rain stops.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE) the jury did deliberate in this short period of time (INAUDIBLE), you know, for another week, another (INAUDIBLE).
PETIT: Well, certainly, it's much easier psychologically on us. So, we have to have to wait several days and have to wait several weeks, but having never been in this position before, I have no idea what to expect. In fact, our victim's advocate and Mr. Deerington and Mr. Nicholson didn't know what to expect either. So, I had no predictions from anybody as to whether it was going to be hours, days, or weeks.
REPORTER: Dr. Petit, (INAUDIBLE) we as the media seen a glimpse of how strong you guys are? What do you guys do tonight?
PETIT: Good question. We'll probably sit on the couch and talk and probably have dinner together and try to decide what we're going to do over the next couple of weeks, talk with Dick and Marybelle Hawke, my in-laws, they're here in route to their home in Florida, and whether they'll stay the two weeks and wait, or whether they'll head to Florida and then come back for parts -- of the second part of the trial.
There have been no plans today as to what exactly their actions would be. And when Cindy, Jenn's sister, would come back for the second part of the trial.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)
PETIT: I don't think so. I don't know that I completely understand it.
REPORTER: (INAUDIBLE)
PETIT: I really don't want to comment on that and interject anything at this point that may affect the second part of the trial.
REPORTER: He is a convicted killer. It is official. He is -- they've ruled on that. Does it matter what happens in this point? Does he matter anymore to you?
PETIT: Well, what matters to me most is my family and memories of my family and trying to do good things through our foundation. I don't know over the last couple of weeks, I just kept trying to tell myself that good will overcome evil and we'll keep trying to do good things and try to refocus myself on the positive and stay away from the negative.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, everybody. We're going to get home.
PETIT: Thank you.
VELSHI: And that was Dr. William Petit. He is the father of two girls, husband of a wife, all of whom were murdered back in July of 2007. It was a torturous, torturous case. They tied him up. They forced his wife to go to the bank to take out $15,000 and when she returned, they killed her along with his two daughters.
This is one verdict in the case. There are still others to hear from. But that is Dr. William Petit who you've been hearing from. We'll have more on this case in a little while.
Coming up next, the right to speak versus the right to grieve in peace. A heart-rending conflict lands at the doorstep of the Supreme Court. You're going to meet the people involved when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. We're on the seventh floor here at CNN Center in Atlanta. Downstairs is a huge food court. It's always filled with people taking tours of CNN Center.
I bet you if I went downstairs right now and asked 100 people whether Americans should have the right to voice unpopular opinions in public -- I'm thinking 100 people would say yes. I'd be one of them.
What if I asked whether protestors have the right to yell hateful, hurtful things at the funerals of U.S. service members who are killed in Iraq or Afghanistan? That is a much tougher call. That's why we have courts.
And tomorrow, the highest court in the land takes up the right of free expression versus the right of grieving families to bury their sons and daughters in peace, complicated question.
CNN's Kate Bolduan has the story behind that case.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was 20 years old when he was killed in Iraq.
(on camera): Tell me about March 3rd, 2006. The day you found out that he was killed.
ALBERT SNYDER, FATHER OF FALLEN MARINE: It was probably the worst day of my life. If you lose a parent, you're an orphan. If you lose a spouse, you're a widower or widow, but if you lose a child, there's not a word to describe it.
BOLDUAN: Even after all this time, I mean, the pain is --
SNYDER: It's still there. It's still there and it's no different.
BOLDUAN (voice-over): But Albert Snyder says that was only the beginning of the nightmare for his family.
Members of the Kansas-based Westboro Church led by Fred Phelps picketed outside Matthew Snyder's funeral as they've done at military funerals hundreds of times before. The church believes soldiers are dying because God is punishing the country for, quote, "the sin of homosexuality."
Matthew Snyder was not gay.
