The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

GWEN IFILL: Good evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Jim Lehrer is on vacation. On the NewsHour tonight, the UN's first-ever international conference on AIDS. We talk to four participants visiting from around the world. Tom Bearden has a report on making air conditioners more energy efficient, Ray Suarez looks at a new law banning handheld cell phones behind the wheel, and Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with book reviewer Alan Cheuse about his own book. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

GWEN IFILL: In a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today, President Bush offered an optimistic assessment on the prospects for Middle East peace. But Sharon was equally pessimistic, saying all violence must end before peace talks can begin. Mr. Bush conceded the U.S.- brokered cease-fire between the Israelis and Palestinians remains shaky, but he said it has brought peace closer, and he urged both sides to do more.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes, there's violence. Yes, there's terror but it's being isolated. It's being contained. Can the parties do more? Absolutely. That's what the secretary of state is going to do is to urge Mr. Arafat to do more, to take better control of his security forces. We're going to talk to the prime minister about his attitudes. We're friends. I believe that... I believe that what's important from this perspective is not to let the progress that's been made so far to break apart.

GWEN IFILL: But Prime Minister Sharon said there were 16 attacks against Israelis just yesterday.

ARIEL SHARON: Israel will not negotiate under fire. And under terror -- we will do that, we will never reach peace. That is the point. It's not what i'm saying, it's not an obstacle, not a barrier against peace. On the contrary, if we're very strict, then the Palestinians will understand they cannot gain anything by terror. Therefore we have to be very strict in order to reach peace.

GWEN IFILL: After the meeting ended Sharon said he wants ten days of calm before taking further steps toward peace talks. Tonight Secretary of State Powell leaves for the Middle East hoping to shore up the cease-fire. African leaders appealed today for help in fighting AIDS. They spoke on the second day of a special UN session in New York. Worldwide, more than 36 million people are living with AIDS or HIV; 26 million of them in Africa. Also today, more nations contributed to a UN Fund to fight AIDS. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has asked for at least $7 billion a year. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Macedonia's President warned today his country could slide into all-out civil war. He spoke as new fighting broke out a day after rioting in the capital city. We have a report from Gaby Rado of Independent Television News.

GABY RADO: Macedonian army tanks were today firing into ethnic Albanian-rebel occupied villages north of the capital, Skopje. Last night, thousands of Macedonians, many armed, attacked their own parliament. They were furious that their government followed a cease-fire deal pressed on them by the EU and NATO, which allowed safe passage to a group of ethnic Albanian rebels from a village they'd occupied. The crisis in Macedonia intensified earlier this month when ethnic Albanian rebels moved right into the outskirts of Skopje. They held Aracinovo until yesterday, when they were transported out. Skopje itself is made up of a mainly Macedonian district south of the river Vadar and a Muslim quarter which contains a majority of Albanians on the north bank. The division of cities in such a way fuel the conflict in Bosnia. Late this afternoon, President Trajkovski appeared on national TV with a message of "eliminating terrorism." But tension is growing by the hour. One of the rebel commanders today threatened to march into the cites to protect ethnic Albanians who are outnumbered two to one by Macedonians in the country.

GWEN IFILL: U.S. troops escorted the evacuating rebels Monday. But in Washington today, a Pentagon spokesman said providing such support does not mean the U.S. is becoming directly involved in the conflict. A retired U.S. Army colonel was convicted of espionage today in Tampa, Florida. A federal jury found George Trofimoff guilty of selling military secrets to the soviet union and later, Russia, over two decades. He becomes the highest ranking U.S. officer ever convicted of spying, and he could get life in prison. Americans are more optimistic about the economy now than they've been all year. That's according to a monthly survey released today by the Conference Board, a research group in New York. It asked people about business and job prospects six months down the road. New York will be the first state to ban drivers from talking on handheld cell phones. The state legislature gave final approval to the ban last night. Beginning in November, first- time offenders could be fined $100. Hands-free phones and emergency calls would be exempt. Governor Pataki has said he'll sign the bill. We'll have more on this story later in the program. Also coming, the global AIDS problem, more efficient air conditioners, and a conversation about books.

SERIES - TARGETING AIDS

GWEN IFILL: Spencer Michels begins our AIDS report.

SPENCER MICHELS: The special session on AIDS is the UN'S first ever devoted to a public health issue. It opened yesterday with the presentation of a memorial quilt to remember the 22 million who have died from the world's deadliest epidemic since the bubonic plague. Several African nations which have lost much of a generation to AIDS sent their heads of state.

PRESIDENT OLUSEGUN OBASANJO: The future of our continent is bleak, to say the least, and the prospect of extinction of the entire population of a continent looms larger and larger.

PRESIDENT FESTUS MOGAE: Developing countries, particularly the poorest-- many of which are on the African continent, my continent-- are also the countries least able to put into effect efficacious strategies to combat the pandemic.

SPOKESPERSON: Thank you, Mr. President.

