Following up on my last post…
Last night was the traditional last party at the Conference on World Affairs. This is an odd meeting: about 100 interesting and intelligent people from around the globe gather in Boulder and talk about stuff. Seriously. There are dozens of panels each day on topics like the economic crisis, women in science, music as a method of healing, what to do about Iran, and even Twitter.
And it’s awesome. We’re talking seriously cool people here: Seth Shostak, Michelle Thaller, Kiki Sanford, Alex Filippenko, Fintan Steel… and those are just the science folks. Dave and Don Grusin. James Randi (natch). Rachel Maddow. Molly Ivins was a regular up until her death. Roger Ebert. Senator Chuck Hagel gave the opening talk. The list goes on.
I don’t know if I can do this week justice explaining it, so I’ll let Roger Ebert do it. His article about it is perfect.
It really is that extraordinary. I have talked a few folks into coming, and they’re always a little leery at first — I was too, when I was invited to be a panelist back in ’03 — but after the first day, they’re hooked.
And the parties! But you don’t need to know any more about those; I think the previous blog post gave you a taste — haha — of what they’re like.
If you are anywhere near Boulder in early April, then do yourself a favor and stick around for CWA. It’ll expand your brain, and we can all use a bit of that sometimes.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Phil, can anyone attend as a spectator, or is it closed to the public?
April 10th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Sounds like one of them control-the-world seekrit organizations.
April 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Very cool!
April 10th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
…what to do about Iran, and even Twitter.
You mean what to *do* about Twitter? Just hope it’s a fad and goes the way of the rest of them…
April 10th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
When I was going to CU-Boulder I used to take time off of work to attend the WAC every year.
I got to see Molly Ivins do her keynote speech about, among other things, threats of violence against the Clintons. It was amazing to watch her take a standing room only room (and a giant one at that, that ballroom is HUGE) from laughter to absolute silence to tears to laughter again. I will never forget it.
And Janiece, it’s open to the public. And it’s free, or at least it was when I was attending as a student.
April 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Also…damn. I missed it again.
I need to figure out how to get on a list somewhere that will remind me when it’s coming up so I can take the time off to go up there.
(Oh, and it’s the Conference on World Affairs now. I wonder if that was always the official name and “World Affairs Conference” was a misnomer, or if they changed the name somewhere along the way.)
April 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Yes, CWA is 100% free and open to the public! It is primarily run by volunteers, the participants pay their own way, and stay with local families who volunteer to put them up. The panels are all located on CU Boulder’s campus, who hosts CWA for the week. When the schedule of panels comes out in mid May next year, look over the schedule and make your plans. Show up early, many panels fill up (even the standing room).
April 10th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I have lived in Colorado all my life and have never heard of this. (It’s weird, but the locals never seem to know of the cool stuff going on locally. An example: I visited a NYC friend for a concert, and said I wanted to go to the top of the Empire State Building. Living in one of the 5 bouroughs all here life, she had never been up there. She was totally full of “WOW!”)
I am sure my late step-grandfather, Frank Clement (the inventor of the speakerphone and the touch-screen, amongst other things.) was probably all over the conference. Why didn’t he tell me?
Phil, please remind us of this conference over and over again next year…
April 12th, 2009 at 12:51 am
@ Frank66 :
I am sure my late step-grandfather, Frank Clement (the inventor of the speakerphone and the touch-screen, amongst other things.) was probably all over the conference.
Any relation of Hal Clement the very good Sf writer who, I think, was also a physicist or scientist of some description?
Hal Clement was, if memory serves, the author of ‘Mission of Gravity’ among others.
April 12th, 2009 at 1:17 am
There are dozens of panels each day on topics like the economic crisis, women in science, music as a method of healing, what to do about Iran, and even Twitter.
Why do we need to do ANYTHING about Iran?
I hope everyone there is intelligent enough to know that Iran should be left alone, perhaps congratulated on its currently progressing entirely legitimate space and nuclear programes, perhaps helped, certainly left in peace.
Iran is NOT & never has been the problem.
Israel OTOH has posed a constant threat to global peace and stability and is in on-going violationof Unitede Nations Resolutions – and has its secret WMDs plus continues to occupy, attack and menace its neighbours.
Iran has a legitimate sovereign right to develop nuclear weapons – esp. as a deterrent against Israel’s illegal and secret WMD’s – and also space technology.
Anyone saying otherwise, esp. from a nation which has the worlds’s largest stockpiles of WMDs* and has the most sucessful space program in history, is not only wrong but also being an Islamophobic hypocrite.