FRED PHELPS, FOUNDER, WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH: I'm sorry that they raised their son for the devil in hell. I'm sorry that they let him have anything to do with the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) Army.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're here to tell them they sent their child to hell. BOLDUAN (on camera): The funeral was held here, St. John Catholic Church. Albert Snyder preparing to bury his only son. And here, nearby on this public street is where the Westboro Church members gathered for their angry protest, triggering this constitutional battle.
SNYDER: It comes down to dignity. No one -- I don't care if you're not military -- no one should be buried with what the Phelps did to them.
BOLDUAN (voice-over): Snyder sued for defamation and invasion of privacy. But the Phelps family argues they're protected by their rights of free speech and religious expression. The fight has now made it all the way to the high court.
Sean Summers is Albert Snyder's attorney.
SEAN SUMMERS, ATTORNEY FOR ALBERT SNYDER: When they protest outside of a private funeral, they're not trying advocate for or against a particular position. All they're doing is harassing a family so they can hijack someone else's private event.
BOLDUAN: The Phelps family declined to be interviewed about the case, but told the court they weren't targeting Matthew Snyder personally saying, quote, "The church's speech was public issue speech, highly disliked, and needing protection." Adding, quote, "The church does not require an invitation to be on a public right-of-way peacefully picketing."
SHIRLEY PHELPS-ROPER, WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH: What they want to do is they want to litigate our religious doctrine. Well, you don't do that in America.
F. PHELPS: Each one of them are going to hell.
BOLDUAN: The Phelpses have the support of free speech advocates and some media groups.
Albert Snyder has the support of 48 states and members of Congress.
(on camera): You and your family have suffered so much. Why do you want to take this fight on?
SNYDER: So other people don't have to go through the same thing that we went through.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: What a story. Kate joins me now live from the White House.
Kate, you just said there in that story, he's got to support of a number of states, even though this is a -- he claims it's a First Amendment issue. What do some states do to limit this sort of thing? BOLDUAN: It's quite complex. And as I -- we should always say first, Ali, and you really hit the nail on the head when you led into this piece, the case doesn't make it to the Supreme Court if it's an easy slam.
VELSHI: Right.
BOLDUAN: And that's what we're dealing with here.
There have been separate state efforts nationwide to impose restrictions on protest targeting military funeral. But, so far, they have failed in federal court. Why? Well, I'm sure you can guess it at this point. Judges citing free speech.
And now, that's why this case made it to the Supreme Court. It's tough, there's no question about it. It's highly emotional. But as the Supreme Court said, and if you talk to Supreme Court watchers and experts, the Supreme Court often says the more unpopular a speech, Ali, is what needs protection. That's why this is so tough.
VELSHI: And that is -- boy, we've just seem -- seem to have seen a year where we got so many of these things to challenge First Amendment rights. It will be an interesting session for the Supreme Court.
Kate, great to see you. Thanks very much for joining us.
BOLDUAN: Thanks, Ali.
VELSHI: Our friend Kate Bolduan at the White House today.
It is called a swipe fee and the merchant pays it every time you use your credit card. But make no mistake, that cost -- that cost comes right back to you. We're going to find out what the Justice Department wants to do about this, on the other side with my friend Christine Romans.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. Let's talk about your money.
Every time you pull out your credit card, you use it a store or restaurant or wherever, the merchant has to pay what's known as a swipe fee. The swipe fee usually amounts to about 2 percent of the total on the bill. It's a big source of revenue for credit card companies. That's why some places give you a different price if you pay cash on something.
Plus, those fees you can pretty much guarantee find their way back to you, the consumer, one way or the other.
Now, yesterday, the Justice Department filed suit against American Express. They said it has been blocking merchants from offering lower cost payment options to their customers. Visa and MasterCard have agreed to a settlement on exactly the same matter. But American Express says it's going to fight it. Christine Romans, my co-host on "YOUR $$$$$," and the author of a brand new book that you have got to read, "Smart is the New Rich," -- we'll talk about that in a minute -- joins me now to sort this out.
