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CNN Saturday Morning News

Bahrain's Fast-Moving Developments; House Trims $60M in Marathon All-Night Session; Where to Live to Live Longer and Happier; Charlie Sheen Offers Advice on Drug Use;

Aired February 19, 2011 - 09:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

Fast-moving developments in Bahrain, the latest Arab country caught up in a wave of revolution. Tear gas released, protesters shot; a night and day of chaos for a close American ally. We'll have the very latest.

We'll catch up with an icon, who has had a front-row seat to some of the biggest moments in the civil rights struggle. But what was the most powerful influential moment for Reverend Joseph Lowery? He'll tell us about that and about his new book later this hour.

And would you rather live longer or live happier? Are there secrets to accomplishing both? That is straight ahead in our health tracker interview. It is early and we're on it.

From CNN Center, this is SATURDAY MORNING. It's February 19th, good morning, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye.

We've had some breaking news in the Middle East, in Bahrain, actually. And we want to get you straight to Tim Lister who is on the ground for us there.

Tim, what are you seeing?

TIM LISTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): I've seen the focus of the demonstrations much of the last week and the scene has much bloodshed in the past few days, but now I see sheer celebration. There are tens of thousands of people converging on this square, waving Bahraini flags, kissing the ground, waving peace flags and posters.

Some of them still want to see the king and the royal family out of this small gulf country. Others are just elated that they have managed to retake the square and are here peacefully. But police called out about two hours ago, suddenly without any notice. The demonstrators flooded in and I'm told that they're now coming into this area from villages all around. And it is a theme of real joy (INAUDIBLE) -- Randi.

KAYE: And we know that yesterday the military had opened fire on some of the protesters. And then the crowned prince came out calling for calm. Is this a calm celebration, Tim? LISTER: It is by and large, euphoria. It's joy and it's celebration. In fact, there is a tinge of anger. There's some hostility still here. A lot of people come up to you and say mercenaries were employed by the king to shoot at demonstrators over the past few days. And we know there are others who have been hired into the special forces here and they are regarded as responsible for some of the deaths.

Today, an entirely different atmosphere. The police have melted away, the army pulled out this morning. And now it remains to be seen whether this opposition movement requires a leadership that can enter into our dialogue with the crowned prince who has appealed for calm and appealed for national reconciliation. Randi.

KAYE: You know, it sounds, Tim, a lot like Egypt when you hear that police are now out of the picture. That's exactly what happened there. Do you get the sense that the protesters are hopeful that as the uprising spread throughout the region that the people there in Bahrain will have the same outcome that the protesters and the opposition did in Egypt?

LISTER: There's a sense of real breakthrough. Almost as if Mubarak left in Egypt. But at that point, some of them are not calling for the overthrow of the king of Bahrain. What they do want to see is real political reform very quickly. The majority here are Shia. They've been ruled by a Sunni royal family as far back as America is an independent. And so this is an enormous breakthrough for them. It now remains to be seen whether this can be turned into a political dialogue that prevents further violence and further confrontation. And the jury is still very much out on that, Randi.

KAYE: All right. Tim Lister for us, bringing it all to us from Bahrain this morning. Tim, thank you.

And now let's head to Washington, D.C., where the House wrapped up a marathon session early this morning, passing a huge package of spending cuts. The Republican-led House approved trimming more than $60 billion from this year's budget. The House trying to beat a March 4th government shutdown.

At stake if the government does shut down -- you're going to want to hear this -- benefits for veterans, Social Security checks for older Americans, even airport security could be affected.

CNN congressional correspondent Brianna Keilar in Washington. Brianna, bring us up to date, if you can, on the vote, and tell us a little bit about why this is so significant.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. The vote was actually in the 4:00 a.m. hour this morning. Quite unusual, as you can imagine for the House of Representatives on a Saturday morning. But this was one in a series of just marathon days. The underlying bill here as you mentioned, Randi, cut more than $60 billion from the current budget, from the remaining seven months on the current budget. And the reason this took so much time on the floor of the House of Representatives was the Democrats and the Republicans were allowed to offer amendments. And there were hundreds of them. The most controversial of which passed yesterday. It was a vote to defund health care reform. Republicans had said if they weren't going to be successful with an outright appeal, this was another avenue they were going to take and this was a first step.

