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Performance in Atlanta to Honor Martin Luther King; Religious Leaders Discuss Tsunami; Scientists View First Images from Saturn's Moon Titan

Aired January 14, 2005 - 14:30   ET

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

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


BETTY NGUYEN, CO-HOST: Now in the news. Corona, California, residents are being evacuated as water seeps through a crack in the dam on the Green River. There are about 840 houses in the immediate area, half of them mobile homes. Officials say there is no immediate danger to anyone.
Touchdown. Earthlings are beginning to learn some of Titan's secrets. The Huygens probe is sending information from the surface of Titan, one of Saturn's moon, back to Earth. Radio telescopes have confirmed the probe made it safely to the moon's icy surface this morning.

Now, Miles O'Brien will have a full report with the latest pictures. That will happen in about 12 minutes.

Meantime, a huge warehouse is on fire in west Baltimore. Look at these pictures. A building covering four blocks used to store Styrofoam products. About 175 firefighters are fighting the flames, some shooting as high as 100 feet into the air. There are no reports of any injuries.

And one step forward, two steps back. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is cutting ties with recently elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The move comes a day after Palestinian militants killed six Israeli civilians at a Gaza Strip crossing. Mr. Sharon says there will be no contact until action is taken against the militants.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CO-HOST: America celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day this weekend through Monday. But events marking the holiday have been taking place all day today here in King's hometown of Atlanta.

And, tonight, a special performance of "Speak Truth to Power," a play adapted from Kerry Kennedy's profile of human rights activists around the world. Among those appearing in tonight's performance, actress Alfre Woodard, and she's joining us now from Atlanta from the historic Ebenezer Church.

Good to see you, Alfre.

ALFRE WOODARD, ACTRESS: Hi, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, tonight's performance really is something special, because not only is it commemorating Martin Luther King's birth, but it's also acknowledging the acceptance of his Nobel Peace Prize, isn't it? Kind of paint a picture for us of what's going to take place for those invited guests tonight.

WOODARD: Well, I'm here with Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Bob Herbert, a host of people -- of course, I'm forgetting them now and keep thinking as I go along.

But -- but we're here reading the play, "Speak Truth to Power," that Ariel Dorfman wrote, composed out of the interviews that Kerry Kennedy did in her book, "Speak Truth to Power."

What we're going to do tonight is we'll have a reading of those -- of those defenders' stories. And there will be images from the book projected up onto the wall.

One of the things that's really important is they all talk about this sense of -- of courage. We think that people have to muster this courage or you need some sort of credentials to be able to dig that deep, but it's really the stories of ordinary people who could not stand by when injustice was being committed to other people, usually, and then they put themselves on the line.

Most of them were imprisoned and tortured, but, yet, they kept telling the truth. They kept speaking truth to power. And so that's what we're here celebrating.

We think of them as the Martin Luther Kings of our day. Certainly they are a generation that was affected by Dr. King's words. And it's just amazing that we are able to do this in historic Ebenezer Baptist Church tonight.

So it's a very emotional, very important time for everybody. So we're -- we're excited to be able to do it.

WHITFIELD: And these defenders represent some 40 countries and six continents, don't they? And this has to really ring true to you in terms of your personal involvement in what is turning out to be a historic moment, bringing together all these stars this evening. And -- and this event taking place in a historic place like Ebenezer Church, where Martin Luther King co-pastored?

WOODARD: You know, I think now, more than ever, we need -- globally, we need, all the way down to locally -- we need to stand up as individuals and speak truth to power. Whether that power is our -- is within our own households.

Speaking truth. We're not talking about raising up arms against it. Because truth is a very powerful weapon. We've learned that through the ages and that was the bedrock of Dr. King's philosophy.

But also speaking truth to our own government, making sure that we are looking out for other people around us who have been overwhelmed by -- by authority that does not honor their -- their human rights.

Whether -- again, whether it's in our cities, whether it's in the fact that there are so many children in our country going to bed hungry. Whether it's the fact that so many people are being incarcerated. All these things. You don't even have to get global.

But if we start to think locally, it is just such a reminder of how much power we have. Not only power to speak the truth, but the responsibility to do it and how much joy comes of it.

