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CNN Live Saturday

Teens In Danger on the Internet; "Rolling Stone" Releases its Thousandth Issue; Principal Removes Sugar from Her School

Aired May 06, 2006 - 18:30   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening right now in the news. Porter Goss earlier today said he is unwilling to give any details as to why he suddenly resigned as CIA director. Now in the last hour, I talked to a former reporter and author, Ronald Kessler, and he alluded to the way Goss treated people as a problem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD KESSLER, AUTHOR, "INSIDE THE CIA": It was well known there was a huge brain drain of very talented people from the CIA because of the high-handed way that Goss operated. And, yet, it took this long to get rid of him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Administration officials say President Bush will appoint Air Force General Michael Hayden as the new director of the agency.

President Bush delivered the commencement address at Oklahoma State University today. His advice to graduates, embrace modern technology, but don't let it take over your life.

Vice President Cheney will wrap up a three-nation European tour almost a day early. Cheney will return to the U.S. tomorrow afternoon after meeting with Croatia's president.

Five men are in custody after an American Airlines plane landed three hours ago in Newark, New Jersey, today. An Air Force marshal notified the authorities on the ground that he considered them suspicious.

And three workers were killed in Florida today. They were pouring concrete on the 26th floor of a construction site when the floor gave away. Another worker was injured.

Welcome back. The Internet has certainly changed the way we view the world, and it's brought a whole new set of dangers into our homes. Parents need to be savvy about how their kids use computers because a predator could be just a mouse click away. Dan Lothian reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATIE LECLERC, INTERNET SAVVY: Unbelievable the things that these kids are getting into online. DAN LOTHIAN, CNN BOSTON BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Katie Leclerc is an Internet-savvy 23-year-old holding the hands of parents as they take an eye-opening excursion through cyberspace.

LECLERC: So you can really know what's going on.

I don't take it lightly. It's not -- I do say I'm not trying to scare you but it's scary out there. So I'm honest.

LOTHIAN: With the explosion of social networking sites like MySpace and growing concerns over online predators, more and more communities in places like Massachusetts and Florida are finding that parents, not just children, need to be educated.

ERIC WALTON, COMPUTER FORENSIC ANALYST: We want them to be as comfortable as they can be in order to be able to help their kids.

LOTHIAN: Walton is part of a team training parents in Florida. Leclerc works for the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

TOM REILLY, MASSACHUSETTS ATTORNEY GENERAL: We had some cases and then we decided, you know, we better start some education here.

LOTHIAN: So Leclerc was hired full-time to crisscross the state, offering more than just tips and talking points. She logs on to live chat rooms, poses as a 14-year-old blond girl with blue eyes and shows these Massachusetts parents how easy it is for chatter to turn dark and potentially dangerous.

LECLERC: See, I just got offered a cyber sex chat.

LOTHIAN: Then comes this offer.

LECLERC: Any sexy, petite blond or brunette females under 21 want to make a sexy 20-year-old male feel better? I'm really stressed out.

LOTHIAN: Leclerc then goes back and forth, instant messaging a 20-year-old male who jokes he doesn't mind that she's 14.

REILLY: And we show them and they realize what their children have access to.

MARYANNE ELLIS, PARENT: It was wild.

LOTHIAN: Maryanne Ellis, a mom, says she now understands the potential online dangers facing her 17-year-old daughter and others like her.

ELLIS: All her friends have her pictures from a prom on the Internet and they can be tapped into in various places and it's out of her control.

LOTHIAN: This effort isn't aimed at pulling the plug on the Internet or MySpace, just a tool to help parents make good decisions and ask their children the right questions. LECLERC: What are you doing? Who are you're friends? What are you using? Show me how to use it.

LOTHIAN (on camera): All of the sites have safety guidelines, and some have age restrictions. So if your child is too young, then those sites should probably be blocked.

Dan Lothian, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: So those parents actually got to read what their kids were writing online, right? They read it because it was written in English. But what if your teenager is using a whole different language? It's out there? It's called leetspeak made of acronyms and symbols that lots of kids know but parents may not. We want to give you a crash course in some of them.