SPENCER MICHELS: The war on AIDS is a top issue for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. He warned that the crisis is not just Africa's.

KOFI ANNAN: And now it is spreading with frightening speed in Eastern Europe, in Asia and in the Caribbean. Up to now, the world's response has not measured up to the challenge.

SPENCER MICHELS: To combat the global epidemic, Annan has called for an international fund of $7 to $10 billion. Today, Sweden, Great Britain, Nigeria and Zimbabwe were among several countries that committed to the fund. They join a list that includes Uganda, the Bill Gates Foundation, France, and the U.S. for a total of $700 million, still less than 10% of the goal. Yesterday, Secretary of State Powell promised the U.S. would increase its pledge of $200 million. But behind the scenes, disagreement over the details of the fund and other issues emerged: Who should control the global AIDS fund, and should it emphasize treatment or prevention? Several Islamic nations objected when a gay rights group sought to participate in a discussion panel. They were eventually outvoted. Muslim countries also opposed language in a draft UN document citing homosexuals, prostitutes and IV drug users as vulnerable populations.

DR. ABDUL MALIQ KASI: We must remain sensitive of each other's value system while pursuing our crusade against the pandemic. Let us continue to show respect to each other's culture, faith and value, tolerance, freedom of

SPENCER MICHELS: Noticeably absent at the UN, South African President Thabo Mbeki, who met with President Bush today in Washington. Mbeki in the past has questioned the link between HIV And AIDS, and critics say he's been slow to respond to his country's crisis.

PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI: All i would say to that really is that people must look at what we're doing in south Africa, not their perception of what they think we are doing, but what we are doing actually in the country. And I don't think on the basis of facts an accusation like that can be sustained... Cannot.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The AIDS pandemic in Africa is terrible, and our nation intends to do something about it. As a matter of fact, our nation is doing something about it. We provide more money than any nation in the world to fund a strategy to defeat AIDS, and we will continue to work with nations that can afford to put money into the trust to do so.

SPENCER MICHELS: Before the UN meeting ends tomorrow, delegates hope to breach their differences and adopt a blueprint for reversing the epidemic by 2015.

GWEN IFILL: Joining us now are four participants attending the UN Conference this week from around the world. Dr. Denzil Douglas, who's worked as a family physician, is the prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean. Pitak Intravityanunt is the deputy prime minister of Thailand, and heads the country's national AIDS prevention and control committee. Joy Phumaphi is the health minister of Botswana. And Dr. Paulo Teixeira is the director of Brazil's national program on HIV/AIDS. Welcome, everyone.

Mr. Prime Minister Douglas, how important is this meeting going on in New York this week?

DR. DENZIL DOUGLAS: I think this meeting is of extreme importance because it has been used to bring full political support to the fight against HIV/AIDS. For us in the Caribbean, specifically in St. Kitts and Nevis, it also demonstrates to the entire international community that though we are far removed in the Caribbean region, though we are not spoken of as much as in Africa, we nevertheless have a very, very serious problem. In fact, the infection rates in the Caribbean region is second to sub-Saharan Africa in regional terms. And so we use this opportunity to sensitize the international community that the problem exists seriously in the Caribbean region and that there is need for our assistance and there is need for assistance from the international community.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Pitak, let's go around the world to Thailand where you hail from and tell me, do you agree with the kinds of issues we say that Prime Minister Douglas... Denzil Douglas, just mentioned; and do you think that this is the sort of thing that Thailand also has to address? Are those kinds of questions properly being addressed this week at the UN?

PITAK INTRAVITYANUNT: Yes, I do. I believe this is the first time that have such a high level inter-governmental conference to discuss the issue of HIV/AIDS. And it's a good opportunity for the world community to be able to make the commitment, on both political commitment and financial commitment, to tackle this serious issue of HIV/AIDS.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Teixeira, of course, as we have heard, there is an incredible pandemic in Africa, but also in other countries. You're from Brazil. Give us a sense... When Kofi Annan says that this disease is spreading at a frightening speed, what does that mean in your country?

DR. PAULO TEIXEIRA: Well, for us, the epidemic is a very important question -- even when we identify less than 0.5% of infection among the adult population. But exactly observing what's happening in many countries in other regions, we can know that... We know that the infection can spread very, very quickly if we don't have good control, particularly talk about prevention and also about treatment. So since the A-3 Brazil is very concerned about the question, and for these 18 years we established and we are running a strong program, trying to maintain, to contain the epidemic and to support affected people.

GWEN IFILL: Mr... I'm sorry, Minister Phumaphi, there is such an incredible rate of AIDS and HIV on the African continent. Certainly there's been a lot of attention. What can the international community do in this case to address this, more than is being done already?

