Aspen, CO, June 12, 2008 –– The 2008 Aspen Institute McCloskey Speaker Series opens with a lecture by American historian Martin J. Sherwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Knopf). Sherwin will discuss “Hiroshima’s Shadow: The First Nuclear World and Ours.”
Continue Reading Add comment June 19th, 2008
When I saw the book “Print Is Dead: Books In Our Digital Age,” my great fear was that Jeff Gomez had found out the great secret I have been carrying around for fifteen years in hopes that nobody would find me out.
Fortunately for me, Gomez—an Internet marketing executive for a book company—made his way through his fascinating dissertation with many compelling observations of his own, though without coming close to my conclusion about the future.
My secret is safe for a few paragraphs more.
Continue Reading 6 comments April 17th, 2008
If you’re like me, blognoscenti, then you might have wondered more than once how a previously enlightened smarty-pants celeb can switch so effortlessly to a philosophy found abhorrent but five minutes before.
I finally figured it out: these media converts from liberalism are all fake conservatives—not really conservative at all.
Continue Reading 4 comments April 9th, 2008
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday April 3, 2008.
The Con Games welcomes filmakers from Aspen Shortsfest to talk about Sudan and street medicine.
In part II, he interviews Ed Gray, son of the late acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray III, about their book, "In The Web Of Watergate."
Add comment April 3rd, 2008
During the Aspen Institute/National Geographic Magazine’s Aspen Environmental Forum, the legendary Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute listed stabilizing the world's population growth rate as one of the crucial requirements to saving planet earth and its inhabitants from self-destruction. And while casual lip service was paid by other forum attendees to this overriding issue, no “solutions” to overpopulation, in the U.S. or globally, seem to have been proffered. Instead, the usual reducing of consumption, developing alternative sources of energy, mitigating greenhouse gasses andthe like expectedly got all the attention.
That figures, because American environmental movement has totally abdicated when it comes to U.S. population stabilization.
Continue Reading 1 comment April 2nd, 2008
The Con Man talks the talk about books with guest Mike McGarry, and then turns his attention to Barack Obama's quest for racial normalcy.
Continue Reading 1 comment March 19th, 2008
In this second of a three part interview, Michael Folkerth’s book: “THE BIGGEST LIE EVER BELIEVED” exposes America’s greatest crisis—growth. He epitomizes a humorous economist and the “King of Simple.”
Continue Reading 1 comment January 28th, 2008
In a three part interview, I found myself astounded by author Michael Folkerth's book: "THE BIGGEST LIE EVER BELIEVED." He epitomizes a humorous economist and the "King of Simple."
His book presents irrefutable logic that this nation cannot continue growing for the long term. We must face the facts of our limited continent. We must come to terms with not being able to extract five quarts of water out of a one gallon jug!
"I constantly attempt to create analogies that represent our system of ever expanding economic growth and the impossibility of continuing the same," Folkerth said. "Growth is not the answer; it's the problem.
"I have been a guest speaker on many national radio programs, and relate well to the expression 'carrying capacity' that erupts in the media from time to time."
Continue Reading 1 comment January 25th, 2008
MC: What were you writing when you started?
AM: In my twenties I wrote science fiction but I only had one book published. It was about a wife who drove her husband to be reduced to a set of teeth mowing a lawn. I became a feminist and said no to an offer to put it in an anthology.
MC: Why did you say no?
AM: I was stereotyping a hen-pecked wife. Like a lot of women in the early 1970s I got caught up in the women’s movement. It took me a while but one time I saw a guy snickering about a woman’s liberation march. I was so pissed—I had false eyelashes then, I wore tiny dresses, I was into being pretty. I started marching and got more and more involved. When I was in college I was standing around at college fraternity parties and nodding. Feminism made a lot of sense to me. I’m a great backer of Hillary Clinton.
Continue Reading Add comment January 22nd, 2008
November 25, 2007
Good morning! Two eggs sunnyside up in a crepe pan, divvied up and layered over two pieces of wheat toast at 45 calories apiece, all of it washed down with no-pulp OJ and stale coffee from Sumatra…
Why bother with the novel? I look at it this way: rather than thinking it’s dead, I’m convinced it’s about to come to life through audio, video, photography, text—you name it. In fact, over the last fifteen years, I’ve become more convinced than ever.
To give you a clue as to my confidence, consider this bit about the writer John Dos Passos from a piece published October 31, 2005, by George Packer in The New Yorker.
Continue Reading 1 comment November 25th, 2007