I'll tell you something. I did this back in 2000 at the Kennedy Center when all of the defenders were there. And I expected to see these tortured, you know, people come through. I've never been around a much -- so joyous a gathering of people. They all have this sensibility.

So I think one of the things in confronting injustice anywhere is to really be grounded in -- in caring about people and things outside of yourself. And there's so much joy that come from that and so much satisfaction and a clear purpose in life.

And so it's always really regenerating to be around people who do that, to come into a place where, the birthplace, as we know it in modern America, is in this church. So I am learning and drawing a lot from the people around me right now.

WHITFIELD: And so I understand you're prepared to perhaps give us a little taste of one of the readings that you might be doing this evening of one of the defenders?

WOODARD: You know what? I have this one, Fredricka. Let me read you a bit of this one.

WHITFIELD: OK.

WOODARD: My name is Arana Husseini (ph). I am a journalist. In the name of honor, a 16-year-old girl here in Jordan was killed by her family because she was raped by her brother.

When I went to investigate the crime, I met with her two uncles. Why was it her fault that she has been raped? Why didn't the family punish the brother? They answered that she had seduced her brother.

"She seduced her brother, we said to Arana Husseini (ph)." Those are the police.

I asked him why would millions of men on the street with a girl choose to seduce her own brother? They only repeated that she had tarnished the family image by committing an immoral act. The only way to rectify the family's honor is have her killed. Blood cleanses honor.

The average term served for honor killings is only 7 1/months, but it's important to note that the people who commit these crimes are also victims. If you don't kill, you're responsible for your family's dishonor. If you do kill, you will be a hero.

That's one instance, but there's also -- there's as many people as there are in the world, there are countless stories of injustice, inhumanity going on constantly. Some even in our own name, in the name of American citizens and with our tax dollars.

So what we have to do as individuals is be very vigilant and really speak up. Because all you have to do is put yourself in that person's place. Because usually when something happens to you, you're so bowled over you don't know how to respond you.

But that's one of the things -- and that's right along not only the doctrine of brotherhood that Dr. King preached, but it's also the gospel of -- the gospel of love and of Christianity and of Islam and of Judaism and of Hinduism. That is -- that is the doctrine that all of our philosophies, our spiritual philosophies teach us.

WHITFIELD: Alfre...

WOODARD: We have to look out for each other.

WHITFIELD: Alfre Woodard giving us a little sample there of the powerful readings depicting these powerful figures, all of them, Nobel Peace Prize winners. All being portrayed this evening in this special "Speak Truth to Power" at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta this evening.

And of course, through March, apparently, the photo exhibit will be on display, as well, at the Martin Luther King Exhibition Center.

Thanks so much for joining us.

WOODARD: Thank you, Fredricka. And for those who are not in Atlanta, you can always get "Speak Truth to Power," the book, from your bookstores.

WHITFIELD: And Kerry Kennedy is the author. Thanks so much, Alfre.

WOODARD: You're welcome. Thanks.

WHITFIELD: All right -- Betty.

NGUYEN: And we expect to see the first pictures from Titan, Saturn's moon, in just a few minutes. Miles is standing by to show us those pictures.

Plus, there is new video from the day that tsunami hit. That's next.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: The images will be etched in our minds forever: huge waves pounding resorts and villages in South Asia.

This footage, as you're about to see, was shot by an Australian survivor. It shows tsunami waves hitting Patang Beach in Phuket, Thailand. The video was shot from a balcony overlooking the beach. Thousands lost their lives in Thailand, many of them tourists.

Well, the total number killed, more than 152,000, is just staggering. The devastation unimaginable. The suffering, incalculable. The sheer scale of the disaster is prompting some to question their faith in God.

CNN's John Vause has been talking to some religious leaders in Jerusalem, a city that is home to three of the world's great faiths.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): a question for the faithful everywhere: did God really do this? For religious scholars here in Jerusalem, a city seen as holy by three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, no simple answers.

RABBI DAVID HARTMAN, PHILOSOPHER: I have no explanation about what does God do or how does God rule the universe or try to, in some way, figure out God. I have enough difficulty trying to figure out who are human beings.