Grab a pencil and a piece of paper. Take a look at this. If your kid wrote POS or PIR, would you know what it meant? Parents over shoulder, parents in room. P 911, parent alert. PAW, parents are watching. PAL, parents are listening.

In case your teen is warning the person online let's not talk right now. Perry Aftab calls it chat lingo, she is a cyberspace lawyer and founder of teenangels.org. She's in New York. Great to have you.

Very scary. We want to show parents out there and even people who don't have kids because it's fascinating that kids have come up with this language and it's universal. Some of the other acronyms, TDTM talk dirty to me. IWSN, I want sex now. How do these kids make this up?

PARRY AFTAB, CYBERSPACE LAWYER: They do make it up. It's part of what teens have done forever. They come up with their own language. Most of the time chat lingo, leetspeak is a little different, but chat lingo is used as a shortcut so they won't have to type out all of the words when they're typing. It's the language they designed to be just for them and to keep parents out.

LIN: NIFOC, nude in front of computer. Do you actually hear that kids are having these kinds of conversations online? Trying to hide it from their parents?

AFTAB: We actually did a survey in 1999 that showed that 60 percent of the 13 to 16-year-old teens admitted to engaging in cyber sex, called cybering. They're doing it. A lot of the kids who good kids are doing it anyway.

LIN: What is the reaction you get from people when they find out there's this kind of chat lingo?

AFTAB: A lot of confusion. Parents are already confused. Now when they use monitoring software and see what the kids are saying, they still don't understand it. We'll be pulling together a summit on June 20th where all of the big social networks and big ISPs will be there in one place where my teen angels, my wire safety volunteers, law enforcement and regulators will sit down and come up with a solution so parents won't be as frightened and the kids will be a little safer.

LIN: Kids have their own lingo because they don't want parents to know. How do you bridge the gap?

AFTAB: They don't want parents to know and that's OK. We don't put a video camera on our children's shoulders every time they leave the house. Most of this is about communication. Talk to your kids about what they're doing, who they're talking to. The Massachusetts attorney general has a great program. I met that woman. She is unbelievable. Go to a session. Go to wiredsafety.org, ask us if we have one in your area or create a Teen Angels chapter.

LIN: Because, I can't remember which Web site of yours that I went to, but one of them actually had a dialogue between a predator and a young girl and how easily girls or, you know, kids can give out information about themselves and how the predator lures them into a situation. That dialogue there I think is really telling. It would be great for families to sit down and read that together because that's real what you just put out there.

AFTAB: It is real and everything we do at wired safety is free. We have 11,000 unpaid volunteers all over the world. You've read it and hopefully others will. That was at wiredsafety.org site.

LIN: PAW, parents are watching, let's hope so. Thanks very much.

AFTAB: Thanks a lot.

LIN: In other news across America now -- we have seen two days of heavy storms in Texas and thousands of people have lost power tonight. Lots of motorists in need of rescuing after getting stranded in high water.

Take a look what's happening in Florida. Firefighters are finally getting the upper hand on a huge brush fire. People evacuated from six homes were allowed to go home today but 1,000 acres have burned so far.

In Tennessee, a student from a bible college confesses to setting fire to an adult book store. Police say Benjamin Warren claims he set the fire in January to serve God, but later realized it was a sin.

Every week, we like to bring you the personal stories from the front lines. Today, a story about a soldier's love for his mother, a love so strong he couldn't bear to tell her that he was headed back into harm's way. Here is CNN's Alina Cho.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Jose Gomez loved his mother so much he worried for her, so much that when he found out he had to return to Iraq for a second tour of duty, he kept it a secret. His mother knew about the first tour. But for the second, Gomez told her he had left New York to take classes in Texas.

MARIA GOMEZ, SLAIN SOLDIER'S MOTHER (through translator): He would tell me, mama, I'm going to study so you will be well, so you won't have to work. Maria Gomez said it was just like her son to say that, and she had no reason to doubt him.

Then the news: Last Friday, Maria came home from work and found two members of the Army's notification team waiting on her doorstep.

