One Family's Minor Miracle

Campbell Brown checked in with Anderson Cooper in Port-au-Prince tonight to hear the story of one family's minor miracle.

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All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.

Tuesday in The Situation Room

Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta talked to Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room today, about their day in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Anderson was out with UNICEF as they try to track children who may or may not be orphans and Sanjay gave us an update on the 28 year old man who was pulled from the rubble yesterday.

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things Anderson and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.
All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.

AC360 Back in Haiti

No one deserves to die in silence, and no one's struggle to live should go unnoticed as well. ~Anderson Cooper As most of you know AC and the 360 team are back in Haiti this week to update the world on the progress and the continued suffering.Anderson couldn't leave the Haiti story for others to tell, it has become too important to him. Here's what he had to say:

The most interesting and surprising news in Haiti today was the rescue of a man who had been trapped under the rubble for 27 days. Here's Dr. Gupta's report:

Anderson had a report on the clean up and burial process going on every day in Haiti:

Anderson spoke first with Karl Penhaul to get today's latest developments in Haiti on the missionary case:

Next AC spoke with Dan Simon to find out what was happening in Idaho where the missionaries are from:

Sanjay and AC talked with Francis Robles a reporter for the Miami Herald:

Sarah Palin isn't worth a minute of my time so I'll just mention that Randi Kaye covered the Tea Party news and leave it at that. Mary Matalin did the follow up discussion with AC.
James Carville and his lady Mary Matalin talked Superbowl with AC:


Brooke Baldwin was back doing the 360 Bulletin on Monday night.
• NATO troops in Afghanistan are preparing to launch one of their biggest attacks
• US and European Union called on Iran today to end abuses against it's own people
• 2010 Prius will be recalled for braking issues
• Hope for Haiti donations have begun to be released
• Congressman John Murtha died Monday at 77 years old
• Dr. Conrad Murry, Michael Jackson's doctor, was arraigned
• Richard Heene is out of jail and in a work release program
• More snow on the way for the mid-Atlantic States


I have a few new pictures of Anderson in Haiti to share with you:
All photos by Jonathan Torgovnik
© 2009 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved



A few readers emailed us over the weekend to tell us that Anderson was on The Soup on Friday night. Lucky for us Wonz captured the segment:

AC wrote an entry on the AC360 blog today about his return to Haiti. Follow the link if you haven't read it yet.

YouTube was down for maintenance tonight and Blogger and I don't get along very well. I'd like to thank Wonz for uploading the rubble and the Miami Herald reporter clips for me. Hopefully YouTube will be functional tomorrow because ATA doesn't want to miss chronicling one moment of AC in Haiti. Check back periodically because, just like last time, we'll be posting any live shots AC does during the day. ~Phebe

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things Anderson and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator. All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.

Anderson Cooper's Back in Haiti & On The Situtation Room

Anderson Cooper arrived back in Port-au-Prince, Haiti this morning and joined Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room to talk about his decision to return to Haiti and what's happening on the ground.

Later in the program, Wolf checked back in with Anderson and Dr. Sanjay Gupta joined in the conversation to report on the amazing rescue of a 28 year old man today !

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things Anderson and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.
All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.

A Traitor, a saboteur...The Mole!

This was tweeted by AC early on Sunday evening:

Dr. Gupta and Neil Hallsworth, cameraman extraordinaire both also tweeted that they were heading to Haiti with the 360 crew. We'll have it covered for you here at ATA through out the coming week.




Some of you have been following Anderson's career since his early days on Channel One, others may have discovered him on World News Now. Personally, I was introduced to Anderson as the host of The Mole.


I must admit, when I was following The Mole I had no idea who Anderson Cooper was. Since that time, along with many of you I have had the opportunity to follow Anderson on CNN and have watched as his career flourished. As thrilling as it has been, I will always have a soft spot for that charming young man who hosted The Mole.

The original Mole consisted of nine episodes and aired from January 9, 2001 - February 28, 2001...my how time does fly. Tonight we begin a Sunday series devoted to the Mole -Season 1.

Anderson had this to say about leaving WNN for the Mole:


My last year at ABC, I was working overnights anchoring this newscast, then during the day at 20/20. So I was sleeping in two- or four-hour shifts, and I was really tired and wanted a change. I wanted to clear my head and get out of news a little bit, and I was interested in reality TV — and it was interesting.