VAUSE: David Hartman is a rabbi and philosopher. Jews, he says, must find meaning in making an imperfect world a better place.

HARTMAN: For me, it is not the question of God is punishing us for our since. The Jewish tradition suffering is not itself a purification. It's what you do with that suffering. Or how you respond to it and how you change your life because of it.

VAUSE: Father David Neuhaus, a Jesuit who prepares men for the priesthood, has no easy answers either, but of one thing he is certain.

FATHER DAVID NEUHAUS, JESUIT PRIEST: And this can, in no way, be related directly to human sinfulness.

VAUSE: And asking, "Why, God," he says, is, in itself, enough.

NEUHAUS: The believer who cries out to God or cries out even against God is affirming that God is there. Crying out one's pain, crying out one's anger is a fundamental affirmation that we are here and God is with us.

VAUSE: For Muslims, though, that question cannot even be asked, much like the writings in the book of Job.

MUSTAFA ABU SWAY, ISLAMIC SCHOLAR: In fact, a verse in the Quran that states in clear-cut terms that it is us who will be questioned and it is not God.

VAUSE: Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway is a teacher of Islamic studies at al-Kuds (ph) university. He says the fatalistic approach of Islam brings a certain level of comfort.

ABU SWAY: Islam is a religion of submission to the will of God. That gives you a certain sense of relief to understand that God is taking care of us, despite what's happening.

VAUSE: But what happened in South Asia has tested the faithful.

(on camera) The question "where was God" or "how could God," is as old as religion itself. And the best answer, it seems, is this. If the tsunami was an act of God, then the kindness, help, and generosity from around the world is his work, as well.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Flashback seven years: liftoff from Earth of the Cassini space probe. You may not remember that day exactly, but scientists at NASA and in Europe have not forgotten. They're celebrating today, in fact, having safely landed a man-made gadget further from Earth than ever before.

Plenty to talk about. CNN's resident stargazer, Miles O'Brien, has the big news from space today. Or at least he's here on Earth. The news is about space -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Would that I could be there.

What a long strange trip it has been, Fredricka: in excess of three billion miles traveled in all. Right now, Titan is about 750 million miles away from us, and that is precisely where the Huygens probe now sits, 67 light minutes from here. So whatever has happened on the surface of Titan, that we are receiving now, left a little more than an hour ago.

Live pictures now of the control room there, at the European Space Agency, Darmstadt, Germany. We expect to get the first indications, the first preliminary pictures from this descent into the murky haze of Titan which occurred earlier this morning.

The haze, of course, is what has added to the mystery of this, the second largest moon in our solar system. No one is certain what is on the surface. They think is might certainly have some continental type features.

It might also have some lakes of methane. As a matter of fact, see that very dark area right there in the center of this picture. It's believed that is a continent called Xanadu.

Of course, what you see is very clear, is that kind of blue haze, which surrounds Titan and causes a lot of this mystery.

As we wait for those first pictures to come in, we are joined by Carolyn Porco, who is with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Cassini team. She's on the Cassini imaging team. And she doesn't have a direct role today because the European Space Agency, of course, is what designed and flew the Huygens probe.

Good to have you with us, Doctor Porco. And you are watching this as a very interested observer today. Tell me what you've seen and what the mood has been there as, so far, so good, one little communication glitch, but, so far, all of that data has been coming in.

CAROLYN PORCO, CASSINI IMAGING TEAM: It has been just a very emotional experience for many of us. And even though I'm not directly involved, I am just enormously happy for our European colleagues, who successfully built and delivered to Titan a probe that has now landed on the surface.

It was piggybacked on the Cassini orbiter, separated from the orbiter at Christmas, spent three weeks traveling to Titan on its own. And it is now on the surface. So we can now look at Saturn in the night sky and know that we have been there. We have left our mark.

And the solar system has become now a very much smaller place, and that is a very big thing.

O'BRIEN: It's been now, I guess, about three, four hours since the data started streaming in, Carolyn. And so far, is there any indication that there's going to be any problems seeing some images fairly soon? Do you know yet?