GOMEZ (through translator): When we went upstairs, he said, sit down. And I replied, no, you please, sit down. When he said no, sit down, I have some bad news. Then he told me, your son died. At that moment, I thought I was going to die.

CHO: Gomez said she couldn't believe it, and won't until her son's body comes home.

GOMEZ (through translator): I still don't believe it's true.

CHO: Felix Jimenez is Gomez's stepfather.

FELIX JIMENEZ, SLAIN SOLDIER'S STEPFATHER (through translator): He was a great kid, great.

CHO: Jose Gomez and his mother came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic when he was three, shortly after his father died. Last week, Sergeant Gomez was on routine patrol in Baghdad when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee. The 23-year- old was one of two soldiers killed.

But the story doesn't end there. Gomez's death comes three years after the death of his then-fiance, who died under similar circumstances. Twenty-one-year-old Anna Lori Esparza Gutierrez (ph) was an Army private. She died in an IED attack in Tikrit in 2003, the second female soldier killed in Iraq. The two met during Gomez's first tour of duty. They got engaged there. Gomez came home for her funeral.

In time, he met another woman, and asked her to marry him just before leaving for his second tour. His mother said he called her every Saturday.

GOMEZ (through translator): He did everything for me. I lived for him. He lived for me.

CHO: Gomez said in his last call to her, he told her he'd have a surprise for her. He was talking about Mother's Day.

GOMEZ (through translator): I feel like I'm already dead.

CHO: Gomez was a U.S. resident before leaving for Iraq. The Pentagon says it's possible posthumously he'll become a U.S. citizen. Alina Cho, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Coming up, sugar-laden soft drinks expelled from U.S. schools all in the name of fighting childhood obesity. But should sugar free food be mandatory too? That's next.

"Rolling Stone" magazine, 1,000 issues later. CNN speaks with its editor and publisher.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT: You're now going to have people maxing out at about 100 calories who could have gotten drinks that had 250 to 300 calories in it. Let me tell you what that means for this obesity issue. If an eight year old child consumes 45 fewer calories a day every day for a decade, when the child graduates from high school, he or she will weigh 20 pounds less.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Wow! trimmer and healthier kids, a goal former president Bill Clinton went after and he got. His foundation helped broker a deal with soda dealers to pull sugary sodas out of the nation's school. Cheering that on, the author of this book, "Healthy Kids, Smart Kids." Besides being a writer, Yvonne Sanders-Butler is an elementary school principal, the first principal to have a completely sugar-free school.

Inconceivable. For anybody who has been in a school, you've got the cinnamon rolls, the soda, the advertising now in school. When you made this decision and announced it, did you tell the parents or the students first?

YVONNE SANDERS-BUTLER, PRINCIPAL, BROWNS MIDDLE SCHOOL: Well, I told the parents first.

LIN: What was their reaction?

SANDERS-BUTLER Basically, I told them in a PTA meeting. And they were sort of concerned about it, because most parents are addicted to sugar like children.

LIN: They want to drink soda, too.

SANDERS-BUTLER Like I did. So they were concerned because they had never heard of that before. But I shared with them the concerns and the research that this was the first generation of children that basically would die before their parents. And they were overwhelmed by that.

I just shared with them that we had 55 million school-age children between five and 19 years of age and out of 55 million school-age children, nine million were already overweight or obese. That meant one out of four of those children was at risk of having heart disease. LIN: So there was initially some push-back, concern?

SANDERS-BUTLER Yes, yes.

LIN: What does that mean for me?

SANDERS-BUTLER Yes.

LIN: What does a sugar-free school mean?

SANDERS-BUTLER Basically we look at behavior development. We pretty much removed everything that we knew, sugar, sodas, cakes.

LIN: Cakes?

SANDERS-BUTLER Ice cream.

LIN: Ice cream? That even counted? Not even as a dairy product?

SANDERS-BUTLER It might have but it was still considered something that children like to binge on.

LIN: What are you feeding these kids?

SANDERS-BUTLER Well, we're feeding them healthy lunches and breakfasts now.

