I see parallels between Karachi and the cities that I was familiar with: a very different place, but in terms of its human stories not really very different at all. That was what excited me about the place - that it was so complex, as difficult to me as an outsider and yet so human in a way that was ultimately very familiar.

Steve Inskeep

President-elect [Donald] Trump has made a provocative choice for secretary of education. Betsy DeVos comes from a wealthy Michigan family. She is an advocate for school choice. That phrase means, in essence, directing public education money to charter schools, private schools or parochial schools.

Steve Inskeep

essence mean school

India may be overtaking China as the world's most polluted country. Even now, which country is worse depends on the day.

Steve Inskeep

india country world

The number of CEOs voluntarily leaving their jobs or being forced out spiked early. Many of those companies will be turning to an interim CEO to take the reins. These temporary leaders are increasingly in demand, according to those who watch corner office trends.

Steve Inskeep

office numbers jobs

Toward the end of the campaign, we interviewed some voters in Raleigh, N.C., which is a generally Democratic city, and I'm thinking of a young couple. They had two kids. They described themselves as Christian. They oppose gay marriage. And they were saying that even though they didn't like Donald Trump, they were thinking of voting for him. And one of the reasons was they felt that they were - their very views were making them socially unacceptable. They were feeling a little alienated from the world.

Steve Inskeep

couple christian kids

Karachi has had an overdose of history, too much has happened.

Steve Inskeep

overdose happened too-much

Congress can grant a waiver [for General James Mattis ] and has done that once in history.

Steve Inskeep

general-james-mattis waiver done

When the Defense Department was established after World War II, a law said that any defense secretary with military experience must have been out of the military at least seven years. General [James] Mattis doesn't meet that.

Steve Inskeep

military war years

We've learned something about President-elect [Donald] Trump's choice for secretary of defense. Lawmakers in Congress intend to proper debate over whether retired General James Mattis meets a requirement for civilian control of the military.

Steve Inskeep

choices military president

I do know that a law professor there [in Columbia University] published an article calling me a white supremacist.

Steve Inskeep

calling law white

I belong to a bowling team with black and Latino coworkers. And when we get together and we talk about politics - I'm almost quoting him - he said, we don't talk about Black Lives Matters. We talk about what matters to our families. We talk about jobs, and we talk about the fate of the country. That is America, and you can reach those people.

Steve Inskeep

team jobs country

I've just been flooded with emails of people just giving testimonies of their lives, saying exactly this. I got an email from a guy who works for some sort of defense contractor, some lower-level job, served in the military. And he said, look, I served in the military with black and Latino soldiers. My supervisor is a young black woman who's smart as a whip, and I admire her, and we get along great.

Steve Inskeep

smart military jobs

The fact that - I mean, these are things to be talked about. You can't do anything without educating the public, right? And that's a slow work.

Steve Inskeep

mean facts

The president who did the most for black Americans in 20th century history was Lyndon Johnson, and he got his hands dirty by dealing with Southern senators, Southern congressmen, horse trading with them, cajoling them, learning what not to talk about. And he got civil rights passed and Great Society programs. That should be the model. Get over yourself.

Steve Inskeep

horse rights dirty

I prefer a dirty victory to a noble defeat.

Steve Inskeep

victory noble dirty

Those are the liberals who don't want to win. Those are the liberals who are in love with noble defeats, and I'm sick and tired of noble defeats.

Steve Inskeep

tired sick winning

Karachi captures all of those rifts between ancient and modern, communal and individual. You see them playing out in people's lives.

Steve Inskeep

rift ancient people

People who want a different Pakistan have to find a way to go back into their own past and revive the vision of their founders, that was clearly a tolerant and diverse one, so that they can distinguish it from the one that has been imposed upon it. If they can do that, they can take back this city and their country.

Steve Inskeep

cities country past

Tradition has to be retaken by the liberal forces, so that they can show their values of tolerance and democracy not as novel western ideas but as ones indigenous to Pakistan, as a part of its very creation.

Steve Inskeep

tolerance democracy ideas

We need to be stronger. We need to deter the Russians. We need to show resolve, which is why cooperating with them on the other hand can be more difficult.

Steve Inskeep

resolve difficult stronger

Putin himself is a bit of a risk taker, so the invading Ukraine, in the east in particular - Crimea was risky.

Steve Inskeep

risk