PORCO: Oh, I'm fairly certain there's been no technical problem with getting the images down. It's just that the team needs to do a lot of work to process them so that they look like something when we take a look.

And I'm also glancing every now and again at the monitor here to see myself, if they've produced anything. So I'm eagerly awaiting because I lead the team of scientists on the orbiter who take the pictures.

We've been taking pictures successfully of Titan now ever since July, but we are having a very hard time understanding this very puzzling object. We see shades of bright and dark, but we cannot really understand the geology yet. And we are desperately hoping for the data from the probe to give us a close look, kind of what we call ground truth, to help us interpret our own data.

So we're -- any minute now, we should see what they have seen on the surface of Titan.

O'BRIEN: Carolyn Porco, who is with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

We're going to take a break. Our international viewers have joined us along for the ride here. I've got a few butterflies. If I've got them, I know Carolyn Porco and her team do, too, right now as we wait for the images to come in.

Stay tuned all around the world and be the first to see the images from the surface of Titan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: You may not know his name or even his face, but, today, raise a glass of milk to the memory of Jay Schulberg.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today's $10,000 question, who shot Alexander Hamilton in that famous duel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, for $10,000...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aaron Burr.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on. A glass of milk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, your time is up!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Remember that? Well, the creator of the wildly successful "Got milk?" ad campaigns died this week. Schulberg elevated milk from something your mother made you drink to almost fashionable heights by putting milk mustaches on the famous and the beautiful. The phrase "Got milk?" and the mustache became an indelible part of American culture.

Schulberg spearheaded other famous campaigns as well, like "Don't leave home without it" for American Express.

Jay Schulberg died of cancer Tuesday. He was 65.

NGUYEN: I remember all of those campaigns.

Unhealthy food choices are still available at school, but kids might see a red flag before they decide to get a bag of potato chips. That is part of the vending machine industry's new push.

WHITFIELD: Kathleen Hays joins us again from New York Stock Exchange with more on that.

Hi again, Kathleen.

(STOCK REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Thank you so much.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com


Aired January 14, 2005 - 14:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BETTY NGUYEN, CO-HOST: Now in the news. Corona, California, residents are being evacuated as water seeps through a crack in the dam on the Green River. There are about 840 houses in the immediate area, half of them mobile homes. Officials say there is no immediate danger to anyone.
Touchdown. Earthlings are beginning to learn some of Titan's secrets. The Huygens probe is sending information from the surface of Titan, one of Saturn's moon, back to Earth. Radio telescopes have confirmed the probe made it safely to the moon's icy surface this morning.

Now, Miles O'Brien will have a full report with the latest pictures. That will happen in about 12 minutes.

Meantime, a huge warehouse is on fire in west Baltimore. Look at these pictures. A building covering four blocks used to store Styrofoam products. About 175 firefighters are fighting the flames, some shooting as high as 100 feet into the air. There are no reports of any injuries.

And one step forward, two steps back. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is cutting ties with recently elected Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. The move comes a day after Palestinian militants killed six Israeli civilians at a Gaza Strip crossing. Mr. Sharon says there will be no contact until action is taken against the militants.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CO-HOST: America celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day this weekend through Monday. But events marking the holiday have been taking place all day today here in King's hometown of Atlanta.

And, tonight, a special performance of "Speak Truth to Power," a play adapted from Kerry Kennedy's profile of human rights activists around the world. Among those appearing in tonight's performance, actress Alfre Woodard, and she's joining us now from Atlanta from the historic Ebenezer Church.

Good to see you, Alfre.

ALFRE WOODARD, ACTRESS: Hi, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Well, tonight's performance really is something special, because not only is it commemorating Martin Luther King's birth, but it's also acknowledging the acceptance of his Nobel Peace Prize, isn't it? Kind of paint a picture for us of what's going to take place for those invited guests tonight.

WOODARD: Well, I'm here with Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn, Bob Herbert, a host of people -- of course, I'm forgetting them now and keep thinking as I go along.

But -- but we're here reading the play, "Speak Truth to Power," that Ariel Dorfman wrote, composed out of the interviews that Kerry Kennedy did in her book, "Speak Truth to Power."

