Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20160523 : vimarsana.com

Michael because i did not want people to think this was another sad saga of someone suffering. And i wanted to write wanted to bet autobiographical, especially. And i wanted to tell the story. Able to to be generalize from it, which i think you can. Face what it is like to the fact. Not to face having an illness, necessarily. But the fact that you are going to die one way or another. Brian when did you know, what year . Michael 1993. Quite a while ago. Brian what was your reaction . Michael i was in distress. I was very upset for a few days. Since then, i have accommodated to it. It is not the worst thing in the world. Brian whose idea was it to do this book . It is a small book. Only 161 pages. By the way, it is only 18. Michael it is only 9. 99 on amazon. I wrote a piece in the new yorker that is partly from this book and everybody said, you ought to do a book. As a journalist you think, i have a story, i ought to tell it. So, i resisted for quite a while. Ultimately, i gave in. Brian what is the story about the Swimming Pool . And the 90yearold man . Michael i was living in los angeles in an apartment complex that had this Swimming Pool and i used to swim very early, and there was this old man swimming at the same time, like 5 00. He says, i used to be a judge. No, first he says, i am 90yearsold, as if that was in itself praiseworthy. I played along and said, thats wonderful. You should be very proud. Then he says, i used to be a judge. I thought, why is he telling me this . And i started to get resentful. So what if he is 90 . Then, as his reaction slowly became more and more puzzling he he that hewas convinced had come to believe that being a judge was a wonderful thing and brian you wrote about it . Didnt you . Wasnt it in the new yorker originally . Michael yes. I thought the whole thing was very touching. It seemed to me that he was losing it, you know . But he did not think so. I dont know. It just struck me as touching. Brian you got in a little bit of trouble, though. You wrote about it, and michael yes. His son wrote that he always thought you should be kind to your neighbors, or Something Like that. Brian he had died soon after . Michael yes. He mustve died about two weeks after this incident. I felt bad, but not all that bad. Brian michael kinsley, go over the details. So that folks that maybe have not seen you for wild know the background. Your hometown . Michael detroit. Brian you went to college where . What did you study there . Michael harvard, economics. Brian then where . Michael then i went to oxford and studied more economics, although not very hard. Then i came back to washington and got a job at the new republic. Oh, then i went to law school and i never used that. At harvard. Then i came to work at the new republic, and i was doing that for almost 20 years. Then i went out to seattle and worked for microsoft, creating slate. Brian for somebody who has not seen slate, what is it . Michael it was the first what we now call online magazine. Although, that is considered an oldfashioned term. It was owned by microsoft. Microsoft sold to the Washington Post, then the Washington Post sold itself to jeff bezos, the owner of amazon. But it did not sell the new republic i mean, slate. So, slate is now owned by graham holdings, the Family Holdings of the graham family. Which used to own the the Washington Post. Brian in 1984 your parkinsons came in what year . Michael 1993. You are talking about the new republic. [begin video clip] how would you categorize the new republic . It has been, almost since its founding, the premier political journal of the last and it political journal of the left. And it has been on different parts of the left over the course of its life. It was very prosoviet in the 1930s appeared in the 1960s it was connected with the new frontier, kennedy. Then it became very antiwar. It is now regarded as left of center but not far. [end video clip] brian does that make you left of center . Michael maybe i look a lot older. I consider myself left of center. But notl left extreme left. A lot of people deny that. Me ofof people accuse being a rightwing are in disguise. Rightuighur a rightwinger in disguise. Brian why . Michael i was skeptical of the idea that Edward Snowden could have the right to publish anything he wanted of government secrets. It seems to me that the government at some point has to have the last word. And that was a very unpopular position. And i have always been a debt hawk. I think the accumulated debt of the government has to be paid off. That is going to be very difficult. I take the Pete Peterson view. Not terribly original, but i think it is true. The official left position is, where is this inflation you have been talking about . It does not exist. That also has not contributed to my popularity. Brian how much have you thought about death . Michael i do not obsess over it. I havent thought about it that much, except to write a book. Brian when you first got parkinsons, did you start thinking about it at that point . Michael i certainly thought, this is not good news, which it wasnt. But i did not think that i would be on cspan 23 years later. I have been very lucky in that sense. I have, apparently, a slowmoving case and they say you can extrapolate with parkinsons. It is not like multiple sclerosis or some of the other neurological diseases where you have recurrent crises which move the disease along. Parkinsons, you can just extrapolate on a Straight Line and however much worse you are getting, you are going to keep on getting that much more worse, and i seem to be moving slowly. Brian i would you explain the way you go about your daily life today compared to 23 years ago . When you just started to michael i do not have a fulltime job. Although, i do have a job and i still write. I write a monthly column for vanity fair. I hope nobody from vanity fair is watching. It is a lot easier than writing a weekly column. Brian so it is a monthly column for vanity fair. And over the years, you did how many years of crossfire on cnn . Michael oh, about 300 it was six or seven. Brian what did you think of that . Michael well, i had had enough. I am glad i did it, but 6. 