Christine, this morning in our morning meeting, a number of producers asked me to explain as they often do with business stories. I did what I rarely do. I said, guess what, Christine will explain it to you later because the two or three times I've tried to explain it to someone, they've ended up more confused than when we started.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: But I think that you did a very good job with that introduction. Here's why. Because this is a secret sort of mystery fee. You don't know about it. You buy a Hallmark card, for example, for $3. The merchant, who you bought that card from, has to pay the credit card company -- the credit card you use -- anywhere from $0.06 to $0.15 and you don't even see it, you don't know it.
But many people say the price you paid for your card is higher because it has to absorb that little chunk that goes back to the credit card companies. They are swipe fees. They are $35 billion a year according to the Justice Department last year. Think of that. That's more than we spend, Ali, on books or fresh vegetables. That's a lot of money that you don't even know about that is being paid every time you use your credit card.
VELSHI: So what's the problem? Because we know credit cards offer us a convenience. We don't think that American Express, and MasterCard, and Visa shouldn't earn money somehow.
ROMANS: That's right. They offer a convenience. But, here's the glitch and here's what Visa and MasterCard have agreed to do and American Express has not.
The merchants, the retailers want to be able to say, look, if you use this credit card that doesn't have any frills and no rewards and it only has a one or two percent swipe fee, I'll give you free shipping. Or I'll give you a little something extra like maybe a free package -- wrap the package for you, or something. They want customers to have the choice to use whatever card will get them the best price or the most services for that.
That's something American Express says, no, they don't think that the merchants are going to pass along the savings to the consumer. But many of the merchants, many of the small businesses, they want to be able to have that choice and allow us to know how much extra is changing hands because of the credit cards.
VELSHI: Right. So in the spirit of the conversation I just had with Kate Bolduan, it's the freedom of information flowing around. That's what this suit is about.
Christine, great to see you. We will continue talking to you. The book is fantastic. "Smart is the New Rich."
ROMANS: Thanks. VELSHI: Which in our perig (ph), you were always the smart one, anyway. So I encourage you all to read this book. It is fun. It's got tips in it. It's got that famous Romans numeral that you're always talking about.
Christine Romans, my friend, my colleague and my co-host on "YOUR MONEY." By the way, you can watch us every weekend, Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern. Sundays at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. I won't be there this week but Christine will take good care of you.
OK. After this, we are going below the ocean next to show you things that no one has seen before. But, before I leave you, how much do you actually know about the ocean? Here's a question to whet your appetite. How many species do scientists believe live in our oceans? A, 250,000; B, 1 million; C, 5 million. Give it your best guess. I'll give you the answer on the other side.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for the most in depth story of the day, maybe even the decade. Before we went to the break, I asked you how many species do scientists believe live in our ocean. A, 250,000; B, 1 million; or C, 5 million. The answer is B, 1 million.
The reason we asked is because 2,700 scientists from around the world have just finished a 10-year $650 million study of the world's oceans. It's called the Census of Marine Life. Makes sense. The findings are astonishing. From the schools of fish the size of Manhattan, to the tiny, never before seen creatures living in deep sea floor cracks where it's hot enough to melt lead.
One of the men behind this incredible endeavor is with us today. Dr. Ian Poiner is the chairman of the Scientific Steering Committee, the governing body of the Census of Marine Life.
Ian, good to see you. Thank you for joining us.
DR. IAN POINER, CHAIRMAN, CENSUS STEERING COMMITTEE: Good afternoon, Ali, and thank you for having us. It's a wonderful day for our oceans and ocean life.
VELSHI: I think we could bet you know more about the ocean than I do and maybe most of our viewers. What surprised you or did anything surprise you? What's the finding that is most interesting to the world in the study that you have just conducted?
POINER: As you said in your introduction, this is a 10-year, unprecedented 10-year study looking at ocean life. And after 10 years of both consolidating what was known going far back as Aristotle and adding significantly to that knowledge, what we can tell you, it's an ocean far richer in species than we ever expected.