What we're going to do tonight is we'll have a reading of those -- of those defenders' stories. And there will be images from the book projected up onto the wall.

One of the things that's really important is they all talk about this sense of -- of courage. We think that people have to muster this courage or you need some sort of credentials to be able to dig that deep, but it's really the stories of ordinary people who could not stand by when injustice was being committed to other people, usually, and then they put themselves on the line.

Most of them were imprisoned and tortured, but, yet, they kept telling the truth. They kept speaking truth to power. And so that's what we're here celebrating.

We think of them as the Martin Luther Kings of our day. Certainly they are a generation that was affected by Dr. King's words. And it's just amazing that we are able to do this in historic Ebenezer Baptist Church tonight.

So it's a very emotional, very important time for everybody. So we're -- we're excited to be able to do it.

WHITFIELD: And these defenders represent some 40 countries and six continents, don't they? And this has to really ring true to you in terms of your personal involvement in what is turning out to be a historic moment, bringing together all these stars this evening. And -- and this event taking place in a historic place like Ebenezer Church, where Martin Luther King co-pastored?

WOODARD: You know, I think now, more than ever, we need -- globally, we need, all the way down to locally -- we need to stand up as individuals and speak truth to power. Whether that power is our -- is within our own households.

Speaking truth. We're not talking about raising up arms against it. Because truth is a very powerful weapon. We've learned that through the ages and that was the bedrock of Dr. King's philosophy.

But also speaking truth to our own government, making sure that we are looking out for other people around us who have been overwhelmed by -- by authority that does not honor their -- their human rights.

Whether -- again, whether it's in our cities, whether it's in the fact that there are so many children in our country going to bed hungry. Whether it's the fact that so many people are being incarcerated. All these things. You don't even have to get global.

But if we start to think locally, it is just such a reminder of how much power we have. Not only power to speak the truth, but the responsibility to do it and how much joy comes of it.

I'll tell you something. I did this back in 2000 at the Kennedy Center when all of the defenders were there. And I expected to see these tortured, you know, people come through. I've never been around a much -- so joyous a gathering of people. They all have this sensibility.

So I think one of the things in confronting injustice anywhere is to really be grounded in -- in caring about people and things outside of yourself. And there's so much joy that come from that and so much satisfaction and a clear purpose in life.

And so it's always really regenerating to be around people who do that, to come into a place where, the birthplace, as we know it in modern America, is in this church. So I am learning and drawing a lot from the people around me right now.

WHITFIELD: And so I understand you're prepared to perhaps give us a little taste of one of the readings that you might be doing this evening of one of the defenders?

WOODARD: You know what? I have this one, Fredricka. Let me read you a bit of this one.

WHITFIELD: OK.

WOODARD: My name is Arana Husseini (ph). I am a journalist. In the name of honor, a 16-year-old girl here in Jordan was killed by her family because she was raped by her brother.

When I went to investigate the crime, I met with her two uncles. Why was it her fault that she has been raped? Why didn't the family punish the brother? They answered that she had seduced her brother.

"She seduced her brother, we said to Arana Husseini (ph)." Those are the police.

I asked him why would millions of men on the street with a girl choose to seduce her own brother? They only repeated that she had tarnished the family image by committing an immoral act. The only way to rectify the family's honor is have her killed. Blood cleanses honor.

The average term served for honor killings is only 7 1/months, but it's important to note that the people who commit these crimes are also victims. If you don't kill, you're responsible for your family's dishonor. If you do kill, you will be a hero.

That's one instance, but there's also -- there's as many people as there are in the world, there are countless stories of injustice, inhumanity going on constantly. Some even in our own name, in the name of American citizens and with our tax dollars.

So what we have to do as individuals is be very vigilant and really speak up. Because all you have to do is put yourself in that person's place. Because usually when something happens to you, you're so bowled over you don't know how to respond you.

But that's one of the things -- and that's right along not only the doctrine of brotherhood that Dr. King preached, but it's also the gospel of -- the gospel of love and of Christianity and of Islam and of Judaism and of Hinduism. That is -- that is the doctrine that all of our philosophies, our spiritual philosophies teach us.