A little career advice from Barry as Anderson leaves WNN to host the mole:



Excerpts from:



The Intro



The Rules:



Highlights - Episode 1:



Highlights - Episode 2:



Bonus Clip:



In keeping with the theme of the post, tonights puzzle is a cute pic of Anderson on The Mole-Season 1




Mole puzzle Jigsaw Puzzle

I hope this post was interesting to you. For the next few Sundays, I will continue to share excerpts from Season One. For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to see The Mole-Season 1 in it's entirety, it is available for purchase on Amazon. Click here for more information on purchasing Season 1.

Have a wonderful week!


All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things Anderson and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.

All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.

Spoken and Stirred

The past few weeks have been so serious and heavy that tonight I wanted to keep it light. Here is Anderson appearing in a laid back discussion about the Oscars in "Spoken and Stirred", a program that originally aired on Cinemax in 2004.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Have a great Superbowl Sunday. Geaux Saints!!!!

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things Anderson and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.
All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.

Haiti, Politics & Who Dat?

Anderson Cooper led off tonight's 360 with new details on the missionaries accused of kidnapping in Haiti.

* The missionaries were split up today and moved to a new location -- prison.
* Hard evidence the leader of the group lied to the parents who gave up their children.
* The leader, Silsby, told the parents they could visit their kids, when her intention was to set them up for adoption.
* Told parents she had an orphanage in the Dominican Republic, but really didn't.

Karl Penhaul has been following the story in Haiti. Tonight he had the legal document for the formation of the "New Life Children's Refuge" -- the orphanage Silsby supposedly had set up in the Dominican Republic. In reality she had a 6 month lease on a hotel and had only second-hand clothes and second-hand toys on hand for the children. The legal framework for the "New Life Children's Refuge was set up 6 days after the earthquake, and while Silsby told Penhaul she planned to let the kids grow up in the Dominican Republic, the mission statement indicated otherwise -- "to give an environment of Christian love to children and set up adoption programs."

Dan Simon was on the ground in Idaho with new developments there. In November 2008, when searching for a new home, Silsby told her real estate agent that the home would be only temporary because her dream was to develop 20 acres of farmland to house orphans from all over the world and troubled youth. The real estate agent said there was no specific mention of Haiti and as far as he knew she never purchased the 20 acres of farmland. Dan also interviewed the owner of a second hand store where 9 months ago Silsby and her nanny began purchasing items for an orphanage she was planning to start. He was very disappointed by this breaking story because he had felt she had good intentions and many people had donated items to her cause.

Karl was then back in to talk about what happens now. The examining judge has ruled he will interview 5 members of the group on Monday and the other 5 on Tuesday to take the process further. He is also listening to a petition from the defense lawyer to see in they can be released on bail, but the attorney general feels the charges are too serious to consider bail. The defense lawyer said he has 9 innocent victims in his opinion.

President Clinton is now in Haiti in his UN role. Joe Johns spoke to him earlier today. He said they are trying to defuse the crisis and the Haitian Government is not looking for a fight, but is concerned about protecting the children from would be or alleged abductors. President Clinton said the governments need to work together and work through this. The Haitian Government doesn't want it to become a distraction -- the people who might have been covering the issue of relief are now covering this story.

Next to weigh in on the story was Father Dale Albert Johnson, a Missionary Priest and Human Rights Activist, who runs Dominican Outreach and has been serving the poor for 20 years. Father Johnson said intentions do matter. Good intentions have to be combined with wisdom and best practices. He said there are good organizations on the ground and they need to give wisdom to people who come in for a short time. Anderson stated that he had met missionaries when he was in Haiti, who had come in to help for a short time and were trying to help the kids in Haiti, not taking them out of the country. Father Johnson said he felt Silsby was treating the children as a commodity. Anderson asked how so, and Father Johnson said there is money in adoptions. He also stated that what she was doing was damaging Haitian families and went on to discuss the Haitian culture of parents selling or giving away their children because they are unable to care for them or hope they will have a better life than what they can give them, but that's not usually the way things end up for the children.

The Raw Politics segment was about Rep. Richard Selby of Alabama's attempt to put a hold on 70 presidential appointments (including some in the Pentagon and Department of Justice) because he wants earmarks. The government is basically being brought to a stop by one lawmaker.

Candy Crowley discussed the particulars. The scope of this incident is unusual, but the practice of putting a hold on nominees is done all the time as a way of negotiating for legislation. Candy pointed out that the appointments are important, but not crucial and President Obama could do interim appointments to wait Selby out. She thought the possibility existed that he could actually put the nominees he wanted in on the interim basis.