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* Plus, of course, the USA is the only nation in the world ever to use nuclear weapons in war against civilians. It has also bullied and threatened Iran for many years, whilst Israel has continually threatend and attacked and oppressed its neighburs as well as illegally occupying the Palestinean territories and practicing crimes agianst humanity on them. It is Israel – & the USA – who are the world’s worst “rogue nations”. Iran and other places simply need their equal right to protect themselves and just *be* themselves respected.
****
The Amalekites were a Semitic tribe recorded in the Old Testament / Talmud / Torah as one of history’s many victims of the genocides carried out repeatedly on their neighbours by the Israelite tribes – other victims include the Moabites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Amorites and Philistines. The Amalekite king was spared by Saul – only for the “prophet” Samuel to enter the room, abuse his king and then murder and hack into pieces the Amalekite king – an unarmed prisoner. Samuel went on to launch a racist diatribe claiming the Jewish god Yahwah was so upset at Saul’s failure to completely exterminate the Amalekites, another Semitic people, that he was removing Saul’s kingship – and later his life. Today Israelis still revile the long since exterminated Amalekites using it as a term of abuse which is sometimes directed towards the Palestineans. The term is also used for atheists.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:26 am
On anotherlong past thread (click for link) The Bad Astronomer Phil Plait wrote:
Amalekite: your comment was off-topic, inappropriate, and basically trolling .. You’re welcome to post here on topic, but if you do this again, I will retroactively go through all your comments and mark them all as spam. Are we on the same page here?
Well, we disagree but I’ll play by your rules.
I’ve only just now seen that response of yours – & I do NOT beleive it to be a fair characterisation of my comments.
But its your blog & I respect that.
I hope you’ll please allow me to comment even when we disagree on things that are on-topic.
I think my point regarding Iran here is still on topic – & I hope & believe I’m allowed to defend my arguments robustly. Is that okay by you?
I’ll try not to cross any lines in terms of going off topic, swearing, etc .. while still reasonably expressing my perspective. Fair enough?
(I don’t think I’m a “troll”, I was out working in full sun all day and still haven’t turned to stone!
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The Amalekites were a Semitic tribe recorded in the Old Testament / Talmud / Torah as one of history’s many victims of the genocides carried out repeatedly on their neighbours by the Israelite tribes – other victims include the Moabites, Jebusites, Canaanites, Amorites and Philistines. The Amalekite king was spared by Saul – only for the “prophet” Samuel to enter the room, abuse his king and then murder and hack into pieces the Amalekite king – an unarmed prisoner. Samuel went on to launch a racist diatribe claiming the Jewish god Yahwah was so upset at Saul’s failure to completely exterminate the Amalekites, another Semitic people, that he was removing Saul’s kingship – and later his life. Today Israelis still revile the long since exterminated Amalekites using it as a term of abuse which is sometimes directed towards the Palestineans. The term is also used for atheists.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Amalekite,
Ignoring other countries is hardly appropriate diplomacy. Making decisions about how to behave toward another country (diplomatic policy) is something that can help avoid violence.
While the US did use nuclear weapons to end a war, this desire to dwell on the past is often the root of continuing violence. The focus on the Amalekites, to include using Amalekite as your alias, suggests an inability to view events objectively. There is plenty of blame to go around in the Middle East. There are still many Americans and Japanese alive from 1945. Yet America and Japan are friendly nations. The story of the Amalekites is thousands of years old, but you appear to be trying to use this to discourage peaceful solutions to current violence.
Suggesting that there is something as simple as good guys and bad guys in the Middle East is naive. The US has tried to help negotiate a fair peace. The US, a nation that includes immigrants from Israel, Palestine, Iran, and all of the other nations in the Middle East, will probably continue to try to help the warring factions to negotiate a peace that is best for their people, not best for continuing the memory of hatred.
April 13th, 2009 at 2:32 am
@ Rogue Medic :
Ignoring other countries is hardly appropriate diplomacy. Making decisions about how to behave toward another country (diplomatic policy) is something that can help avoid violence.
Only *IF* those decisons are wise, non-provocative and aimed at reducing tensions rather than aggresive, counter-productive “gunboat diplomacy.”
The recent US record in regard to making the right decisions is so poor, and its reputation is now so tarnished that the best thing it can do is just apologise for past mistakes and stop making new ones by leaving other countries the hell alone. In particular, the US’s aggressive policy towards Iran needs to be radically toned down to one of simply accepting the Iranians right to run their country and its foreign policy as they choose.
The phrasing used; suggesting Iran was a “problem” – and a “problem” that *Americans* in particular need to “sort out” was just plain offensive.
Just imagine if the situation was reversed and an Iranian was telling the Problematic USA how to run itself and what to do in the world. Given Iranians have had a real civilisation for thousands of years and run peaceful empires in the past successfully this may not actually be such a bad idea!