5 years was enough. Brian why . Michael the people who accuse crossfire of being a shouting match, originating what now dominates talk radio and television, i think are being ridiculous. I do not think that is true. Inhink crossfire was education for people. I do not think we needed to be apologetic, but after six years, it got a little tiresome. Brian a couple of years ago, somebody you know pretty well was here doing q a. This is only about 20 seconds. I want you to explain how this fits into your life. [begin video clip] every morning at breakfast, the conversations we had going through the papers as we did for so many years is just a great delight. He helps me be wiser in smarter every day. [end video clip] michael who was that woman . [laughter] i have breakfast with her every morning, i never thought to ask. That is my wife. She was on the committee that hired me at microsoft. Over 20 years ago. Brian i might as well ask, what is the best thing about being married to her . Michael oh, gosh. Where to start . I better not answer them. Everything about being married to patty is wonderful. Played,hat role has she and you have been married since 2002. What role has she played since your parkinsons has regressed . Michael she is good at making sure i behave myself and take my pills, exercise and all of that stuff. And of course, it is very nice to have someone nice to complain to when things are getting bad and so on in so forth. Brian if you have had a bad day, what happens . Michael brian what is the difference between a normal day and a bad day . Michael only there may be something i cannot do. Although, there are very few of those. I have stopped driving at pattys insistence. That is the hardest thing to accommodate. Brian you talk about that as it relates to other people as they have to stop. What is the impact you have found it has on people . Michael especially men more than women, although i think both genders it is not just an inconvenience. There is a sense of freedom about having a car and being able to go wherever you want to go. That is hard to give up. Brian you talk about losing your edge. You were worried more about that than almost anything. What does that mean . Michael this is what a neurologist told me after i was diagnosed. I suddenly, two or three weeks after, it occurred to me, i wonder if this is going to affect my brain . Of course, parkinsons is a brain disease so that was a nonsensical question, but i really meant, obviously, was thinking is it going to affect my thinking . And thinking is how i earn a living so that became pretty important. Neurologist,his what is going to happen . And he said it he was trying to tell me it was not such a big deal. He said, you may lose your edge, as if that was nothing. And i thought, gee, my edge is how i earn a living. It is why i have my friends, maybe my wife. She might not enjoy reading the papers so much at breakfast. Brian what is your edge . Do you still have it . Michael other people have to judge whether i have my edge. I think i have lost very little of it, if any. By, people do. Most people lose a little something. Of people with parkinsons, over the years, lose a lot of something. So i dont know. I cannot tell. Just about as sharp and edge as always. Brian in 2007, you were sitting with another person that was well known, and im going to run it in a second. But before i do, you quote a woman in the book that has multiple sclerosis saying, we all pray for somebody famous to get our disease. Why did you use that quote . Michael i thought it was very telling about, i think, our sword of sort of crazy system of approving drugs and other medical procedures. I thought that illustrated the point rather well, that it is a competition between different drugs to get fda approval, to get invented in the first place. Brian lets watch. [begin video clip] we have both taken our pills, and if there is any shaking going on, it might be parkinsons. It also might be the fact that the Capital Hotel had no water this morning and it was very cold. [laughter] if we have good chemistry, it brings it to a whole new level. [end video clip] michael that was obviously michael j fox. Who is really famous. He has had parkinsons he was diagnosed when he turned 30. I was in my 40s. He really had a bad luck there. He has been a hero of parkinsons. He is the founder of the michael j. Fox foundation which last week merged with the main Parkinsons Foundation from before he was diagnosed i dont have the details, i just read a press release. Basically, the michael j. Fox foundation has taken over the field. Brian you used humor there, and the introduction is written by Michael Lewis, who said he got his first job from you. That you introduced him to the