Aspen Ideas Festival News

Back to School: Education Week at the 2008 Ideas Festival

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It's hard to believe but August is drawing to a close and soon students will be back in school. We thought this time of year offered an opportunity to feature videos from the Ideas Festival about children and education.

The first feature is a talk with legendary chef Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Waters has become deeply involved in working with local communities to improve the experience of children at the intersection of food and the education system. In a conversation billed as "Edible Education," Waters talked with Anna Deavere Smith about the role of food in school, the current presidential campaign and many other issues.

The next feature is entitled "Public Policy and Support for America’s Children: Notes to the Next President." This panel featured a stellar cast of experts on the perilous state of at-risk youth in America's school and foster care systems. The panelists are: William Bell of the Casey Family Program, Oakland County (Michigan) Commissioner and president of the National Association of Counties Eric Coleman, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former West Virginia Governor Bob Wise.

Also highlighted this back-to-school week is video from a live broadcast of WNYC-FM's Brian Lehrer Show featuring Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, entrepreneurial education philanthropist Eli Broad and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez.

Among other new videos featured this week at AIFestival.org:

"Games for Good," featuring retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor talking about using technology and game-play as tools to enhance learning among young people from diverse backgrounds.
"The Powers to Lead," featuring Joseph Nye of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard discussing his book of the same name which plumbs our knowledge about leadership to find direction for the next generation to rise to the challenges they will face.
"Preparing our Nation's Workforce," a broad-ranging discussion moderated by Terence Smith of the Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Panelists include Commerce Secretary Gutierrez, Education Secretary Spellings, entrepreneur Sidney Harman, Allstate CEO Thomas Wilson, and Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin.

Happy Olympics Day!

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With the launch of the Beijing Olympic Games today, we thought it would be a good week to release two sessions from the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival on the topic of sports and culture. The first session looks closely at the dynamic -- predicted to be complex -- between the news media covering the Beijing Games and the corporation -- NBC Universal -- that has an enormous and potentially lucrative interest in the games looking great. Watch "The Beijing Games: Balancing Sport, Politics and Business." The event features Olympian Harrison Dillard and others.

Many of the folks from that panel speak on another sports-related session, including the CEO-Owner of the New York Mets and the Executive Editor of CNN. They discuss the relationship between sports and American culture, and the changes that have pushed sports deeper into the business realm in recent years. Check out "Sports and American Society."

Medicine 2025: Insights on the Near and Distant Future of Health Care

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This week, we're featuring videos from the 2008 Aspen Ideas Festival on health and health care. Each of the links below will take you to a quick clip of the session; just click the Quicktime or MP3 link on the left to watch or listen to the session in its entirety.

First, check out the insights of Representative Diana DeGette, Congressional Budget Office Director Peter Orszag and others discussing "Health Care and Reform: Can the 2008 Presidential Election Transform the Status Quo?"

Next, hear from the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease at NIH, Anthony Fauci on the question of "HIV/AIDS in 2025: Will we Have a Vaccine and a Cure by Then?"

Finally, watch Newsweek columnist and senior editor Jonathan Alter discuss the future of cancer treatment with American Cancer Society President John Seffrin.

Check back Friday for complete session video from discussions about the impact of the Beijing Olympics on the news coverage of China.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Aspen: A Celebration of Tibetan Culture

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Video of the Dalai Lama's talk on July 26 at 11:00am MDT (1:00pm EDT) is now available.

Watch the .mov. Listen to the .mp3.

Aspen Ideas Festival Interlude Poet Kay Ryan Named Poet Laureate

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Kay Ryan will be named Poet Laureate of the United States today, July 17. Ryan read three poems during the Afternoon of Conversation in the Benedict Music Tent during the 2008 Ideas Festival. Watch the video.

Growing Library of Full Session Video Now Available

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We're adding new full-session video daily. We'll try to keep a semi-complete list running here, with new additions at the top. To find a session, head to our Virtual Festival and select a track, search by name or browse through the quick clip collection. You can also browse or add this RSS feed to your reader, and get updates as soon as they're available.