JOY PHUMAPHI: Well, I think Africa has learned the hard way that it does not pay to concentrate on rhetoric, and commitment-- whether it be political or otherwise-- is not enough without action. And I think this is the most important message that we can give to the rest of the world. And also, the fact that the HIV Epidemic is not a threat to Africa, but isa threat to humanity, and humanity exists on every planet, on every continent on the planet. And it is therefore the responsibility of everybody to move away from rhetoric, move towards action-oriented programs and assist humanity to survive because we are under threat as the human family.

GWEN IFILL: Let's talk about that question about rhetoric. There are those who say that this United Nations meeting is about passing texts and drafts and having a lot of talk, but that there won't be enough action. How do you respond to that?

JOY PHUMAPHI: Well, we are hoping that the world will learn from our experience. We are hoping that by communicating more with the world, by exposing the world to the tragedy that we are experiencing in Africa, the rest of the world will learn that we not only need to assist Africa to not to be annihilated, but we also need to assist the rest of the world from finding itself in the same position that Africa is. I think that alone, that wake-up call, if it is adequately achieved by this assembly, then this assembly will have been successful.

GWEN IFILL: So Prime Minister Douglas, in the Caribbean, has the wake-up call that she just mentioned, has that happened? Has that arrived? Are people... Are you on the cusp of the issue, or has the curve passed you by?

DR. DENZIL DOUGLAS: I think that we are presently on top of the issue in the sense that our populations in the Caribbean have been sensitized to this disease. We are also at the point of developing national strategic plans. Some countries have already developed such plans. Some countries need to develop those plans. Even those who have developed the plans, there is need for technical and financial assistance in order to finance the implementation of those plans. We are trying to move this from just being a matter for the Ministry of Health or the public sector to one where the private sector, the NGO's, the community on a whole must become fully involved. Of course this is going to require additional finances. For example, in my own country, St. Kitts and Nevis, 10% of the health budget has been dedicated in 1999-2000 for HIV/AIDS alone, but we need to advance this to about 15%. How can we do this in a small, developing country, which continues to be seriously affected by developmental issues? Especially the challenges of globalization, and free liberalization, how can we devote much more revenue to this kind of financial activity for HIV/AIDS programs, when it is not real? And that is why we are here. We are here to emphasize that the global fund, that the international financial institutions, that donor countries generally must come forward in order to assist us in the Caribbean if we are to survive; if humanity on a whole is to survive in the Caribbean and beyond.

GWEN IFILL: Dr. Teixeira, part of the question that's been raised in these first few early days of this conference has been about the cultural questions surrounding AIDS, the stigma surrounding AIDS. Brazil has not had that same problem. How do you view that? Is it an impediment to widening awareness of the disease and getting the kind of financing that Prime Minister Douglas was referring to?

DR. PAULO TEIXEIRA: Well, it's real that in Brazil it did not face a big problem to consider and to talk about all the aspects that relate to HIV and AIDS. Brazil is a very tolerant country when you talk about sex behavior, and when you talk about sex workers or even about drug users. And our experience is that even if it is very difficult, we have to consider and we have to put on the table all the questions and all the aspects. That's the only way that we have to provide people with the good information so that the necessary information about how to prevent themselves from infection and how to support... and how to support HIV- affected people also.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Pitak, how do you respond to that? The United States... the United Nations in its first few days has been struggling with itself about whether gays and lesbians should be represented in the councils of power on this issue. How do you get past that cultural stigma?

PITAK INTRAVITYANUNT: Well, when we talk about the HIV-AIDS issue, it's not about the differences of sex behavior; it's about a sickness, about a disease that seriously affects the world, affects people. In Thailand, we consider it... You know, an Asian country, we are very shy on this kind of sexual issue. However, Thailand is the very first Asian country to openly admit that there's a crisis, and the government from the highest level to take this action openly, discuss this action openly, that's why we introduced this prevention and control program along with a treatment program. That's how Thailand be able to contain this spread of epidemic. And so, therefore, I think this issue regarding the seriousness of disease, not about the other issue; of course, we have to take all the issues concerns, whether it's culture, whether it's humanity, or whether it's economics, I think all must be addressed together in order to be able to combat this very serious sickness.

GWEN IFILL: Minister Phumaphi, the deputy prime minister of Thailand just mentioned a very interesting point, which is the debate between treatment and prevention. Treatment and prevention, how do you sort that out? Is it a debate that you even have to have?

JOY PHUMAPHI: I think it's rather unfortunate because debates and prevention are two sides of the same coin. It is impossible for us to adequately and effectively combat this epidemic without introducing both. You need a multi-sectional approach because this is a multidimensional problem. In Botswana, we have a national AIDS council, which has got every sector because we believe every sector has to be involved; it is chaired by the President. We have a program that targets every group in society. And we have intervention programs that target prevention and behavioral change, that target protecting the new generation like program. We have to have treatment as well because people need to have hope. How are you going to give people hope without treatment -- by telling them that some medication is available that can alleviate suffering, that can prolong the quality of life and allow them to contribute towards the development of the economy -- but that you aren't going to give them access to it? I mean, that is going to destroy any effectiveness that you can even achieve from the preventive strategies so you have to have both. We feel there is no choice.

