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Former President Jimmy Carter Marks 95th Birthday

Kane Farabaugh

   ATLANTA - Four years after battling life-threatening cancer in his
   liver and brain, and four months after falling and breaking his hip,
   requiring surgery and weeks of intense physical therapy, former U.S.
   President Jimmy Carter took the stage September 18, unassisted, here
   for the Annual Jimmy Carter Emory University Town Hall, which he's
   participated in, uninterrupted, for 38 years.

   Standing without assistance for more than 30 minutes, addressing topics
   ranging from current polarized U.S. politics to his favorite animal,
   Carter, a distinguished professor at Emory, showed no signs of fatigue
   or pain as he enthusiastically answered question after question from
   those who gathered in the cavernous campus gymnasium by the thousands
   to hear him speak.

   "Before this I really didn't know much about President Carter,"
   freshman Stephanie Teng said. "I feel so fortunate to be here. I know
   that many students won't have this opportunity in their lifetime, and
   this is a uniquely Emory thing, and something I'll remember the rest of
   my life."

   "I think it's a problem when we overly lionize political figures, but I
   do have a great deal of respect for Jimmy Carter," another freshman,
   Gian-Luigi Zaninelli, said.

   "I've heard a great many conservatives being credibly critical of Jimmy
   Carter and basically view him as an ineffectual president," he said.
   However, Zaninelli said that comes from Carter's presidential term,
   from 1977 to 1981.

   "Because of the good works he's been doing over the course of the last
   30 or more years, we have a high opinion of him as a human being,"
   Zaninelli said. "What is indisputable is that Jimmy Carter cares about
   other people and devotes himself to service, and when he did serve as a
   president, regardless of the success of his policies, he was doing so
   as a servant leader and not someone who was intending to enrich
   himself."

   "I would say I still adhere to the advice my school principal gave me,
   'You must accommodate to changing times -- and these are really
   changing times -- but cling to principles that never do change,'"
   Carter told VOA in an exclusive interview at the Atlanta-based Carter
   Center.

   WATCH: VOA interview with President Carter

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