Neuroscience and Sociology, David Brooks
Who Speaks for Islam?
The Future of the Internet and the Rise of the Cell Phone
Race and Politics in America: Where Are We in 2008?
Media Roundtable: A Critical Look at the Presumptive Presidential Nominees
Jerome Robbins: American Dance Genius
Why Change the Military? New Adversaries, New Technologies, and a New Generation of Soldiers
Beyond Iraq: The Future National Security Challenges Confronting the US
The International Power and Potential of the Arts
The Limits to Globalization: The Business Challenge
Crisis in the Financial Industry: Can Regulation Keep Pace?
A Conversation with President William J. Clinton
Christianity, Judaism, Islam: The Problem of Fundamentalisms

David Brooks on Neuroscience: Full Session Video Now Available

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New York Times columnist David Brooks spoke early on at the Ideas Festival about an issue he's grappling with: "why neuroscience and sociology are so important to thinking about politics, to thinking about culture, and to thinking about the future of American and world society." The quick clips of the session have proven very popular here, here and here.

My memory from the first Ideas Festival was that David Brooks was very, very funny. This recollection is reinforced by his talk here. Check out the full session of Brooks' talk in our Virtual Festival section.

What's the Story with Full Session Video on the Site?

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We recorded more than 100 hours of video tape and 200 hours of audio tape over the course of the seven days of the Aspen Ideas Festival. Throughout the week we released clips of the proceedings to bring a taste of the Ideas Festival to folks around the world. Full video from each of these sessions will be available online in the coming weeks. If you have a specific request for video from a session, we will do our best to accommodate that request. While we are planning to release sessions on a rolling basis through our website aifestival.org, we are happy to share this content with journalists and other interested parties before it is released on the web. We will also be offering transcripts of select sessions.

Please send a note to video.requests@aspeninstitute.org with as much information as you have about the session (date, time, participants, location) and we will respond with information about that session's availability.

Closing Convocation

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A stellar group of speakers joined us for the closing session of the Ideas Festival. Newark Mayor Cory Booker delivered a stirring address about the people who have inspired him and the hopes he has for the next generation of Americans. Watch it.

As we bring more of the video from the festival online, stay tuned for complete video for conversations with Booker, President Clinton, Wall Street Journalist columnist Walter Mossberg, Clay Shirky, and many many more.

More News Coverage

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Final thoughts on Aspen Ideas Fest (Aspen Daily News, July 8, 2008)
Israel's born-again doves (Checkpoint Jerusalem, July 8, 2008)
Jamie Dimon On Bear, $4 Gas (The Wall Street Journal, July 7, 2008; subscription required)
Former President Bill Clinton at the Aspen Ideas Festival (Minnesota Public Radio, July 7, 2008)

President Clinton at the Ideas Festival

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President Bill Clinton discussed a wide range of topics during an interview with Aspen Institute Vice President for Philanthropy Jane Wales. Clinton discussed Zimbabwe, former South African president Nelson Mandela, ways philanthropy can scale up solutions to serve and save more people more effectively, and the importance of schooling girls around the world.

Video from President Clinton's conversation is available through our Quick Clips section.

Photo Gallery

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Check out our growing collection of photos from the 2008 Ideas Festival at our gallery.

More News Coverage

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Ten ways to look at the Aspen Ideas Festival (The Aspen Times, July 5, 2008)
Clive Crook: Notes from Aspen 4 (TheAtlantic.com, July 4, 2008)
Tom Friedman Calls For Green Revolution (The Huffington Post, July 4, 2008)
Jonathan Alter: Veep in the Middle (Newsweek, July 4, 2008)
Race and American Politics (TheAtlantic.com, July 4, 2008)
Acclaimed Actor and Playwright Anna Deavere Smith on Art in a Time of War (Democracy Now!, July 2, 2008)

Jonathan Alter Reads Sam Nunn's VP Prospects

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Jonathan Alter, a presenter here at the Ideas Festival, posted a web exclusive column after Thursday's conversation between Institute President Walter Isaacson, General Colin Powell and Senator Sam Nunn. Alter comes out supporting Nunn as a VP choice for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama:

After more than two decades on the quadrennial short-list, the idea of former Georgia senator Sam Nunn as vice president has become a cliché. And knocking him down is easy. You know the rap. He's too old (69), too rusty politically (out of the Senate since 1996) and too conservative (he helped design the don't-ask-don't-tell policy on gays in the military in the early 1990s). Plus, he's dull.

But Nunn may be the best pick for Barack Obama in a year when the presumptive Democratic nominee has no obvious choices. If some potential candidate could immediately offer strength to Obama on the economy, he should pick him or her. But no one fits that bill, which leaves the field open to a foreign policy heavyweight who could help compensate for the slim resume of a freshman senator. The notion that Obama would be better off pretending this weakness didn't exist—that he should double down on change with a young running mate—ignores the readiness bar Obama still needs to clear.