LIN: I want to let the audience know we're putting up some ideas of, instead of eating tune in oil, eat tuna in water. Go ahead.

SANDERS-BUTLER A normal breakfast with pancakes. Of course you have it with syrup and you could have milk, chocolate or plain milk. We might have something, a pastry along with that. Now what we have, we have yogurt. They have bagels. They have organic cereal. And we even have a choice of having soy milk now.

LIN: At one point -- because it's more expensive to buy healthier foods. You put your own money into this?

SANDERS-BUTLER Yes.

LIN: How much?

SANDERS-BUTLER Probably to develop this program, $150,000.

LIN: Of your own money?

SANDERS-BUTLER Yes.

LIN: What are you getting back?

SANDERS-BUTLER First of all, we're getting healthier children in our school. I'm able to spread that message throughout this country and helping to educate parents about the woes of poor nutrition and little or no exercise. LIN: You are living it, because you have dealt with your own weight problem.

SANDERS-BUTLER Yes.

LIN: As a young person. What a great role model for these kids. Congratulations.

SANDERS-BUTLER Thank you.

LIN: I am going to keep some of these recipes.

Well, the voice of a rebel generation hits middle age. "Rolling Stone" magazine, almost 40 years and a thousand issues old. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: A milestone for a pop culture icon. "Rolling Stone" is rolling out its 1,000th cover. Take a look from "ANDERSON COOPER 360."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JANN WENNER, EDITOR, PUBLISHER, "ROLLING STONE": The idea of "Rolling Stone" started because I was a music fan and I was a 21 years old college dropout and didn't have anything else to do.

What I wrote in the first issues was not only about that but about changes in the attitude and social change that the music embraced because we felt music stood for something and had a purpose, had a social purpose.

These were the days of The Beatles and Bob Dylan and so-called protest music and the big social evolution.

The first cover was John Lennon. And it was a publicity on the movie he made. Really we chose it because that's all we had laying around at the moment. Given the power of that picture and the event of his death, which that picture was about, there was no need for a headline on that cover. I think that was a really smart decision. There was nothing that needed to be said. There was no word more powerful.

Madonna is an artist who has changed her image and her look every couple of years. And she's very, very involved with her imagery and with the photographers and what she's going to wear and what she's going to say.

"Rolling Stone" has a tradition that's been going on for years since Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died in 1968 or '69, the tribute issue, where the cover is an image that's simple, just one person. And generally speaking, the only thing on the cover that person's name and date.

In terms of controversial, there Billy Idol, here he is in kind of a leather outfit with crosses and kind of S&M. You just know that's going to be controversial, that's going to sell.

Janet Jackson's representatives came in one day and said, we have a picture that maybe you'd want to consider for the cover and they pull out this picture of her naked with her boyfriend's hands over his breasts. Stunning, provocative. Of course, no question about it.

The Kanye West cover is great. Him, as with the crown of thorns, is it controversial? I guess sort of in a small way. But not terrifically. But it was a really beautiful looking image.

"Rolling Stone"'s other specialty because of music and culture has been politics. We've covered quite a bit. We've had many presidents on the cover. Generally they're Democrats, the ones we like. I think the only Republicans we've had have been Nixon, when he quit, and recently Bush when he's about to quit.

This is always a trip down memory lane, the wall of covers or sometimes we call it the wall of shame. You can get lost in here for days. Thinking about stories, thinking about old times, thinking about how beautiful we all were looking when we were young. You know. And you can see a history of our times, a history of our culture.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Anderson Cooper has his finger on the pulse of American pop culture, so you can watch "AC 360" week nights at 10:00 p.m. eastern.

Much more tonight on CNN. Up next, "CNN PRESENTS: A Death in Belmont." A brutal murder, a conviction. Was the Boston Strangler the real killer? Then at 8:00 eastern, "CNN Presents: Homicide in Hollenbeck," inside a Los Angeles community where gangs rule the streets.

At 9:00, "LARRY KING LIVE." Tonight's former president Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis shares her memories. A final check of the headlines next and then "CNN PRESENTS."

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