GWEN IFILL: Well, Dr. Teixeira, let's talk about this access to treatment and the availability of drugs. In Brazil you've taken matters into your own hands. In fact, the United States has backed off a little bit on its objection of the way you took matters into your own hands by manufacturing generic drugs and making antiretrovirals and making them available for free. Is that something other countries should be doing: Following that example?

DR. PAULO TEIXEIRA: I think so. I think that we have many developing countries with the technical capacity to produce some drugs, like ARV -- even... It's important also to remember that the Brazilian government is offering to order developing countries the technology we achieve to make these drugs if they consider adequate for their country. But I think that this is not the only aspect. What we really need is low prices or differential price for the drug necessary for the treatment of HIV patients. And I think that we don't have to expect on the other side that all the countries develop some kind of capacity of production. We have to insist on a kind of global agreement that could include all these strategies, all the possibilities and all the good experience you have seen in all the world. This means general production, local production, this means differential prices, this means transference of technology and so on. So I think that all the aspects, all the... have to be considered to provide ARV's for everybody, how we think that we have to do.

GWEN IFILL: Prime Minister Douglas, from your outpost in St. Kitts and Nevis, where you are a small country watching a big problem, how optimistic are you after talking with your colleagues from around the world this week that you are going to come out of this fight ahead or that you at least have a handle on how to approach it?

DR. DENZIL DOUGLAS: I think that we are fairly confident that we would be able to arrest this problem and to overcome the challenges that it poses. We are very confident that we have made the necessary contact while we have been here. In fact, yesterday I had the opportunity to chair the first roundtable session on prevention and care. And we have been able to point out very clearly as the minister from Brazil just indicated that the drug companies have a particular responsibility to assist those countries who can ill afford to purchase those drugs. But apart from the political-legal problems that exist with patients and so forth, we think that they have a particular responsibility to provide assistance in other ways. For example, they should help in building up the infrastructure, the lab infrastructure in the various countries so that patients can be properly monitored, so that the treatment, the care could be of the highest standard and the quality of life improve dramatically as a result of use of these drugs. There is also the question of the opportunistic diseases that they should provide maybe free of cost -- the various drugs to treat fungal infections, et cetera, which we know will always develop in patients who are taking the treatment and those who are suffering normally from the HIV/AIDS. These are some of the fundamental questions that we have put forward in the discussion while we are here. And so, you know, it's a situation, we believe, that drugs at lower prices would be made available to us and that the drug companies will come forward.

GWEN IFILL: Okay. Thank you all very much.

GWEN IFILL: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the debate over air conditioning standards, phoning and driving, and a conversation about books.

FOCUS - CLEARING THE AIR

GWEN IFILL: Tom Bearden has the air conditioning story.

COMMERCIAL SPOKESMAN: Trane's central air conditioning presents: Recipe for boiled wife.

TOM BEARDEN: Before the 1950's, home air conditioning was an unimaginable luxury for most people.

COMMERCIAL SPOKESMAN: Test by arriving home from your cool office with a cheery "Have a nice day." Cool your entire home with Trane central air conditioning.

TOM BEARDEN: But rising post war incomes gradually made it affordable.

WOMAN IN COMMERCIAL: Lucias, don't you think maybe you'd better rise out of that chair and go to work.

MAN IN COMMERCIAL: It's hot out, Lola.

WOMAN IN COMMERCIAL: But you haven't been outside all summer, Lucias, not since we got our new air conditioner.

TOM BEARDEN: Today 83% of all American homes have some form of air conditioning. In many sunbelt cities like Miami, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Houston, air conditioning is considered a necessity. But it comes at a price. Air conditioning uses a great deal of electricity. In California, it's estimated to account for 28% of peak electrical demand. Some argue that the government ought to require manufacturers to build new equipment that uses less electricity; that such standards could eventually reduce the need to build hundreds of new power plants by slowing the growth in demand. In the waning hours of the Clinton administration, the Energy Department proposed the first new air conditioning efficiency standard since 1992. It would have required new residential air conditioning systems to use 30% less electricity by the year 2006. In April, the Bush Energy Department proposed a less ambitious standard. New units would have to use 20% less electricity. Cooling units are rated using something called seasonal energy efficiency ratios, or SEER. The higher the SEER rating, the less electricity it uses. The current standard is SEER 10. The proposed Bush standard is SEER 12. The Clinton standard was SEER 13.

SPOKESMAN: I can help you with that.

TOM BEARDEN: The air conditioning industry is solidly behind the Bush standard. In fact, the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute sued to block the Clinton standards. Gary Tapella is chairman of ARI. He's also the President and CEO of Rheem Air Conditioning. He says SEER 13 units would cost so much more, that consumers would never be repaid in savings on their electricity bills.