Read the column here. To see Nunn's quote, check out this quick clip, at about 4:30.

Douglas Schoen's Poll on the American Electorate: An Ideas Festival Exclusive

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Blog and News Coverage of the Ideas Festival: Independence Day Edition

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Follow the best video clips and moments from the Ideas Festival on our Twitter feed. You can see all the clips as fast as we can upload them at our Virtual Festival. And be on the lookout for full session video for many of the events at the Festival in the weeks ahead. We'll be featuring a lot of this video through our Fora.tv page.

The Atlantic's squadron of bloggers continues to file thought-provoking dispatches -- with exclusive video! -- from Aspen.

Technorati chair Peter Hirshberg is video-blogging from the festival, and has interviewed artists Christo and Jeanne Claude, WSJ tech columnist Walt Mossberg, Arianna Huffington and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Martin Sherwin.

Locally, the Aspen Times has covered Thomas Friedman's talk about environmental patriotism in the Music Tent yesterday. Video from the session here, here, and here.

The Aspen Times also wrote about a session featuring former Justice Department attorney John Yoo, whose role in forming anti-terrorism policy -- including harsh interrogation tactics -- was under scrutiny. Five clips in the Virtual Festival section; start here.

The Aspen Daily News also covered the goings-on at the Music Tent.

Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman wrote about the festival in a web exclusive.

Wall Street Journal blogger Heidi Moore wrote about Charlie Rose's conversation with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

More Coverage: Blogs and the Beeb

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The BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus wrote about the Ideas Festival today. I liked this bit:

...this high-altitude setting is also the home of some lofty thinking, hosted by the Aspen Institute - organisers of the Ideas Festival - which brings together politicians, academics, artists and people from the world of commerce for a week-long session of brain-storming and debate. All of these people have come here with one central conviction. It is that ideas matter and especially so in a presidential election year. Men and women can change the world by thinking about problems and by approaching them in new ways.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Our partners at the Atlantic have a squadron of bloggers chronicling the Festival (and lots of other things). Their coverage is thoughtfully aggregated, with excellent video at their Atlantic at the Aspen Ideas Festival page.

News Coverage of Ideas Festival

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Yesterday, WNYC's Brian Lehrer interviewed Institute president Walter Isaacson, McCain Presidential Campaign adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia

Aspen Public Radio is covering the festival all week. Their schedule for coverage is here, and two recent broadcasts can be heard here and here.
Minnesota Public Radio is broadcasting several sessions from the festival. Check out their midday broadcasts from Aspen, and keep an eye on their coverage througout the week.
Democracy Now's Amy Goodman wrote about her media panel at the Hotel Jerome.
Arianna Huffington and Raymond Learsy have blogged about the festival at Huffington Post.
The Aspen Times and the Aspen Daily News are covering the festival extensively. Much of the coverage is readily available online including pieces on Amy Goodman's live broadcast, a session of prognostication about the presidential campaign, the preparedness of American workers, and Justice O'Connor's hopes for America's youth.

Blogging about the Ideas Festival

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The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach is blogging about the festival at the Achenblog. (Joel got to go hiking today.) Sam Perry of the Conferenza blog has been writing like a madman. Look for more as he finally finds time to sit down, compose and upload all his material. Venture capitalist Pascal Levensohn is blogging about the festival as well.

We're especially excited that Technorati Chairman Peter Hirshberg has launched a Fora.tv videoblog about the Ideas Festival. Of course, you can follow video from the festival here on our site or at the Institute's Fora.tv partnership page. And of course, the video from the festival is available on YouTube.

Aspen Ideas Festival News

Back to School: Education Week at the 2008 Ideas Festival

Happy Olympics Day!

Medicine 2025: Insights on the Near and Distant Future of Health Care

His Holiness the Dalai Lama at Aspen: A Celebration of Tibetan Culture

Aspen Ideas Festival Interlude Poet Kay Ryan Named Poet Laureate

Growing Library of Full Session Video Now Available

More Full Session Video Online Now

David Brooks on Neuroscience: Full Session Video Now Available

What's the Story with Full Session Video on the Site?

Closing Convocation

More News Coverage

President Clinton at the Ideas Festival

Photo Gallery

More News Coverage

Jonathan Alter Reads Sam Nunn's VP Prospects

Douglas Schoen's Poll on the American Electorate: An Ideas Festival Exclusive

Blog and News Coverage of the Ideas Festival: Independence Day Edition

More Coverage: Blogs and the Beeb

News Coverage of Ideas Festival

Blogging about the Ideas Festival