WHITFIELD: Alfre...

WOODARD: We have to look out for each other.

WHITFIELD: Alfre Woodard giving us a little sample there of the powerful readings depicting these powerful figures, all of them, Nobel Peace Prize winners. All being portrayed this evening in this special "Speak Truth to Power" at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta this evening.

And of course, through March, apparently, the photo exhibit will be on display, as well, at the Martin Luther King Exhibition Center.

Thanks so much for joining us.

WOODARD: Thank you, Fredricka. And for those who are not in Atlanta, you can always get "Speak Truth to Power," the book, from your bookstores.

WHITFIELD: And Kerry Kennedy is the author. Thanks so much, Alfre.

WOODARD: You're welcome. Thanks.

WHITFIELD: All right -- Betty.

NGUYEN: And we expect to see the first pictures from Titan, Saturn's moon, in just a few minutes. Miles is standing by to show us those pictures.

Plus, there is new video from the day that tsunami hit. That's next.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: The images will be etched in our minds forever: huge waves pounding resorts and villages in South Asia.

This footage, as you're about to see, was shot by an Australian survivor. It shows tsunami waves hitting Patang Beach in Phuket, Thailand. The video was shot from a balcony overlooking the beach. Thousands lost their lives in Thailand, many of them tourists.

Well, the total number killed, more than 152,000, is just staggering. The devastation unimaginable. The suffering, incalculable. The sheer scale of the disaster is prompting some to question their faith in God.

CNN's John Vause has been talking to some religious leaders in Jerusalem, a city that is home to three of the world's great faiths.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): a question for the faithful everywhere: did God really do this? For religious scholars here in Jerusalem, a city seen as holy by three monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, no simple answers.

RABBI DAVID HARTMAN, PHILOSOPHER: I have no explanation about what does God do or how does God rule the universe or try to, in some way, figure out God. I have enough difficulty trying to figure out who are human beings.

VAUSE: David Hartman is a rabbi and philosopher. Jews, he says, must find meaning in making an imperfect world a better place.

HARTMAN: For me, it is not the question of God is punishing us for our since. The Jewish tradition suffering is not itself a purification. It's what you do with that suffering. Or how you respond to it and how you change your life because of it.

VAUSE: Father David Neuhaus, a Jesuit who prepares men for the priesthood, has no easy answers either, but of one thing he is certain.

FATHER DAVID NEUHAUS, JESUIT PRIEST: And this can, in no way, be related directly to human sinfulness.

VAUSE: And asking, "Why, God," he says, is, in itself, enough.

NEUHAUS: The believer who cries out to God or cries out even against God is affirming that God is there. Crying out one's pain, crying out one's anger is a fundamental affirmation that we are here and God is with us.

VAUSE: For Muslims, though, that question cannot even be asked, much like the writings in the book of Job.

MUSTAFA ABU SWAY, ISLAMIC SCHOLAR: In fact, a verse in the Quran that states in clear-cut terms that it is us who will be questioned and it is not God.

VAUSE: Dr. Mustafa Abu Sway is a teacher of Islamic studies at al-Kuds (ph) university. He says the fatalistic approach of Islam brings a certain level of comfort.

ABU SWAY: Islam is a religion of submission to the will of God. That gives you a certain sense of relief to understand that God is taking care of us, despite what's happening.

VAUSE: But what happened in South Asia has tested the faithful.

(on camera) The question "where was God" or "how could God," is as old as religion itself. And the best answer, it seems, is this. If the tsunami was an act of God, then the kindness, help, and generosity from around the world is his work, as well.

John Vause, CNN, Jerusalem.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Flashback seven years: liftoff from Earth of the Cassini space probe. You may not remember that day exactly, but scientists at NASA and in Europe have not forgotten. They're celebrating today, in fact, having safely landed a man-made gadget further from Earth than ever before.

Plenty to talk about. CNN's resident stargazer, Miles O'Brien, has the big news from space today. Or at least he's here on Earth. The news is about space -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Would that I could be there.