GARY TAPELLA: If we were to establish a national standard of 13, the Department of Energy has estimated that approximately 75% of the users would not receive a payback on that investment.

TOM BEARDEN: But payback depends on whose numbers one chooses to believe. Estimates for the additional costs for SEER 13 units range from zero to $1,500 more per unit. David Nemtzow of the Alliance to Save Energy believes the price difference would be very small.

DAVID NEMTZOW: The last time the federal government imposed standards, the industry estimated that it would increase the cost of units by over $700. The department of energy estimated it would increase units by about $360. We went back, we looked at the historical record. There was no difference in price. The price didn't go up. This time they're only estimating $120, so we think that's high. But even if it is that $120, on a piece of equipment that costs $2,000, that's pretty insignificant, and it saves electric bills for years to come.

TOM BEARDEN: Some people call Houston the air conditioning capital of the world, with more units per capita than anyplace else on earth. The climate is such that many people have $300 a month electricity bills just to keep their homes cool. SEER 13 proponents say people here would recover the extra equipment costs in just a few months. But Lyle Johansen of the Texas Association of Builders cautions that any price increase directly impacts who can afford to buy a house.

LYLE JOHANSEN: People have to have a certain income in order to qualify for a certain dollar loan. The more the price of the house goes up, the less of a loan they can qualify for. It's a mathematical formula. Our figures show that for every $1,000 a house goes up in price, there are 32,000 Texas families that can't afford to buy a home. So, for the low end of the market, it's a big issue. For the custom end of the market, it's probably not quite so sensitive.

TOM BEARDEN: ARI's Tapella also says the lower estimates don't take into account the cost of replacing aging air conditioners installed in small spaces in existing homes. He says it's a simple matter of physics; condensing coils inside the house that remove heat from the air have to be bigger to use less electricity, potentially requiring thousands of dollars in modifications.

GARY TAPELLA: They simply have to transfer enough heat during a given period of time to make the system operate, and therefore we need more surface area, a larger... physically a larger unit. Cabinets won't be large enough to accommodate it. There may be some ducting work that may be required to accommodate it. It's not a simple drop-in replacement by any stretch of the imagination, and it is likely to incur a substantial expense.

TOM BEARDEN: John Goodman says coil size is not really an issue. He says his company's SEER 13 coils aren't any bigger than SEER 12.

JOHN GOODMAN: This would not cause an issue in installation from a 10 to a 13 because it's basically the same size as a 10 on the indoor section here. And this is the coil right here, which is the same exact size between a 12 and a 13.

TOM BEARDEN: Goodman owns Goodman Manufacturing in Houston, the second largest air conditioning manufacturer in the United States he and one small manufacturer broke ranks with the rest of the industry to support the stricter SEER 13 standard.

JOHN GOODMAN: I believe that they are being short-sighted and really not focusing. I mean, on the 13, it's good for the environment and it's good for... It's good for the consumer, and it's good for energy consumption, and also, it's good for the industry, because when people understand that they can save this kind of money on their energy bills, it's the right thing. I mean, the 13 is the right thing for the environment, the consumer and energy consumption.

TOM BEARDEN: And Goodman isn't the only Texan that disagrees with the Bush standard. The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission supports the Clinton standards. The Public Utility Commission of Texas also agrees with the TNRCC. Last November, Texas PUC Chairman Patrick Wood, whom President Bush recently chose to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, sent a letter to the Department of Energy supporting the SEER 13 standard. It said SEER 13 would, "decrease residential electric energy consumption and costs; would decrease system demand, thereby increasing system reliability; and would decrease air pollution, particularly during peak periods." But ARI's Tapella believes the government ought to look more realistically at human behavior.

GARY TAPELLA: There is more reason to anticipate that consumers will look at a replacement of their equipment when the threshold is lower and they can identify a payback on that equipment. And we believe that a 12 SEER product will do that, there will be a more rapid acceleration toward the replacement of all the stock when it's installed, and the energy savings will in fact increase and DOE agrees with that today.

TOM BEARDEN: One of the few things both sides agree on is that the issue will ultimately be decided in court. That may push back implementation of any standard beyond the current target of 2006.

GWEN IFILL: In fact, the issue has now gone to court. Last week, three states-- New York, Connecticut, and California-- filed suit to stop the Bush administration from implementing its new efficiency standard.

FOCUS - HANG UP & DRIVE

GWEN IFILL: Driving while dialing, and to Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: New York is the first state to ban talking on a handheld cellular telephone while driving. Similar bans have been proposed in 41 other states in the last two and a half years. Now, two views on the new law and it's impact. Republican State Senator Carl Marcellino was the lead sponsor of the phone ban legislation in the New York State Senate. Mantill Williams is the director of public affairs for the American Automobile Association.

Senator Marcellino, let's start with you. What was the impulse behind the law?