It doesn't matter whether we're in the coldest parts down at the poles, the hot tropics, the shallow seas or the deep ocean, or the undersea mountain ridges. It's a place rich in life. It's also oceans that are much, much more connected than we expected. Connected through the movement of animals. Some animals move from one side of the ocean and back. One side, across and back from the north to the south. So it's a far, far more connected ocean than we expected.
But sadly, it's also an ocean that has changed more than we expected. And that change occurred far earlier than -- and far quicker than we might have thought. And for the -- but there is some message of hope there for a couple --
VELSHI: Well, tell me what that is. Because all we ever seem to hear about the environment, about ecology is how it's all going to hell in a hand basket, thanks to us in large part, and thanks to some natural occurrences.
What's the message of hope?
POINER: Well, sadly for some species, part of the census went back into history. It managed to go back and reconstruct robust information from historical records, monastery records. What we can show from that is when things change.
Now, for many of the large animals, the sharks, the tunas, the whales, they declined very early and they decline quite quickly. For many of them, declines are up around 80, 90 percent of levels prior to our exploitation. For a couple of species, notably the whales and seals, the Pinnipeds, as we call the seals, with our intervention, those populations have recovered and they are recovering back to pre- exploitation levels. Similarly for the birds, sea birds, where we've had an impact. Intervention has helped. But sadly for many others, others that we've exploited, they are significantly depleted.
VELSHI: Ian, there's so much. We could talk for days on this. We thank you for coming and telling us just a little about it. We're going to put a link up on my blog so that people can learn more about this.
Ian Poiner is the chair of the Census Steering Committee. The Census of Marine Life. What a great idea. There are lessons to be taken from this, by the way. So go to my blog CNN.com/Ali, and connect to it and find out a little bit more about it.
OK. It gets better. Three simple words that could save lives. In the wake of some shocking suicides, a new campaign reaches out to bullied, gay teens with that very message. It gets better. On the other side. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Just in last month, four teenagers made headlines by taking their own lives. All of them were gay, or perceived as gay by their classmates. All of them had endured harassment or outright bullying because of it. Now, as folks grapple with how to address this issue, there has been a lot of outreach to current and potential bullies to try and make them understand the damage that they can do. A new campaign is taking a different attack. It's not focusing on bullies. It's focusing on current and potential victims of anti-gay harassment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gets better.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gets better.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gets better.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gets better.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It gets better.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's hope and there's help.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are here for you. People who care and understand.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It may be the darkest time in the world for you, but you need to understand that there is hope. There's always hope and there is always help.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The "It Gets Better" project was the brainchild of columnist and author Dan Savage. We just saw some celebrity contributions there. Savage really wanted regular folks to weigh in.
He tells us how the project got started and how it's going.
DAN SAVAGE, ITGETSBETTERPROJECT.COM: I was reading about the suicide of Justin Aber in Minnesota, and shortly thereafter the suicide of Billy Lucas in Greensburg, Indiana and I had the reaction that adults typically had when you hear these stories, which is I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes to tell them that it gets better.
But you know, in these small towns, where these suicides are taking place, rural areas, they're not going to bring openly gay adults to address a student body, we're not going to get an invitation from their church or their parents to come and give these kids hope. And then it occurred to me that I didn't need to wait for an invitation or permission anymore to talk to these kids.
So my husband and I made a video where we talked about our experience with bullying in high school, and that we survived and we have great, wonderful lives now. And so we created this channel so gay adults could upload videos talking about their lives now and give these kids hope for a future that's worth hanging on for.
Average gay and lesbian couples and singles, young people, old people, all over the country. All over the world. We've got videos from New Zealand, and Germany, and the Netherlands, and Canada talking about their lives because this is what's so important and crucial about the project.