There was also a vote to cut federal funding for planned parenthood, which as you can imagine sparked a lot of heated rhetoric. And then there was also a number of kind of unusual amendments, if you will. There was one that told the Pentagon they couldn't sponsor NASCAR teams anymore that actually failed. So they'll be able to continue to do that, Randi.

KAYE: And what stands out for you, Brianna, in a final bill? What did this end up looking like?

KEILAR: You know, we're still waiting for the final math on it. Republicans tell me that it's going to be obviously more than that $60 billion. How much more, we don't know. Because there were a number of changes. But I think the real issue here now has to do with the fact that House Republicans have this bill that they have passed, and they like it.

But they also have to contend with the - with Democrats in the Senate as well as President Obama who obviously are going to have to have major issues with this. There are some cuts in here including the nutrition assistance program for women, infants, and children. WIC, you may know it. There are cuts, major cuts, billions of dollars in cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency. And right now, the House and the Senate, they need to come to some sort of agreement. Because there is this specter of a government shutdown.

Right now, there's a temporary measure that's funding the government and it expires on March 4th. That's just two weeks away. A very short amount of time, Randi, especially considering the Senate is out next week.

KAYE: Yes, the Democrats are just going to say they don't come back to what the 28th, which they better get to work on a compromise pretty quickly if there is going to be a compromise.

KEILAR: Exactly right. And so there's this question of how serious is this that there could be a government shutdown? Right now it's a possibility. No one's saying that it's definite. I did speak to a House Republican leadership aide who told me that Republican leaders have been really trying to get the conservative members in their conference onboard. Those, especially, the new freshmen who said, you know, we want cuts and they've indicated that they're going to be kind of unbending in trying to get them. So they're trying to get them onboard, perhaps, for another temporary spending measure that can kind of kick the ball down the road, if they can get a few cuts so that ultimately for the rest of the budget year, maybe they can get some more of these trims that they're looking for. But we'll see. A lot of this still has to play out over the next couple of weeks, Randi.

KAYE: Yes, it sure does. But we'll be watching it along with you. Brianna Keilar, thank you, on Capitol Hill.

KEILAR: Thank you.

KAYE: Joseph Lowery, American icon, civil rights legend, and subject of a recent interview. How often do you get to chat with an important person, a piece of history? Well, we did, and we're going to tell you about it and share his interview, straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Ten minutes past the hour.

When you talk about the Civil Rights Movement, certain names are synonymous with the era. One of them is the Reverend Joseph Lowery, who co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group that helped drive the fight for racial equality.

The 89-year-old preacher has a new book out. A collection of his sermons called "Joseph E. Lowery Singing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land." The civil rights icon has been a witness to change and you might be surprised at what he calls "the most important moment of his life."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REV. JOSEPH E. LOWERY, CIVIL RIGHTS ICON: God of our weary ears.

KAYE (voice-over): When America's first black president was looking for someone to deliver his inaugurations' benediction, Barack Obama chose the Reverend Joseph Lowery. The preacher says while standing at the podium that day, he couldn't help reminiscing about another historical moment.

Lowery was with Martin Luther King, Jr. at the 1963 march on Washington. And he recalls a conversation between members of their inner circle.

LOWERY: We talked about how long before we would see a black president. And as I recall, none of us saw ourselves witnessing the first black president. We felt that we'd be -- at least we're watching from glory. We didn't think we'd live to see it.

KAYE: The man known as the dean of the Civil Rights Movement calls the inaugural benediction one of the most memorable of his career -- that saying a lot for a man who helped plan the Montgomery bus boycott and lived to tell about the riots that followed King's death.

But the one event Lowery calls the most important of his life -- it happened in Decatur, Alabama, May 1979, during his 20-year reign as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The organization was there to protest the conviction of a mentally challenged man named Tommy Lee Hines, convicted of rape and fleeing the scene in a car.

LOWERY: And Tommy couldn't ride a bike. He didn't have the coordination, the motor control, you know, between mind and body to drive a car, let alone to ride a bike.

KAYE: Lowery says on the day of the march, there were reports of Ku Klux Klan CB radio conversations about killing march leaders. Later, shots rang out.

LOWERY: I heard bullets whining over my head. My wife was driving behind us in the car. And when they started shooting, the crowd scattered and exposed her in the car. And they shot in the car, splattered glass all over her body. The young men who were marching with us sort of picked me up and carried me out of the line of fire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You once told me it was one of the most important marches you had ever been a part of. Why?