CARL MARCELLINO: I don't believe that anyone in the country hasn't been cut off by someone driving with a cell phone in their hands. I know it's happened to me on numerous occasions. At one point in time i had an individual cut in front of me holding the phone in one hand, pointing to it with the other, no hands on the wheel. They were screaming into the phone. It is a dangerous thing to do, and we believe this bill will save lives.

RAY SUAREZ: Apart from the personal experience of you and your partner in the assembly, Assemblyman Ortiz who says he saw an accident caused the same way, was there hard data behind the New York law that shows driving while talking on a cell phone is dangerous?

CARL MARCELLINO: Well, there is one study that comes out of the New England Journal of Medicine in 1997 that indicated that people who are driving with cell phones in their hands are as likely to have an accident as if they were... Had a blood alcohol content of .1, which in this state is a felony.

RAY SUAREZ: Is there a phase-in period? Are people going to start getting tickets right away as they're talking on the phone in the streets of New York?

CARL MARCELLINO: No, there will be a warning period starting November 1 for a month. If you're stopped you'll get a warning and told you really shouldn't do that by a hands-free operation. After December 31, however, of this year you will begin to get tickets and could be ticketed up to $100 fine. However, we put a provision in the bill that says that if between the time you get your ticket and your appearance date in court you purchase a hands-free set, we'll forgive the fine.

RAY SUAREZ: Mantill Williams as this law is phased in over the rest of 2001, is it reasonable to expect there will be fewer accidents in New York State?

MANTILL WILLIAMS: Absolutely not. That's what we're saying that we will not see a safety benefit from this law. As a matter of fact we have a study that actually shows that. Japan implemented a hands-free a hand-held ban back in 1999, November of 1999. Before the ban they had less than 1% of accidents that were caused by cell phones, about 0.3%. After the ban was in place, they had the same result, 0.3% accidents due to cell phones and driving. That's where we are in this country right now. We have about a less than 1% of all our accidents are caused by cell phones. And what we're saying is that we recommend, we strongly recommend that motorists regardless of this law, talking on a phone and driving is dangerous. And you should not engage in it. But banning a hand-held device really will not have any safety benefit because the danger really isn't the intellectual distraction of the conversation itself, not the device. Hands-free is not risk-free. That hands-free feature is not a safety device. It is merely a convenience device. And what we're concerned about is that not only will people be talking on a phone hands free but it might even encourage them to talk on a phone longer. And having more people talk on a phone longer, that will not make our roads safer.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator, go ahead.

CARL MARCELLINO: I couldn't disagree more with my colleague from the AAA. In fact I'm a little disappointed in the AAA, I would think they would be in the forefront looking for things that would make driving safer. This clearly will make it safer to drive. If you're not holding the cell phone to your ear, you do not have to worry about that phone you do not have to think about that phone. You don't have to shift hands when the arm starts to ache and move it from side to side. And there is this intellectual difference when you're talking with a phone. You are involved in a conversation like no other. You're on that phone and you're talking and it could be good news. It could be bad news. You could be making a deal -- the whole nine yards. It is dangerous. We agree that talking on a cell phone is the key, but we need to educate the public. We can't tell them to stop talking in their cars. That would probably be ideally the best way. You shouldn't have anything going on in the car, just be totally alone. That we're not going to do. We know that's not going to work. But we can educate them that if you're on a cell phone you're at risk. What's worse, you're risking other people's lives at well.

RAY SUAREZ: Aren't there a lot of other distractions going on on the streets and highways of New York that you haven't mentioned in legislation?

CARL MARCELLINO: Oh, sure. You know, the radio is a distraction, but, you know, everything else is kind of like background. It's not something you're directly involved in. You may be listening to the music. You may be listening to a ballgame. You're not that involved in those conversations. You're not that involved in those events. But when you're on the phone, it's you and that other person. There is a communication link there. The whole key here is we're telling you that if you're holding the phone, you're making it even worse than it would ordinarily be. So watch it. We're not trying to hurt anybody. We're not putting points on a license. We're not trying to penalize people excessively. But we do want them to think when they're driving and to think when they're using the phone. If they're holding it, it makes it that much worse. So we're saying, go ahead. If you're going to talk we know you can't stop you from talking. We know people will do that. When you have a phone in your hands you're adding to the problem. Most everybody agrees with us. I don't know why the AAA is not saying, "we join you and let's link hands and let's make this a success and let's work to reduce car accidents" which would in turn reduce automobile insurance policies and health care premiums and the whole nine yards. This would be a good thing. AAA, get on board.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, let me ask the AAA why aren't they saying we're joining you?

MANTILL WILLIAMS: Well, there are a couple of reasons why we're not saying we're going to join you on this. This is not a first step. This is not a step forward. This is a step backwards. Talking on a phone with a hands-free device is no safer than talking on the phone with a hands-held device. I understand intuition says this and we feel this way, but the data does not support this. The New England Journal of Medicine study, the 1997 New England Journal of Medicine study, it said specifically that there is no safety benefit from going from a hand-held device to a- hands-free device. It went on to say that they did not see... let me finish. It went on to say that it did not see a causal relationship between talking on a phone and driving at the same time and it went on also to say that you should not use that study as a way to promote legislation to ban hands-held cell phones.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator, doesn't the New York law explicitly provide for a move to hands-free operation?