A 15-year-old who takes his life because he's gay is saying I can't picture a future for myself that has any joy in it, where I have a restored relationship with my family, where there's enough happiness coming my way that I can tough out this horrifying period of bullying. The response has been overwhelming and it's helping.
I'm getting e-mails every day from moms of bullied 13, 14, 15- year-old gay or perceived to be gay kids who are sitting down in front of their computers with their bullied kids and watching these videos. And not just the videos of celebrities, the videos of average everyday people. They're now able to say to their children, you can have a happy life. Please hang in there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Wow, that's compelling.
You can hear more from Dan Savage tomorrow night when he talks to Anderson Cooper, part of "AC 360"'s weeklong special report, "BULLYING: NO ESCAPE." The coverage wraps up Friday night with a bullying town hall.
By the way, I'll put a link to itgetsbetter.org on my blog, CNN.com/Ali, so you can forward that, you can share that with somebody you know and try and make it a little better for them. There is just no reason for this to go on and society's got to get together to make bullying of people for any reason, particularly because they might be gay, they've got to make it unacceptable.
OK, time now for "Globe Trekking." First stop, Chile.
Oh, my goodness, ever so close. That sums up the attempt to rescue 33 miners who have been trapped a half a mile underground for more than two months. That rescue shaft is now only 524 feet from the miners. Anxious family members have been camped out at the mine for weeks. They're praying, they're waiting for the day when they can once again hold their loved ones in their arms.
Officials say now is the most dangerous period because there's the possibility of a new cave-in. Now to prevent that, officials are considering whether to line the shaft with steel casing. As drilling continues, they've been testing the capsule that would bring the miners one by one to the surface. Chile's president said the rescue could begin as early as October the 15th.
OK, "Globe Trekking" now to Israel and troubling case involving two Israeli soldiers. A military court has convicted them for using a 9-year-old Palestinian child as a human shield during an offensive in Gaza last year. They were found guilty of reckless endangerment and conduct unbecoming.
It happened when the soldiers found bags in a home and ordered the boy to search them for explosives. No bombs were found and the boy was returned to his parents unharmed. This is believed to be the first such conviction in Israel. The use of civilians as human shields is banned there. Sentencing will be handed down at a later date. And in another incident, the Israeli military is investigating the video that you see here. It shows what appears to be an Israeli soldier dancing around a Palestinian who is bound and blindfolded. Officials don't know when the video was shot, the clip first appeared on Israeli television yesterday.
In a statement, the military denounced the action scene in the video. It's the latest social media controversy to hit the Israeli military. This past summer, a female former Israeli soldier posted photos of herself posing in front of blindfolded Palestinian prisoners.
Let's take it to New Delhi, India now. The controversial Commonwealth Games are underway minus all the construction and other problems that plagued the sporting event raising questions if any team would even show up. Teams did show up, however. No denying another big problem, though, empty seats. In a bid to counter the problem, officials are opening doors offering free admission.
But what has really caught our attention are the monkeys you see here in the pictures. They've joined around 100,000 security officers to keep visitors safe. Monkeys to keep other wild monkeys, which can be found all over New Delhi, to keep people from attending the game.
The bad monkeys don't monkey around. They chase people, snatch their food and sometimes take a bite out of them. So the good monkeys, they are trained. It takes about two years to train for security detail. So they brought in bigger, good monkeys to chase out the smaller, bad monkeys. I don't know where this story ends, we'll keep you posted on it.
And there's been a major revolution in video games that could have major implications on everything from the auto shop to the Pentagon. We've got a live, in-studio demo coming up right after this break. Stay with me.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK, "Big I" today, a big idea that could change the world.
We've been talking to the folks from Georgia Tech a lot recently. Last week, I had Blair Macintyre in with me to talk about something called augmented reality. Well he's back with me as well as Maribeth Gandy, and they've got this new idea of augmented reality.
It's a term some of our viewers will know, Blair, but some won't and it's the idea that you're now applying this to the world of gaming, but that the implications are far greater than gaming. Everybody who games knows that cooler things happen in the world of gaming than even in the real world, but you're talking about something that can change things.