reading world. But he also says you have a great sense of humor. I must say, it is funny. How hard is that . Michael i thought you were going to say, i dont know where Michael Lewis got that idea. [laughter] brian how much of a risk is a use of humor, that people out there with parkinsons disease might be offended by it . Michael in my experience, people are ready to be offended by anything. In a way, although many people have parkinsons much more severely than me, i still feel like i have a license to make a joke i might not otherwise make because ive got the disease that i am making fun of. Brian you have always had a sense of humor, though. Over the years, has it ever got you in trouble . Michael yes. You are going to want to an example. A example ofs not your sense of humor but, the gaffe thing you are responsible for . Michael a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. It was when gary hart was one president , 1984. Brian anybody offended by that . Michael not that they have ever said. Gary are probably was not too pleased. If he ever sign it. Hold today . It still michael somebody wrote in Huffington Post last week saying, it is no longer true that a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth. He had a theory i could not quite follow that maybe 20 years ago, i could. Brian you have a habit in your columns of quoting arianna huffington. Is that something you have developed on purpose . Michael i was writing one of my first columns for vanity fair. A couple years ago. I put in this obviously fake quote from her, just for the heck of it. The editor of vanity fair loved it and said, i want one in there every month. So, every month, i somehow stick a phony quote from arianna huffington. Brian calling somebody darling. Did she react . Michael i have not spoken to her or seen her for a couple of years. I hope she knows that it is all in fun. Im a great admirer of hers. I think Huffington Post solved several problems that online content was facing. Youve got to hand it to her. I dont know if you need to hand her 305 million, but she needs or whatever it is she got. But youve got to hand it to her. Brian she sold it. We are going to get into the deep brain surgery. Tell us when you decided to do this . And what was it . Michael it is a washington story. I have friends who were very close, they were all officials of the carter administration. Jerry kept trying to force on me this memo about this operation, which his friend was doing, very experimental at that point. I did not pay any attention. Finally, he persuaded me to read it. And hamilton and i got to know each other that way, because i had not been very nice to him in office. Brian he was chief of staff to carter . Michael yeah. It is in operation where they put to essentially the same thing as brian a pacemaker . Michael a heart pacemaker, these are called sometimes for short brain pacemakers. They send little shots of electricity into whatever part of the brain they think will help. The operation lasted nine hours of these brain 2 pacemakers. Brian where . Michael i can show you. I wont. Brian on your chest . Michael yes. Theres one here, one here. That is where the batteries are. They run up your neck and a end up in your brain. And they curb the effects of parkinsons. Curb, not cure. Supposedly, they push the disease back by about five years. Which is a good number. Brian lets watch your doctor explain some of this. Where is he located . Michael he was at the cleveland clinic. Last i heard, he was at ohio state medical school. Ryan here he is in 2010 talking about this procedure. [begin video clip] it is basically a brain pacemaker. It is a tiny wire that gets implanted into the brain, with four contacts which send calming electrical signals to calm the anxiety in the brain. This has a microchip inside, a battery that sends electrical signals up to your head to these wires and thereby improves the electrical chaos in the brain. [end video clip] brian you had this done in what year . 2006 . That is what i read. What happened to you once thats ninehour operation was over . Michael it was amazing. When you come out of the operation, all the symptoms of parkinsons are gone. As he said, it is as if you do not have it. That is peculiar because they have not turned it on yet. But even so, it is like you never had it. And is because the process of installing the pacemaker rubs against im sure this is an amateur way to put it it rubs against your brain and has the same effect as if they turn it on. The electricity. But over the next few weeks, the returned to where they were before. But then you go back in a flip the switch and immediately, like within a few seconds, you start to see the benefits, dramatically. Brian over the years, how often do they change batteries . Michael i have had the batteries changed twice. Brian they have to open you up . Michael its a simple operation which takes 45 minutes. It is getting it into the brain that is the tough part. Simply putting pacemakers in your chest is very easy. Apparently. Brian as i told you before, a fellow that has been here for over 25 years, our leading history producer and has produced a lot of documentaries on the capital of the white house and places like that, his father worked for nbc and had parkinsons, had the surgery. Mark and his brother danny had cameras in there during the operation and they made a documentary out of it. But he didnger live, not die of parkinsons, he died of cancer about two years after