CARL MARCELLINO: Yes, it does. It encourages the move to hands-free operation because we want to get people to use both hands on the wheel. That's the key to the whole thing. If you've got one hand off the wheel and one hand on the wheel you're not driving to your optimum capability. We want you not using one hand for doing something else 789 we want you to) put both hands on the wheel and drive safely. I would be more impressed with the AAA's comments if they had said to me we're doing a study of our own to show the difference.

MANTILL WILLIAMS: Actually, sir, we did.

CARL MARCELLINO: Let's see the study. And your numbers showed a great increase in accidents?

MANTILL WILLIAMS: Sir, we did a study, we released it in may and we presented our findings to Congress. And what that showed is that cell phones are one of many distractors. Cell phones represented 1.5% of all distracted driving crashes. And that's been consistent with all the other studies that we've shown. What we saw in that particular study is that the number one distractor are objects outside the car - over 29%. Right under that is adjusting climate controls and right under that is fiddling with the radio. And the cell phone was toward the bottom. Yes, talking on the cell phone and driving is dangerous, we recommend that motorists should not do it, whether a hands-free device or hand- held device. If we want to make a difference in safety we have to look at distracted driving as a whole and we have to educate people on how to manage their distractions in the car.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator, let's close by talking about how you'll know whether this is working. Governor Pataki has given every indication that he's going to sign the bill. Let's say New York fully implements, 2002, people are urged not to use the phone while they're in the car.. How will you know whether you're saving lives?

CARL MARCELLINO: Well, we're asking for a survey to be done by the Department of Transportation and to collect data relative to this once the phone bill goes into effect to see if, in fact, we see a drop in accidents. Hopefully we will. I mean we've got the same arguments when: People said when we were using seatbelts, they don't work. It's an invasion of our personal privacy. It's not going to do anything. It's the most successful law ever done in saving lives while people are driving cars. Yet there are people who don't like them and to this date still don't use them. We're saying cell phones are a distraction. When you hold them in your hand, you're at risk. You're at even greater risk than normal. We would prefer you didn't talk at all while you're driving but you shouldn't use a cell phone while you are driving by holding it in your hand. Now if it's an emergency situation, that's one thing. Then you've got to do what you've god to do. But in this case we're hoping that the public will get the message and stop using these hand-held cell phones which are, in fact, a distraction while they're driving.

RAY SUAREZ: Senator Marcellino, Mr. Williams, thank you both.

CARL MARCELLINO: Thank you.

MANTILL WILLIAMS: Thank you.

CONVERSATION

GWEN IFILL: Now, another of our conversations with the authors of new books, and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The writer is Alan Cheuse, and his new book is "Listening to the Page: Adventures in reading and writing." It's a collection of essays written over the past two decades. Cheuse is the author of three novels and three collections of short stories. He's the book commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered," and he teaches writing at George Mason University in Virginia. Thanks for being with us.

ALAN CHEUSE: My pleasure.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the book, you compare your appetite for reading to your appetite for sex and food. Now, that's going pretty far. How do you explain your great love for reading?

ALAN CHEUSE: I think it's one of the major human appetites. We have to feed the imagination. It's a great beast and it keeps saying, "more, more, give me more to read."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How did it begin for you?

ALAN CHEUSE: My father read a Russian fairytale to me. I was just beyond infancy, somewhere snuggled up in bed, i guess about the age of one-and- a-half or two, and he read in Russian from this strange contraption that he turned the pages, i didn't even know what to call them. It smelled of oranges and dry sand, some book he'd brought with him all the way from then Soviet Union on his own odyssey some years before. And I thought, "this is terrific. You look at those squiggles on the page and you make a sound and someone laughs."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: ( Laughs ) Just for the record, how many books would you say you've reviewed over the past two decades?

ALAN CHEUSE: Thousands.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thousands?

ALAN CHEUSE: Thousands.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You even say at one point-- and you're quoting Jorge Luis Borges-- you even say that you're more proud of the books you've read than of the books you've written.

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, i think Borges was probably thinking about "the odyssey," and "the Iliad," and "quixote," and such, and i'd certainly agree with that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You have a certain amount of despair for the state of reading today, and that's part of what your book's about. Explain.

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, i think we're moving towards a terrible state. We may have two populations: One that reads and one that doesn't. The literacy problem in America is one that we've all felt challenged by. We're trying to turn young kids into readers, but at the same time, we've got a population of adults who don't read either. So the combination of illiteracy and alliteracy presents a very large chunk of the population, which in the future will become Group "A," while Group "B," those people who read, are going to become the people who run things.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And why does this give you despair? What's so important? In fact, this is one of the things i most liked about this book. You're so clear about why reading is so important and literature is so important.