So what is this application? First of all, this is the idea it works through a smartphone like you have got there. We've connected the smartphone, you don't normally need to do this, we've done it so that you could see what Maribeth is shooting on our big screen.
So tell us what this is about.
BLAIR MACINTYRE, AUGMENTED REALITY EXPERT: The idea here is unlike in the past where games were restricted to the screens whether it's your TV or your handheld, here we're pushing the game through the screen out into the world around you. So we're trying to create social games much like board games or card games where instead of us staring at our screens we're looking at each other in the game.
So in this case, this is a kind of AR board game. So we have a board on the table and --
VELSHI: AR is augmented reality.
MACINTYRE: Augmented reality, yes. And when Maribeth looks down at this board -- this is just a standard Verizon smartphone --
VELSHI: And, Mark, just tilt down to the board. To the naked eye, it looks like nothing. There's nothing going on. And yet, when you point the camera down, now you're looking at this scene behind us, Mark, which has people and things going on.
MARIBETH GANDY, RESEARCH SCIENTIST, GEORGIA TECH: It's a little office we're in control of. We're trying to make the nerds in the office work. And they can sense us. So here I can look in close and watch over them and they get angry. Here I'm going to pick him up and drop him to punish him for not working.
VELSHI: Ouch!
GANDY: But I can also give him doughnuts. I'll go over here and get some donuts and I'll drop some down to make amends.
VELSHI: OK, so you're -- the software in that phone, the augmented reality software, is looking at a -- I'm assuming there's something special about that board that you're shooting.
MACINTYRE: There's a certain kind of feature on it --
VELSHI: Certain features, all right.
Tell me how this transfers from the world of gamers into the real world.
MACINTYRE: So anything that you could imagine looking at, you could do. So if we're in a emergency response unit, maybe this is a map of downtown Atlanta or Baghdad. And when I look at it with the phone that I happen to have in my pocket, I can now see any information you can be sending to me, whether it's --
VELSHI: How to get there --
MACINTYRE: How to get there or information about where a virus might be spreading or where bombs might going off or any units in the military might be, and I would see it on the map. And if we were all looking at it together we could be sharing information, seeing things together. And because of the way that the graphics really appear to be locked on to this, it feels like it's out here.
VELSHI: Right. I'm going to ask Mark to just do this again, to show us. This looks like nothing. This looks like a black and white screen that you're shooting, Maribeth is shooting. And yet, the video, what she's seeing is on her screen, is what you're seeing right here. It is a vibrant, dynamic environment.
MACINTYRE: Yes. Yes. And so, the phone feels like a lens that you're looking through at the screen and you see both together.
VELSHI: OK, so this could have all sorts of implications. Just as simple I was telling somebody who is coming to visit Atlanta in a few days, I said I wish we could just look at a map together and we're in different places and I could draw where you need to go.
MACINTYRE: Yes.
VELSHI: So that's a simple application. It can be anything that you can think of in that sense. Collaborative work or things that need to have something imposed on a two-dimensional image.
MACINTYRE: Right. And right now, it's a two-dimensional image, right? But in the future, probably in the next few years, it's going to be moving off into 3D stuff on our table and eventually it'll just be the world around us.
So here the nerds are running around and we're torturing them, but instead we could be looking around the studio and seeing little virtual characters running around that we could be interacting with. It could be for games, it could be distributed work. So instead of looking at a videoconference in order to see your colleagues, you could see them virtually around the table with you.
VELSHI: Very interesting.
MACINTYRE: And then, eventually, you know, it will be head- mounted displays and these things will be moving around in the world with us all the time.
VELSHI: Maribeth, what's it like to live in the future? I mean, you guys -- it's a lot of what you guys are doing.
GANDY: It's pretty awesome. It's very fun, actually, to kind of see what's coming ahead of time.
