AIF Blog
September 06, 2012
(Bill Clinton speaking at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival) During his DNC speech this week, Bill Clinton gave a detailed defense of the Affordable Care Act's cuts to Medicaid and contrasted Obama's plan with Romney-Ryan's plan. (Read Washington Post's analysis about Clinton's defense.)During Aspen Ideas, several panels discussed the ACA as well as the Supreme Court's decision to uphold it. Here, economist Tyler Cowen...
August 24, 2012
Don't miss out on this great collaboration that took place at the Festival! This weekend, a special BBC World Service's "The Forum" will air. Bridget Kendall is joined by director of the celebrated MIT media lab Joi Ito, who thinks the internet enables a type of openness which is shaping approaches in education. Leading advocate for the American video game industry, Mike Gallagher, argues we can achieve...
August 16, 2012
There was a great deal of discussion about the Presidential Race at Aspen Ideas. Here's an excerpt from a talk with E.J. Dionne, Jr., The Atlantic's Molly Ball interviewed Dionne.Ball "What kind of Republican do you think Mitt Romney is?"Dionne "I don't think we really know the answer to that question. The one thing you might be able to say is he does seem to respond to the political forces he's dealing with and...
July 26, 2012
Experts gathered at Aspen Ideas to debate whether or not the natural gas boom is doing more harm than good with its practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.In favor of fracking, Joe Nocera says natural gas is a tremendous gift that we should take advantage of.Joe Nocera of NY Times: Fracking Is a Tremendous Gift from on FORA.tvDeborah Goldberg contends that we are operating without the science to back it up...
July 17, 2012
Just weeks after her appearance at Aspen Ideas, Google executive Marissa Mayer left the search giant to take the helm at Yahoo. As AIF speaker Andrew Ross Sorkin reported yesterday in The New York Times, Mayer’s new post is considered a coup for Yahoo, a company that has struggled to keep pace with competitors in Silicon Valley.While at Aspen Ideas, Mayer reflected on the dearth of women in the computer technology...
July 12, 2012
Guest Blogger: Lawrence J. Cohen, psychologist and author of Playful Parenting reflects on what he gained from his peers at Aspen Ideas.I joined the panel on the goal of parenting thinking it might be a knock-down drag-out fight between advocates of play and connection (like me) and advocates of hard-core achievement and academic preparation (like Amy Chua, the Tiger Mother). I think we were all pleasantly surprised...
July 03, 2012
"We don’t want to as a federal government tell cities how to solve problems, but we should be a resource and not stand in their way." —Lisa Jackson"What’s really fascinating is how much quality improvement there is to be had in this health care system." —David Leonhardt"The reason we didn’t get stronger cost controls (in the Affordable Care Act) is it was only Democrats who voted on it, and Republicans walked away...
July 02, 2012
Rock star physicist Brian Greene’s excitement was palpable at the Aspen Ideas signature event, Afternoon of Conversation.What was he so fired up about? On Wednesday, July 4, the world will find out if scientists at CERN, the particle-collider in Geneva, have confirmed the existence of the elusive Higgs Particle, also nicknamed the “God Particle.”[Update July 4: the Higgs Particle is no longer a theory!]In this video...
July 02, 2012
The Afternoon of Conversation is Aspen Ideas' signature event, and ths year's was no exception. More than 2,000 people gathered in the Benedict Music Tent to hear a variety of speakers.Here are some highlights from the afternoon.Wu Tong surprised guests with an unannounced Random Act of Culture by planing the sheng, an ancient Chinese wind instrument.."There is no issue of patriotism or morality or economic prudence...
July 02, 2012
"Overparenting is gross!" —Katie Couric"You give me better parents, better neighbors, better leaders, and better students, and I’ll make every teacher better and every great teacher outstanding." —Tom Friedman"It sounds harsh but it’s empowering, this idea that hard work can fix just about anything." —Amy Chua"There’s very little support for innovation. Innovation is not done by committee." —Ann Higdon"Everyone has...