ALAN CHEUSE: How else do we know other minds, other worlds, other places? We're not mind-readers, but you can read someone else's mind when they put it into an appropriately beautiful and well-constructed work of art. I think that's what we need to know. So it's a hunger, as i say, that the imagination demands. But something that we need to perform if we're going to be human. We need to fulfill our human obligation to ourselves.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It's interesting. You even talk about the primacy of the art of fiction of poetry over the other arts, which was quite daring of you.

ALAN CHEUSE: Yes. My wife's a choreographer and she'd bop me on the head if she...

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I bet.

ALAN CHEUSE: ...If she hears me say this, but I think that the story is everything. Dance and music all contributes to the story, but the unfolding of the narrative in our heads, that's the most beautiful thing to me.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And you're not without hope about the state of reading. You're not completely despairing, are you?

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, it's a war we're fighting on several fronts. I think we need to work in the schools with young children. I think people need to volunteer to do work in literacy programs. And I think at the university level, we've got to stop the trend towards the ultimate technological university at the expense of the humanities-- particularly literature.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For you, as a writer, what has all this reading done? Describe the relationship between reading and writing for you.

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, writers read in the way that a composer listens to music, the way painters look at other works of art. It teaches you technique. It teaches you what's come before. It teaches you how... What you might do to further the art a little bit, one inch. It's a glacier. Art is a kind of glacier that moves along very slowly, and you make your small contribution, but you can't move at all unless you've got the force of all of those great works of art behind you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: For example, can you give me an example of something that you read which opened up a whole new way of thinking about writing for you, and influenced you greatly?

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, i think any American writer-- well, this American writer would say Faulkner. It was an amazing, amazing event to read my first Faulkner. The language itself was extraordinary. He's our Shakespeare. And even though Melville tried to be our Shakespeare, Faulkner accomplished it. And it showed me just how deep into the imagination you could dig in order to find the constituent parts of a story, to make a novel out of the deep past of the culture, and also push people to think about the future.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is writing very difficult for you? You have some interesting things to say in the book about how most people think that writing is just something you do, you sit and put words on a page, but how very, very difficult it is.

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, i love what Thomas Mann once said about the difficulty of writing. He said it always amused him to discover that the only people who thought writing was difficult were writers.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: (Laughs) So are you saying it's quite difficult for you?

ALAN CHEUSE: Oh, it's a very difficult task. It's the intellectual counterpart of turning a stone into a beautiful shape. John Gardiner, my dear late friend used to say, "the sculptor has it easy. He just has to carve the stone. The writer first has to cough it up."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: (Laughs) Alan, what do you want people to take away from this book? What did you hope to do when you put together these writings from so many years of your life?

ALAN CHEUSE: I think i wanted to introduce some books that might have fallen out of the public view to a new audience. The work of writers like James Agee and some Steinbeck, and some Latin American writers who i think are truly marvelous, that really have fallen out of sight in the current publishing world. But I also wanted to bring people's attention to this war, as i described it earlier, between illiteracy and the alliterate, and to try to show us that we need to bring these people into American culture by means of reading. All those people who right now are wanderingaround as if in a kind of half-life. They can't read, therefore, their imaginations are impoverished.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I had the feeling that you also wanted to reaffirm for other great readers what they were doing.

ALAN CHEUSE: Well, i think that I wanted to live these stories again. I wanted to reread some of these great books again, and i wanted to have the experience of going back to Steinbeck, going back to Faulkner, going back to some of the Latin American writers, and rereading's a great time. It's great fun. And so i don't think there's anything somber about this business. This is the great joy of being human, that we have the capacity to perform all of these wonderful spectacles and stories in our own minds, if we just figure out what those little squiggles on the page mean.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What are you reading and writing now?

ALAN CHEUSE: Right now i'm reading some novels that are coming out in August. Reviewers are always a couple of months ahead. So i'm reading a German novel, a lost novel. It came out in '54, called "The Hothouse," by a German novelist named Wolfgang Koepin. And I'm rereading Salinger because it's the 50th anniversary of the publication of "The Catcher in the Rye." And I think I'm going to reread some Saul Bellow this summer, also.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And what are you writing?

ALAN CHEUSE: What am i writing?

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Besides the reviews?

ALAN CHEUSE: I'm in the middle of a novel and reading the proofs of some short stories that are coming out this fall.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Alan Cheuse, author of "listening to the Page: Adventures in Reading and Writing," thanks so much.

ALAN CHEUSE: My pleasure, Elizabeth.

RECAP

GWEN IFILL: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon met at the White House. Mr. Bush said there's been progress toward peace, but Sharon said violence continues. And Macedonia's President warned his country could slide into all-out civil war. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Gwen Ifill. Thank you and good night.