LOWERY: I guess because it almost took my life and my wife's life. And it was -- it showed the ugliness of the Klan.

KAYE: Lowery says that march help bring national pressure on the Klan, pressure that led to arrests and convictions of various crimes.

When asked if there was anything he could change --

LOWERY: Why change the hearts of men. We are going backwards a little bit I think, the last election, the reaction to Barack Obama's election carries with it some elements of racial hatred, some resentment to the fact that even though the country did a great thing, they are those who resent the election of a black president. And I think that's a part of what's happening in the political world.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: Lowery says he doesn't know when he'll deliver another sermon but also hasn't ruled out a second book possibly of sermons or maybe even writing an autobiography. Tomorrow night, CNN spotlights another man who was at the center of the Civil Rights Movement. But was he a hero or possibly a traitor? His lens captured pivotal movements in African-American history.

Now, FBI documents expose a darker angle. Join Soledad O'Brien for a special investigation "PICTURES DON'T LIE." That is Sunday night at 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Would you believe there are certain places in the world that are so peaceful, so serene that living there could actually prolong your life? Well, my next guest says yes. So where are they? I'll tell you right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back. It's 19 minutes past the hour.

Here's one thing we can all pretty much agree on -- everybody wants to be happy and healthy. But is there some secret to all of that? And does where you live play any part in that?

Joining us this morning is an author who spent five years traveling the world looking for that key to happiness. Dan Buettner put the answers in his book "Thrive, Happiness, the Blue Zones Way." He's joining us this morning from Minneapolis.

Dan, good morning to you.

DAN BUETTNER, AUTHOR "THRIVE, HAPPINESS, THE BLUE ZONES WAY: Good morning, Randi.

KAYE: We're going to talk about "Thrive" in just a moment, but I want to talk about your first book actually where you talked about the "the blue zones," the best places to live the longer. So I just want to mention a couple of them. because I do find this fascinating. Okinawa, Japan. Why do people live so long there? What's the key?

BUETTNER: Well, they eat mostly a plant-based diet. You know, only about 25 percent, though, of how long we live is I think dictated by diet. The other 75 percent here is the way people interact with each other. Their sense of purpose and I think also it's their social networks. They're putting their little groups of five when they're about six years old called (INAUDIBLE). And they support each other throughout their entire life. And that probably adds six or seven years to life expectancy.

KAYE: And another spot where people live very long is the community of Seventh Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California.

BUETTNER: Yes and they demonstrate that Americans can live a lot longer. Adventists live about 10 years longer than the average American. In fact, a good friend of mine Marge (INAUDIBLE) just died at 106 this week. But they, again, they take their diet right out of the bible. Genesis, chapter one. They eat mostly plants, beans, and nuts. And then they have this ritual from sunset on Friday until sunset on Saturday, 24 hours where they focus on their god, their social network, and they take a nature hike. And the power in that, is that it's a ritual.

KAYE: And they're not going to the gym. That's what I noticed. A lot of these people they're just out and about and doing their regular routine. Hiking, walking.

BUETTNER: Yes, the five blue zones a week. And we work with "National Geographic" on this. We really did our homework. None of them are pumping iron or doing marathons, but they live in an environment that nudged them into physical activity. Gardens, they live in homes that don't have a button to push for yard work and another button to push for house work. The point is their life is land mined with little opportunities to move. Big lesson for us.

KAYE: That is great to keep in mind. So let's go from living longer to live not only living longer, but living happier. When it comes to happiness, I guess we're working on the premise that about 30 percent of happiness is influenced by our genetic make-up, 15 percent of life circumstances and the rest you say is 55 percent or so is up to you.

But the places that make you - or the idea behind the happiness - I know you have six tips. And I want to get to those in your book. The first one is community. How does community help in terms of your happiness?

BUETTNER: Yes. So if our happiness is a cake recipe. Who we marry, how much money we make, are we healthy? Do we have meaningful work? The most important ingredient in that cake recipe is where we live. So if we live in a place with sidewalks and a place where we have easy access to green spaces. And in neighborhoods where everybody's about status equal. You don't want to do like your retail - your realtor tells you and have the cheapest house on the block, you want to have the house on the block equal to everybody else's block. That way you're not confronted with people who have bigger houses, bigger cars, et cetera. You feel better about your life.

KAYE: And we know, obviously, if you have the right job and you're happy in your work that'll add to your happiness. But you also say that social life is really important.

