2006-04-10
(I know you tuned in for the next installment on printer profiles (yeah, right), but you'll have to wait, as I'm about to explain.)
I'm spending this week, as I do every year, at the Conference on World Affairs, a quick bus ride down Broadway to the Boulder campus of the University of Colorado (CU, we call it). It's the 58th Conference--it started the same year I did.
The subject of the CWA is the affairs of the people who live in the world, which includes music, politics, poetry, storytelling, jokes, sex, history, movies, novels, science, and all possible combinations of those and others (e.g., science movies, political sex, music jokes). If there's a topic that doesn't fit in, I'm not sure what it might even be. Some talks are inspirational (Daniel Ellsberg and George McGovern, in separate talks on the same day; Dave Grusin playing his movie music live), some merely interesting (Craig, of Craig's List), some funny (a panel telling nothing but jokes, mostly dirty, featuring Andy Ihnatko and Roger Ebert).
You have really famous people on panels that you wouldn't expect them to be on (Roger Ebert on a panel about evolution), famous people talking about what you'd expect (Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia, talking about African politics), and people you never heard of so you don't know what to expect (Yoshino Funaki, talking about how the World Bank lends money). There are panels all day long, usually 4 or 5 at a time, in rooms all over the University (ones not being used for classes), and sometimes in coffee shops or food courts on The Hill, the nearby shopping area.
Today I went first to "It's Okay, I Wasn't Using My Civil Liberties Anyway." Then the keynote address, "Energy, Security, and the Long War of the 21st Century," give by Jim Woolsey, who's had lots of good jobs in Washington, including Director of the CIA. Then a panel discussion on "Homeland (In)Security," which I left early to go to "Parenting-High Risk, High Reward." I ended the day with "Foreign Aid and Irresponsible Lending."
Best line of the day was from Woolsey, who had explained that, as the "theocratic fanatical" government of Saudi Arabia was funding the insurgents in Iraq, the current Iraq War is the only war we've been in, other than the Civil War, where we're paying the bill for both sides. (The politics of the speakers aren't always obvious. The talks are usually too informative and intelligent for that. I think Woolsey has neocon tendencies, but he's so disgusted with how the ones in power have handled things it's a little hard to tell. It didn't matter.)
This is one of my favorite weeks of year. I'm not contradicting last Friday's entry by saying that; no 2 hours in the week are as good as V for Vendetta. But, taken as a whole week, it can't be beat. All free, and just a bus ride away.