The focus on the Amalekites, to include using Amalekite as your alias, suggests an inability to view events objectively.
Why? For one thing those who forget history end up making the same mistakes. The jews are never shy about saying “never again” and “remember the (one, breif) Holocaust” they suffered – why is it we fail to aply the same standards and so easily allow their religio-ethnicity to forget the *many other holocausts the jews committed (& the Palestinean case are still committing) against others? Where are the Holocuats museums and special days and ceremionies for the Amalekites, Jebusites, Amorites, Edomites, Canaanites and others? Aren’t they too deserving of being remembered? Or do non-jews somehow count less?
For another thing, true objectivity is restricted to maths and maybe not even there. Pro-Israel polemicists are far more biased and far more frequently heard than the other side. They have long doninated the media and foreign policy toa point where extreme pro-Zionist bias is considered “normal” and “acceptable” even where even a slight amount of rational thought would show the pro-Israeli arguments to be utterly flawed and hypocritical.
The story of the Amalekites is thousands of years old, but you appear to be trying to use this to discourage peaceful solutions to current violence.
No, not at all. I prefer a peaceful solution where the Israeli state does the right thing by everybody – including themselves – & is voluntarily evacuated from an area they will never be welcome to somewhere else on the planet where they will be – eg. Europe or the USA.
In the long run a detested apartheid Jews-only only state in the heart of the Muslim world is asking for massive trouble. If one wished to exterminate the jews – & I do NOT – then there is no better way of doing this than concentrating the majority of them in hostile territory then *really* infuriating the neighbours and the rest of the world???
Suggesting that there is something as simple as good guys and bad guys in the Middle East is naive.
I have never claimed the Palestineans, Iranians and others are faultless. But come one! One nation – Israel – is oppressing and attacking and occuping the others. One nation – Israel – is based on a flawed and racist doctrine where people of one religion / ethnicity -Judaism – can immigrate even with absolutely no prior connection to the region whilst refugees whose whole past history and ancestral homes are there are barred from living in their own land and, if they are there they are treated as second, third or hundreth class (non)citizens in their indigenous homeland!
One nation – Israel – is literally getting away with murder and other crimes against humanity. Israel is by far the guiltier party, they are the ones doing the majority of the killing and who have created this whole mess. The West for far too long has let Israel get away with far worse than South Africa’s apartheid regime – with boasting about assassinating political opponents, with bombing refugee camps, with having secret WMDs, with torture, with religio-racial discrimination of the worst variety and more.
Yes, the Palestineans have adopted some contentious, desperate tactics like guerilla warriors and resistence movements throughout history. What other option do they have? Asymmetric warfare is cruel and brutal and apppalling -and, in the end, as with Algeria, Vietnam and elsewhere, the colonialist occupying power will fail.
The US has tried to help negotiate a fair peace.
Bzzt. Wrong. The USA has always been an Israeli partisan & NOT a fair broker. It has constantly been funding, arming and politically supporting the Jewish state against the Palestineans and Arab world.
The Oslo accords & other peace agreements failed because Israel failed to keep their side of what was always a bad deal anyway. There has NEVER, despite Israeli propaganda to the contrary, been a fair and just deal offered to the Palestineans.
Would you accept just 20% of your own nation back – as a municipal level non-contiguous state with no control over your own foreign policy, borders, immigration, defence, etc ..? I don’t think so!
Israel must simply obey the International law and leave the Occupied territories entirely.
The US, a nation that includes immigrants from Israel, Palestine, Iran, and all of the other nations in the Middle East, will probably continue to try to help the warring factions to negotiate a peace that is best for their people, not best for continuing the memory of hatred.
The US population contains 5 % of Jews and also Muslims. So then why is it that only the Jewish voice ever seems to get heard?
The best thing for both peoples (as noted earlier) is for Israel to be evacuated from where it can’t survive and isn’t wanted – Palestine & the Muslim world – to where it is wanted and can survive, ie. the US or Europe. Oh & the US needs to respect and treat the Muslim world more fairly if it is ever to end the current Western-Muslim clash.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Amalekite,
I suspect that there are meetings in Iran to discuss the American problem and what to do about it. Why shouldn’t there be?
And those who refuse to believe that the present is more important than the past, are also condemned to repeat that violent past, as are their families – those who survive. This is not isolated to any one race, religion, political group, . . . .
This continuation of hatred, at the expense of peace, just creates more reasons for continuing the hatred and the killing.
In other words, you and Dick Cheney share the philosophy of, Peace, but only on my terms! Compromise is for losers.