Longtime Aspen Post rivals Mitch Mulhall and Sue Gray square off on the role and efficacy of the United Nations. “I type here, mouth agape, like a mental patient transfixed by a light bulb, at the thought that anyone would give a UN proposal more credence than its weight in used toilet paper,” Mitch writes in comment #45. Sue replies, “You're not listening as usual. I know as well as anyone that the U.N. is an ineffectual body...My point is, unconditional support of Israel by the U.S. as was demonstrated by the UN veto of a ceasefire that would stop the carnage of Arab people, will be used as a recruiting tool by Islamic jihadists for another 9/11 type event,” but upon further thought she advises, “Never mind. Go back to staring at that light bulb. And don't forget to take your meds.”
Post blogger Cathleen Krahe provides an article by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe on why Zionism needs to be addressed before there can be peace in the Middle East.
In
Moral Idiocy, Post blogger Mitch Mulhall puts forth his view on the Middle East conflicts, "As tensions on the Irsrael/Gaza border ramp-up this weekend," Mulhall writes, "I find Hamas’ actions incredulous. In the face of certain military defeat, Hamas terrorists pepper Israeli towns with missiles that match up with Israeli ordinance the way a broad-head arrow compares to a 50-caliber machine gun. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting the missiles Hamas lobs into Israel aren’t capable of lethal damage. They are significantly more effective at killing and maiming than, say, a broad-head arrow. Everybody knows this. It is a fool’s errand to accept any construct that suggests otherwise."
Posts filed under 'Foreign Policy'
Thomas Friedman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of The New York Times, was officially christened as king of the world over the weekend in Aspen—and why the hell not?
He wore the mantle lightly at the Aspen Ideas Festival, in part because he married into the gazillionaire Buxbaum family, who have so far given tens of millions of dollars to the town, with the latest dollop a $25 million downpayment for a spanky campus at the Aspen Music Festival and School. But Friedman’s wallop at the podium has all but nothing to do with Bucksbaum bucks, and everything to do with his prescient ability to package the zeitgeist with the tidiness of a juice box—the kind that comes with its own self-piercing straw.
Continue Reading July 7th, 2008
The Con Man sets the table for the terrorists as they re-group in the Middle East, then welcomes filmaker Bob Compton and his "2 Million Minutes," about eduction in China, India and the United States.
Also: jewelry designer Ariane Zurcher, the grandaughter of Walter and Elizabeth Paepcke, the founders of modern Aspen.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Tuesday July 1, 2008.
July 1st, 2008
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 June 19th, 2008
Highlights of Ideas Festival sessions open to the public (tickets required) include:
· US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff in conversation with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg
· Alice Waters in conversation with The Atlantic’s Corby Kummer, with dessert served from her cookbook
· Award-winning National Geographic photographer James Balog exploring ice on the run in his “Extreme Ice Survey”
· A global perspective on the US elections from Der Tagesspiegel’s Christoph von Marschall, Ha'aretz’s Ari Shavit, Edward Luce of the Financial Times, and others
· A talk with four young, resilient survivors of genocide, war, and gang violence, moderated by playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith.
Continue Reading June 17th, 2008
ASPEN, COLORADO—What does the little town of Harper Woods, Michigan, unremarkable in so many ways, have to do with the Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, Aspen’s own monarch with the $135 million manse in the beyond posh Starwood section of this mountain town?
Here in Aspen, in fact, the Prince is known as generous to local charities, kind to animals, and generous to a fault when his multiple wives hit the downtown mall with multiple plastic. He is also known to ski within a circle of bodyguards, and to rent out the downtown Isis theatre in toto so as to enjoy a movie of his choice in privacy.
In Harper Woods, in contrast, said Sultan is prince non grata, accused by the town’s employee pension fund of embezzling some $2 billion over 20 years as the go-between betwixt the Saudi government and BAE Systems of the United Kingdom.
Continue Reading June 12th, 2008
On my score sheet Obama already has three strikes, and I cannot in good conscience vote for him, despite the possibility of inadvertantly promoting a potentially disastrous McCain presidency.
Continue Reading June 10th, 2008
The Con Man wonders why we love war so wisely and unwell, then welcomes Plum TV for a recording of a television pilot. His subjects for hour two: the faux anti-war movie "Iron Man," and Paige Price of Theatre Aspen talking about the summer 2008 season--and singing "Tits and Ass" from "A Chorus Line."
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday June 5, 2008.
June 5th, 2008
The Con Man gets a visit from Lt. Colonel Dick Merrit and Seaman Dan Glidden, two retired veterans who stand for all that's good about those who have served the country. Also: a bit of a rant of flag lapel pins and taking back the lapel flag pin--and the flags--from those who desecrate it with faux patriotism.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Memorial Day May 28, 2008.
May 26th, 2008
The Con Man went to a seminar with Randy Udall, sponsored by the Sopris Foundation, and came away a changed man. With peak oil either here or imminent, with demand rising, it's impossible not to look at energy in a new and disturbing way. Life as we know it is about to change.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Wednesday May 21, 2008.
May 21st, 2008
When Robert Downey Jr., the inherently ironic leading man, arrives on the scene in the Marvel Comics blockbuster “Iron Man,” it takes us a beat or two to realize his character, Tony Stark, is a drunk, philandering scumbag who just happens to be in the back of a Humvee in Afghanistan, where bad things are all but guaranteed to happen.
A little stark? You can say that again. But it’s not booze or the references to multiple rendez-vous with pin-ups that make Tony Stark a consummate ass—it’s his status as the greatest arms inventor and dealer in the world. You immediately wonder how in the name of all that’s Uzi are we going to end up liking this hipster merchant of death, a quandary multiplied by the realization that in the Great American Blockbuster Movie you have to end up loving this guy.
And we do.
Suffice to say that post-Afghanistan Tony Stark is both (a) an iconic super-hero; and (b) a pacifist who swears off the military industrial complex like an alcoholic face-to-face with a cold Budweiser on a hot day.
Continue Reading May 18th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts
