I can’t tell you how, and I can’t tell you how, and I can’t tell you where, but I can tell you that I spent an exceedingly comfortable evening having cocktails in the company of the American military-industrial complex, the one that President Dwight David Eisenhower warned about in his farewell Presidential address in 1960.
Continue Reading 2 comments August 5th, 2010
The Roaring Fork Cultural Council (RFCC) is bringing Aspen Institute President & CEO Walter Isaacson to the Thunder River Theatre in Carbondale to address questions about the future of journalism and the media:
Aspen Institute CEO Walter Isaccson interviewed by Michael Conniff
Sunday, August 8, 2010 at 7:30pm
Thunder River Theatre, Carbondale, Colorado
Continue Reading Add comment August 3rd, 2010
Most Americans were momentarily outraged a year ago when al-Megrahi, the bomber behind the Lockerbie killings, was released from prison with the ostensibly accurate news that he had but three months to live.
Prostate cancer, a notoriously slow-moving disease, was the culprit for the killer who blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in the south Scotland in 1988, killing 11 Scots on land—243 passengers, and 16 crew members for a total of 270 dead. Abdebasit Ali al- Megrahi has now lived almost nine months beyond the prescribed three, and his doctor, Dr. Karol Sikora, told the Times of London, that the killer could live another ten or even twenty years.
Continue Reading Add comment August 2nd, 2010
The anchors on Fox News—both male and blonde—are quite happy to bloviate non-stop when they beat the “left-wing” competition in the ratings hands-down.
Now we know how they do it: by all but eliminating blacks from its viewing audience, Fox has been able to deliver a white demographic not seen on television since the last NASCAR race. Advertisers haven’t been this happy since “Mad Men” did an Emmy double-dip.
In case you missed the latest breaking bulletin from the culture wars—ka-ching!—Fox attributes its success to blacks who constitute just 2 percent of its viewing audience not counting Shirley Sherrod, their latest African-American scalp—but including Michael Steele, the foot-in-mouth chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC).
Continue Reading Add comment July 30th, 2010
The hotness of Sarah Palin has not gone unremarked nor should it any more than John F. Kennedy’s so-called “charisma.” Sex appeal is a huge bonus for a political candidate regardless of their “capacities,” to quote the late Al Campanis, and speculation about Sarah Palin’s bodyparts will continue as long as the half-time Governor of Alaska continues to sling for the fences.
Continue Reading Add comment July 28th, 2010
Aspen’s own Kevin Costner doesn’t get enough credit for trying to save the oil companies from themselves. The actors says dumped $24 million into his oil-water separation technology, according to his presentation this week at the Aspen Environment Forum, “and that’s after taxes”—so you figure he had to smile for the camera to the tune of $35 million-plus to make his Ocean Therapy Solutions come to life.
Why bother? Because Costner, after the Exxon Valdez fiasco, never wanted to see oil wash over our wildlife again. He hired 20 scientists and spent fifteen years coming up with a deployable black box that could stop the problem when it happened and before it got worse.
“I thought industry would rush to my door,” he said at the forum sponsored by the Aspen Institute.
Continue Reading 4 comments July 27th, 2010
ASPEN, COLORADO—Paywall love is a beautiful thing in the media business—the belief of working journalists that if they charge for content the good old days that never were will grow back like ivy at Wrigley Field.
Jon Miller, chief digital bottlewasher at News Corp., is a true believer in paywalls because his company stands behind the best and the brightest at the Wall Street Journal. Miller made clear at the Forbes Brainstorm conference here that paywalls are next to godliness for News Corp., if only because the Journal stands alone.
Continue Reading Add comment July 23rd, 2010
I’ve seen some lousy reporting at the Aspen Daily News—including the one this year about a drunken editor trying to bribe a cop—but some of the worst ever can be found in Brent Gardner-Smith’s coverage of the resignation of Hugh Zuker, a candidate for Pitkin County Sheriff.
Continue Reading 1 comment July 20th, 2010
Maybe you’ve heard of this Facebook thing, and maybe you’ve seen the Facebook user profile that asks everyone to fill in the blanks when it comes to their political views.
People say all sorts of things. (One favorite: “Don’t get me started….”) But by the hundreds, and presumably by the thousands and millions, one Facebooker after another is describing themselves as “liberals.”
Not once have I seen anyone say they are “progressive.”
All I can say is shut my mouth.
Continue Reading Add comment July 16th, 2010
Writers, a breed full of need, are a painful planetary species to emerge from both primordial bog and unspeakable blog. Take it from me, a writer who is about to make a real pain in the ass out of himself about…writing.
After decamping to the Aspen Ideas Festival, I came away thinking that no one is more terrified of the future than the writer of fiction. A panel devoted to writing in the digital age had a quartet of terrific writers—playwright John Guare, short story writer Tobias Woolf, and poets Dana Goia and Barbara Ehrenreich—but they were all but clueless when it came to the new confusion under discussion.
Continue Reading Add comment July 14th, 2010