he had this operation. Lets watch this. You might remember the scene. [begin video clip] [drumming] testing, testing. I am anxious to get on with it. [guitar strumming] so we can see right here, these are the tips of the electrodes, entering through two easy for you to say. [laughter] correct you may feel pressure. That will be temporary. I look in your eyes and i am filled with confidence. [laughter] this will be on for the rest of the day, right . Rest of the day. Brian he had quite a sense of humor. Whats it like . Where x it is very odd because they screw your head to the board, to the operating table. And you cant really move it. Of selfuires a lot calming. I recognize all those little test with a make you take the tiny little circular thing and put it in a different little circular thing. Brian you write in here a lot about the testing process. Theres no reason to test you, really, except for the fact that i was going to write this piece. I decided i would use myself as a guinea pig. And i took a cognitive test. What we saw here was a test for the physical effects of parkinsons. And the tests i took were all for the cognitive effect. Brian what kind of a tested they give you . I dont think you liked it. Michael no. It lasted about five hours. One time, i took it. The physical side of parkinsons, they have a very and they have a they have a rating system. Clear, thel very extent to which they have what level you are at, in terms of the symptoms, the physical symptoms. The cognitive symptoms, every test is different. They use take differentest but for ive done it about four or five times and they are different each time. We have more video of that particular operation. Lets see if you remember this part of it. [video clip] this is the part, ray, where you will hear a lot of loud nose noise, ok. It is not going to hurt, but it is going to make your teeth chatter. But its not going to hurt. This is as far under as i am going to get, right . Ok, ready . I feel fine. I never felt a thing. Yep. [end video clip] Michael First of all, i dont remember it very clearly. The second of all, he is right, there are dime sized holes. I do not realize that until before the operation. I was expecting Something Like this. A dime is big, you know . It doesnt really matter. Brian he recommended that what was your reaction after having this . Michael the operation . Absolutely. At that time, they discouraged you from taking it. They said, except as a last resort. I insisted that i wanted it anyway. And they gave it to me. They do it much sooner in the course of the disease, because they figure, why shouldnt you have some more good years . Brian and how long did it take you to recover, get up, walk around . Michael i was Walking Around the next day. To completely recover took close to one year, because you have to go in to adjust the electrodes. The electricwhatevers, because they have different effects. If they give you too much juice, you are all over the line again. If they dont give you enough, youre not getting the effect. I went back there every three months for one year. In the adjusted it. Brian you said this is not a book about parkinsons. I want to get to some of the other things that you talk about. Who should read this . Michael everybody brian who, really . Michael it is ostensibly aimed at boomers who are just reaching the point where they are going to be getting parkinsons and other things in larger numbers. Parkinsons is the disease of old people in most people who get it are old, in their 70s or 80s or later. Brian how would you characterize a boomer . Michael you dont have to characterize them. A boomer is somebody born between 1946, when all the soldiers came home from world war ii and could get to work the family, and 1964, which i guess was just chosen arbitrarily. A boomer is somebody who was born in that framework. Brian how would you characterize their attitude . Michael i tried to make the case that boomers are known for and deserve to be known for maybe excessive competitiveness. Brian is that true . I mean, have you felt competitive in your life . Michael yes, i think so. I am not competitive for fancy sports cars and stuff like that, which boomers are associated with. But i am competitive. Brian the longest word in the book is im having a hard time immortaphilosophic . Michael that might be a typo. Brian what were you getting at with Larry Ellison . Michael Larry Ellison and a few others want to stay alive for ever and i say, it would be more efficient if all they want to do is extend their lifetime to get in on what bill gates spends his money on, curing malaria and things like that, because you were going to spend more person save more personyears that way. Brian what do you say in your book about what is important in life . Michael well, i go through the list. The premise is, you dont have to be a saint, you just have to be a reasonable person. You start off with wanting consumer goods, the fancy car, the nice house, and then you start to think about that and you think, what is that going to get you really . What really counts is cognition. Youve got to retain your marbles if you are going to enjoy this stuff. Then you think, well, what really, really counts is reputation, because you are going to be dead longer anywhere alive longer than you were alive. Your afterlife reputation is going to be more important in the long run than cognition. I am missing one. Brian i have video of a man he talked about in the book, a columnist based at the Washington Post. Before we show the video, why did you use joseph as an example . Michael because joseph, when i came to washington in the late 1970s, he was in his mid70s he was a big deal. He was the guy you aspired to be. Jim fallows, a wellknown journalist today, wrote a piece about an, about how he represented the monarchy of washington journalists. And yet, you can walk through the Washington Post newsroom today and ask people, who is joseph kraft . And it would have no idea. Brian lets look at what joseph kraft looked like. [begin video clip] i would like to ask you, as you look ahead in the next four years, what sacrifices are you going to call on the American People to make . What price will you ask them today to realize your objectives . If you felt that it was appropriate to answer that question in your comments as to what price they would be appropriate for the American People to pay for a carter administration, i think that would be proper. [end video clip] brian he was only 62 when he died. Why was he such a big deal . Michael beats me. He was very good at articulating well, that sounds mean conventional wisdom. There are few journalists at any given time who have the reputation. And he was one of them back then. He was like tom friedman or someone of that ilk, that level, only moreso, because there are more outlets, more reputation you have to spread around. Brian in your book, we were talking earlier about still having your marbles, you write that the rules of competitive cognition are simple, the winners are whoever dies with more of their marbles. He was 102 years old when he was accidentally shot by a neighbor and except for his habit of breaking into nearby homes and stealing booze, he was still sharp as a tack. Michael that is sort of what you want. You want to be thought of as sharp as a tack. You are a couple things you have to explain away. Brian you say death before dementia is your rallying cry. Then you give this statistic that there are 79 million boomers, 28 million are expected to develop alzheimers or some form of dementia . Michael i got that from the Alzheimers Association for some reputable source. It is true, as far as i can tell, unless a cure comes along or Something Like a cure. Brian two people who have parkinsons usually get alzheimers, to . Michael no. They are two different diseases. But, people with parkinsons have a much higher chance of getting parkinsons dementia. Brian Robert Mcnamara. Your story. Former secretary of defense michael he is only in the book because i ran into him on an airplane and Robert Mcnamara was the secretary of defense under jfk and lbj and he, in my view, was responsible for the vietnam war. I found myself sitting next to him on an airplane and i asked where he was going. He was going to denver to meet his girlfriend. He must have been in his 80s. And they were going to go crosscountry skiing from aspen to vail or something. And he obviously had led quite a wonderful life after he did this damage, in my view, in their view of many who know a lot more than he. Brian he lived to be 93. Michael 93 thats even better. Brian did you talk to him . Michael not about anything important. I guess i was a little afraid. But, he had led this really nice life. If everyone can live until 93 in be crosscountry skiing with their girlfriend at that age, or boyfriend, that would be pretty nice. And so, i use him as an example of what most boomers will not get. Brian the last chapter was kind of surprising because it is the only place in your book that it is really political. The name of the last chapter is the least we can do. Why did you decide to do it . What is it about . Michael it is a pet peeve of mine that whenever people start to think in these general terms about generations and what they mean, you are always bumping up against the greatest generation, tom brokaws term for the world war ii generation. The question is, what can boomers do that will equal that . The answer many people come up with is a National Service program, where you dont they dont need you in the army but you can be put to work teaching or something. I think that is a horrible idea. But people think it is a great idea and it was about boomers, so i just put the chapter in there. Brian how do you think we can get out of this 19 trillion debt . How can boomers impact that . Michael i think boomers can put up with a tax increase. It is not very romantic, i mean, we could afford to make a sacrifice of paying our taxes, wiping out the debt, and then spending the money that needs to be spent on the infrastructure, on schools. I mean, whats happening in schools is terrible. Most people agree, the most people are not prepared to say i personally will fork out x billion dollars, but i prepared to pay more until it hurts to solve these problems. Its a very unpopular idea and it is going nowhere. Brian you say infrastructure risks automatically classify you as a bore . Michael well, ive done it. Brian you consider yourself a bore . Michael infrastructure is pretty boring, but whenever i go to new york, you get out at penn station and it is shocking how seedy it is. Country, then might be the first thing they see. I think that is terrible. Brian you talk about stines law. Anything they cant go on, want it and americans piling up of debt in bad times cannot go on. Michael i think that is true. Brian do you find anybody who believes that a can or cant go on . Michael most people on the left think that it can go on. I took a lot of heat about a year ago for arguing in a couple of pieces that it cant. So far, we have not had to pay the cost to itself are, i am completely wrong, but i think in the long run, and a take no joy in seeing so, i am right. Brian what is buck raking . Michael it is a term invented by the nowhead of slate. It is journalists taking money for giving speeches, innocence. In essence. Brian and you decided to do some backbreaking after you got alzheimers im sorry, parkinsons . Michael i had always refused to do it. Not because i think it is so terrible i think it is fine. There is a tradition of mark twain did it. It is one of the ways journalists and writers can support themselves. It is a little icky and so i did not want to get involved and i did not need the money. But then i got parkinsons and i thought, maybe i do need the money. So for a year or so, i did it. Brian you still do it . Michael no. I dont get asked anymore because people know i have parkinsons and they think i am sitting in a wheelchair somewhere. But i turned down the few offers that i get. Brian and you walked in here normally today. Michael i just have this squinting thing going on at the moment. Brian is the new . Michael three or four years. Brian is there any way to deal with that . Michael probably, but i didnt realize that having a chronic disease would be so timeconsuming. That is one of the big surprises, you know . You have to take all of your pills at a certain time and you want to see this specialist and take up boxing and it is timeconsuming. Brian would you get the idea of doing boxing . Michael i have only been doing it for about a month, but i got the idea from watching 60 minutes. Leslie is married to the guy, a very good novelist who has parkinsons. You see aaron shuffling along, and then you see him boxing quite loosely. I thought, wow. The next day i was walking down the street and i see somebody putting up a better banner that says, urban boxing, grand opening and i thought, that must be a sign. Brian how is it working . Michael my wife thinks it is working very well. That is all i need. Brian how long do you box . Michael you dont really box because that would be terrifying. Brian you just hit the bag . Michael at this place, there is a guy there who wears these mitts designed to be hit. He is good enough that he is not going to be injured. And then i wear regular mitts and pretend i can know what im doing. Brian you told a story in your book about the fact that you were offered the editorship of the new yorker magazine, in the impact of when the owner found a you have parkinsons. Explain that story. Michael gosh it well, yes. Tina brown had quit and they were looking for a new editor. I went up to new york, they offered me the job. Brian what year was this . Michael this is 1996 or 1997. I said, i have to check back with microsoft, because i promised them i would. Brian you were at microsoft . Michael yes, i had started slate. We had dinner. A very warm family. On the way back i said i will talk to in the morning, but when i come back to my hotel, he called and said, i dont think this is going to work in which withdrew it. Over the years, i have thought about this a lot, and i dont think and i believe him i told him i have parkinsons and he said it didnt matter and i believed him. But i also believe that he wouldnt have offered it to me if he had known from the very beginning. Brian why did he withdraw . Michael i think it is because he really wanted david remnick, a guy who is in a very good job with. I put on a pretty good show for him. For the moment, he was swayed with any decided he wanted to swayed. But then he decided he wanted to stick with his first love. Brian you are how old . Michael 65. Brian how long do you expect to live . Michael supposedly parkinsons doesnt affect your lifestyle lifespan, no. They say in the obituaries that somebody died after a long illness or of the side effects of parkinsons or something. I expect to live well, i hope a normal lifespan. Which according to the statistics i think would be 15 more years. Brian one last question. What do you notice the most of peoples reactions to the difficulty that you have with this disease . Michael it is their sympathy, really, which i am grateful for, although i could live without a lot of the time. People are basically very nice. Brian the book is called old age a beginners guide. Forward by Michael Lewis. Our guest has been michael kinsley. It is about facing the end of life. Thank you so much for being with us. Michael thank you, brian. Announcer for transcripts or comments, visit us at q a. Org. Programs are also available as podcasts. Im with michael kinsley, these are other programs you might like. You can watch these in a time or search our entire Video Library announcer an. Org cspans washington journal live every day with policy issues that impact you. Monday morning, with the House Holding hearings to possibly and john cosco nan, on his efforts to eliminate abuse in the tax system. Also William Klein will talk about the recent release of the list of the Top Countries that hold u. S. Debt, including saudi arabia. Be sure to watch cspan washington journal monday morning. Join the discussion. Announcer Queen Elizabeth ii traveled from buckingham to parliament for the state opening of the British Parliament on wednesday. She delivered a speech written by the government that outlines the priorities for the coming year. Bbc parliament then you wouldnt hosted theritain