Candy was also in for the 360 Bulletin

* There's a massive snow storm in DC - expecting up to 30 inches - and it could be the biggest snow on record.

* At the Hague, Former Liberian President Charles Taylor during his War Crimes trial said Televangelist Pat Robertson had helped the warlord lobby the White House for Liberia. Robertson denied this.

* Unemployment fell to 9.7 per-cent.

* Five crates of booze (Brandy and Whiskey) were dug out of the ice in Antarctica today. The booze was left behind in a failed expedition to the South Pole in 1909.

An interesting discussion ensued between Anderson and Candy concerning the Brandy and Whiskey and ended with Anderson asking Candy how excited she was about her new anchoring job as CNN's State of the Union on Sunday. She said she was a little nervous, but excited about having Hillary Clinton as her first guest.

Next up was the story of a happy Haitian adoption, about an orphan we first met when Anderson was reporting live from Haiti. Gary Tuchman reported on 22 month old Jenna Dowling's new home in Colorado.

The Tea Party Convention re-visited. Tom Tancrado gave an address that knocked both President Obama and Jon McCain. Part of one statement in his speech went something about "people who couldn't spell the word vote, elected President Obama." Randi Kaye was in Nashville and took an inside look at those attending the convention. I hit the fast forward button, but did hear her say that they are selling "tea bag" jewelry, that a ticket to the convention cost $550 and there were 600 people registered, but expect Sarah Palin's speech to draw about 1,000 people (remember she's getting paid $100,000 for this speech), the buzzwords at the convention are "constitution" and "freedom." And "Give me my country back" is they rallying cry.

A CNN poll (taken 1/22 - 1/24) on the opinion of the Tea Party Movement produced the following results:

Favorable 33 percent

Unfavorable 26 percent
Unsure (not enough information) 40 percent

John Avlon of the DailyBeast.com and Erick Erickson, Editor-In-Chief of RedState.com were in Nashville for more political discussion.

Avalon, when asked about Tom Tancredo's speech replied that "one man's red meat is another man's raw sewage." He felt Tancredo's speech was ugly and his statement about President Obama being a socialist is conventional wisdom there. However, he's not sure how the speech was received back home.

While the Tea Party Movement is a "leaderless" movement - three people popular in the movement are Tom Tancredo (R) Former Rep, Colorado and a known anti legal immigrant activist (thought that doesn't seem to be part of the movement); Michelle Bachmann (R) Minnesota who had to pull out of the convention but remains popular; and Sarah Palin (R) Former Gov. Alaska.

Erickson said he had reservations about the movement, but that it looks like the "dog that did catch the car" as the movement seemed to take off. Anderson asked Erickson where does the movement go? What's the next chapter? Erickson said he felt that the movement exists in the absence of leadership - that the members of the movement feel betrayed by the Republicans in 2008 with TARP and that President Obama has made things worse. The movement wants reigned in spending and small government. He feels that once a leader steps up, who will endorse their issues the movement will run it's course. While such a leader could come from either the Republican for Democratic party; it's the Republican party which typically sides with small government. The movement claims to be focused on "cleaning up" the Republican Party, bringing it back to it's fiscally conservative core. Social conservatism does not seem to be an issue for the Tea Party Movement members. They feel that former President George Bush and the Republicans in Washington have betrayed them.

With the New Orleans Saints in the Super Bowl this Sunday the next segment was on the chant "Who Dat?" which has been the war cry of Saint's fans for decades. Anderson introduced John McWhorter, an American Linguist, to give us the definition of the term --

McWhorter pointed out that when watching football with a beer in your hand it seemed more appropriate to say "Who Dat?" rather than "Who is that?"

And the Who Dat? segment led into James Carville's tour of New Orleans. He was joined by his wife Mary for the tour.

Candy was back in for "The Shot" and "Beat 360" - while I didn't find "The Shot" itself that funny, Anderson's and Candy's reaction and commentary was worth a clip. And Congratulations to Candy for being the staff winner of the "Beat 360" contest tonight. Anderson assured her the "fix" was not in! Enjoy!




A couple of new pics from Anderson's reporting in Haiti. Remember to click to enlarge.

As you probably know, Anderson began his career as a reporter for Channel One. Here's a video I found of Anderson doing a report for Channel One when he was in Haiti.

That's it for me this week. I hope you all have a great weekend. Wonz

All content, unless otherwise cited, is © All Things Anderson and may not be used without consent of the blog administrator.
All Things Anderson is a blog dedicated to CNN's AC360 and its host Anderson Cooper.