BUETTNER: Yes. It's really important to pay attention to who you hang out with. For every new happy person you add to your social network, it increases your own happiness by about 15 percent. And the happiest people in America socialize a full seven hours a day. And that's not Facebook. It's face time.

KAYE: So you have the social life, the financial life, your home, all of those things play a role in your happiness. And we certainly know that diet plays a role on living longer.

Dan, we really appreciate you sharing all of that. Not only the tips, but I might have to change my diet, as well, after speaking with you.

BUETTNER: Plant based, and don't pull a wrapper off of it.

KAYE: All right. That's good. Very good.

All right. Dan Buettner, thank you so much. We hope to have you on again.

BUETTNER: I love seeing you, Randi.

KAYE: Thank you. And once again his new book is called "Thrive," if you want to take a look at it.

BUETTNER: Charlie Sheen says he's 100 percent clean and ready to get back to work. But after a ranting interview where he even offered up advice for smoking crack, is work ready to have him back? We will find out next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: In case you missed the erratic tell-all interview Charlie Sheen gave Monday to the "Dan Patrick Show," let me jog your memory. Listen to him recap the pep talk he made to the UCLA Basketball team about smoking crack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHARLIE SHEEN, ACTOR (via telephone): I said stay away from the crack, which I think is pretty good advice, unless you can manage it socially, Dan. If you can manage it socially, then go for it. But not a lot of people can, you know?

DAN PATRICK, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Did you think you could?

SHEEN: Sorry?

PATRICK: Did you think you could?

SHEEN: Yes, yes, but that kind of blew up in my face.

PATRICK: Are you -

SHEEN: Like an exploding crack pipe, Dan. Sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: Yes, just like that. Needless to say, that interview and Charlie Sheen have been trending ever since. I want to bring in Lisa France now. She's a writer and producer at CNN.com.

Apparently a lot of fallout from this interview.

LISA FRANCE, CNN.COM WRITER/PRODUCER: A lot of fallout Charlie Sheen's ex-wife, one of his ex-wives, Denise Richards talked to the ladies from "The View" yesterday and she talked about how difficult it is dealing with this in the light of the fact that they have two young daughters who are growing up. Their daughters are five and six, and they're old enough to start hearing about what's going on with daddy. So she talked a little bit about how it's been really hard to talk to try to talk to them on their level and explain what's happening with daddy.

KAYE: Yes, because when he goes out there and talks, it really affects the family.

FRANCE: Yes, absolutely, especially when he says things like if you can manage crack socially, it's all good.

KAYE: Right. Imagine his kids Googling him one day.

FRANCE: Exactly, exactly.

KAYE: Oh my. But Sheen isn't the only star who is trending.

FRANCE: Absolutely not, from the currently troubled to the formerly troubled. Britney Spears just debuted her brand new video on MTV. It's the he video for her debut song on her new album "Hold it Against Me." KAYE: And what do you think of it?

FRANCE: It's - I'm confused. It's very Gaga-esque. Of course, it's Britney back scantily clad. That's how we love Britney and to see her in the little shorty-shorts. And there's lots of product placement. We saw right there a little bit of her new cologne that she had.

KAYE: I was just going to say, what is she selling her products while she's dancing?

FRANCE: Yes, she's selling Sephora make-up. She's selling a little bit of everything. So yes, but I don't really get what the video's supposed to be about. The song is about a man holding his body against her but the video is about her being an alien, it looks like, a hot alien who loves cologne.

KAYE: And just real quickly, what's the response to it? Is it doing well?

FRANCE: People are happy for her. They're happy to see her back and healthy. She was our Lindsay Lohan, not too long ago.

KAYE: Right.

FRANCE: So they're excited that she's back. But they're trying to figure out exactly what the video means.

KAYE: Yes, she has made the comeback, but it's interesting to see the product placement, I got to say. Absolutely, but she looks great.

FRANCE: She looks fabulous. Do your thing, Britney, I say. Go ahead make that money.

KAYE: Lisa France, always a pleasure. Good to see you.

FRANCE: Always a pleasure, good to see you, Randi.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The budget and your bottom line. There's a stunning new report on how millions of your taxpayer dollars are being wasted on jobs programs that are supposed to help but, in fact, they really aren't.

Well, we are going to look at that on "YOUR BOTTOM LINE" this morning which starts right now.