What a long strange trip it has been, Fredricka: in excess of three billion miles traveled in all. Right now, Titan is about 750 million miles away from us, and that is precisely where the Huygens probe now sits, 67 light minutes from here. So whatever has happened on the surface of Titan, that we are receiving now, left a little more than an hour ago.

Live pictures now of the control room there, at the European Space Agency, Darmstadt, Germany. We expect to get the first indications, the first preliminary pictures from this descent into the murky haze of Titan which occurred earlier this morning.

The haze, of course, is what has added to the mystery of this, the second largest moon in our solar system. No one is certain what is on the surface. They think is might certainly have some continental type features.

It might also have some lakes of methane. As a matter of fact, see that very dark area right there in the center of this picture. It's believed that is a continent called Xanadu.

Of course, what you see is very clear, is that kind of blue haze, which surrounds Titan and causes a lot of this mystery.

As we wait for those first pictures to come in, we are joined by Carolyn Porco, who is with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Cassini team. She's on the Cassini imaging team. And she doesn't have a direct role today because the European Space Agency, of course, is what designed and flew the Huygens probe.

Good to have you with us, Doctor Porco. And you are watching this as a very interested observer today. Tell me what you've seen and what the mood has been there as, so far, so good, one little communication glitch, but, so far, all of that data has been coming in.

CAROLYN PORCO, CASSINI IMAGING TEAM: It has been just a very emotional experience for many of us. And even though I'm not directly involved, I am just enormously happy for our European colleagues, who successfully built and delivered to Titan a probe that has now landed on the surface.

It was piggybacked on the Cassini orbiter, separated from the orbiter at Christmas, spent three weeks traveling to Titan on its own. And it is now on the surface. So we can now look at Saturn in the night sky and know that we have been there. We have left our mark.

And the solar system has become now a very much smaller place, and that is a very big thing.

O'BRIEN: It's been now, I guess, about three, four hours since the data started streaming in, Carolyn. And so far, is there any indication that there's going to be any problems seeing some images fairly soon? Do you know yet?

PORCO: Oh, I'm fairly certain there's been no technical problem with getting the images down. It's just that the team needs to do a lot of work to process them so that they look like something when we take a look.

And I'm also glancing every now and again at the monitor here to see myself, if they've produced anything. So I'm eagerly awaiting because I lead the team of scientists on the orbiter who take the pictures.

We've been taking pictures successfully of Titan now ever since July, but we are having a very hard time understanding this very puzzling object. We see shades of bright and dark, but we cannot really understand the geology yet. And we are desperately hoping for the data from the probe to give us a close look, kind of what we call ground truth, to help us interpret our own data.

So we're -- any minute now, we should see what they have seen on the surface of Titan.

O'BRIEN: Carolyn Porco, who is with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

We're going to take a break. Our international viewers have joined us along for the ride here. I've got a few butterflies. If I've got them, I know Carolyn Porco and her team do, too, right now as we wait for the images to come in.

Stay tuned all around the world and be the first to see the images from the surface of Titan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) WHITFIELD: You may not know his name or even his face, but, today, raise a glass of milk to the memory of Jay Schulberg.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Today's $10,000 question, who shot Alexander Hamilton in that famous duel?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello, for $10,000...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aaron Burr.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Excuse me?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold on. A glass of milk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm sorry, your time is up!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Remember that? Well, the creator of the wildly successful "Got milk?" ad campaigns died this week. Schulberg elevated milk from something your mother made you drink to almost fashionable heights by putting milk mustaches on the famous and the beautiful. The phrase "Got milk?" and the mustache became an indelible part of American culture.

Schulberg spearheaded other famous campaigns as well, like "Don't leave home without it" for American Express.

Jay Schulberg died of cancer Tuesday. He was 65.

NGUYEN: I remember all of those campaigns.

Unhealthy food choices are still available at school, but kids might see a red flag before they decide to get a bag of potato chips. That is part of the vending machine industry's new push.

WHITFIELD: Kathleen Hays joins us again from New York Stock Exchange with more on that.

Hi again, Kathleen.

(STOCK REPORT)

WHITFIELD: Thank you so much.

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