VELSHI: But I worry about you because you were dropping that little guy to punish him for not working. Too much control and things can go bad.
Maribeth, thank you for being here. Blair, good to see you again. Keep this stuff coming. I love what you're doing at Georgia Tech.
MACINTYRE: We will. Thank you very much for having us. VELSHI: (INAUDIBLE) -- just around the corner.
All right, check out other projects being worked on at the Augmented Environment's Lab at Georgia Tech. Head to my blog CNN.com/Ali. I love this stuff.
OK, Michelle Obama says she needs your help. We'll see what her appeal is all about in your "CNN Equals Politics" update coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: It is time now for a CNNPolitics.com update. CNN senior political editor Mark Preston and deputy political director Paul Steinhauser are watching developments from the CNNPolitics.com Desk in Washington. Weird, they're sitting next to each other.
Guys, take it away. What's going on?
MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: Well, Ali, we're joined here by Christine O'Donnell or at least by CNNPolitics.com, a story on Christine O'Donnell. She has a new ad out. Of course, she's that Tea Party candidate out of Delaware who shocked the world by winning the republican nomination.
She has a new 30-second ad out, as I say, where the first thing she says is, I am not a witch. She's not talking about the economy. She comes out and addresses the whole controversy about some comments she made to Bill Maher on his "Politically Incorrect" program where she said she dabbled in witchcraft.
Well she addresses that in her commercial, kind of tries to diffuse it a little bit. She goes on in the commercial, Ali, to talk about how she's going to come to Washington and change things up. This is certainly one of the most talked about stories in Washington today and 688 people on Facebook , our Facebook application, have sent this out to their friends.
Paul, what have you got?
PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, Michelle Obama, let's talk about the first lady. And she's not talking about witchcraft, let's get that out of the way right away.
What she is doing, Ali, though, is talking about fundraising. She put out a letter today in e-mail to the Democratic National Committee's Organizing For America unit, which is basically the grassroots side of the Democratic Party. Put out a fundraising plea, especially to people who helped volunteer for her husband's campaign back in 2008. And democratic officials tell me that tomorrow Michelle Obama will be part of a call -- fundraising call as well --
(CROSSTALK)
VELSHI: Hey, Paul. Paul, hold on a second. I can just watch you all the time, but we can't really hear you all that well. Is your mike -- tap your mike for me. STEINHAUSER: Oh, sorry about that, Ali. Can you hear me?
VELSHI: Yes, just lift it up a little bit. I'll get it real close. There we go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're on channel two.
STEINHAUSER: And, Ali, take a look at this, right here on the CNN Political Ticker, that's the story brand new for you guys at CNNPolitics.com. And remember, Michelle Obama, we're going to see a lot of her on the campaign trail over the next couple of weeks. She's going to be out there campaigning for democratic candidates.
Mark, back to you.
PRESTON: And, Ali, let's talk about the closing argument. Twenty-eight days until Election Day, well House Speaker Newt Gingrich , former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, someone who is looking at running for president in 2012, has put a memo out to republican candidates. He is telling these candidates to frame the midterm elections in very simple terms. He's telling them to frame it in the argument of food stamps versus where they are now.
Let me just read his quote. It's very, very simple.
"It is an unassailable fact that in January, 2007, when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid took over Congress, unemployment was at 4.6 percent and food stamp usage was around 26.5 million Americans. Today, unemployment is at 9.6 percent and 40 million Americans are on food stamps.
So, that's Newt Gingrich's advice to candidates across the country. Put it down into numbers -- Ali.
VELSHI: Dangerous territory using those numbers and trying to attach them to the Republicans having caused that, because some people are going to sit there and say this thing started before the Democrats got into office.
Guys, thanks very much. Hey, listen, you've seen a lot of political ads. I bet you've never seen one that started with, "I am not a witch."
Good stuff. I'll see you guys in an hour. Your next CNNPolitics.com update just an hour away.
