conference on world affairs, day 1

yesterday was the first day of the 59th conference on world affairs, being held in boulder at the university of colorado. and it's off to a great start.

our keynote speaker this year was judith kipper, a middle east expert from the council on foreign relations. the talk, "the middle east in an era of transnational threats," was remarkably upbeat (maybe that's not the right word exactly -- perhaps "not entirely depressing" is more apt) for the topic at hand. ms. kipper's conclusions, as i heard them, were basically a) the administration needs to follow the recommendations of the iraq study group; b) the administration needs to "take israel and palestine by the scruff of the neck" to the negotiation table and continue those negotiations in the manner of kissinger's work with egypt & israel during the yom kippur war; and c) the citizens of this country need to confront & interact with our politicians far more than we are doing now, especially in the upcoming presidential elections.

but my favorite panel of the day was simply titled "evil." my friend the philosopher achim kodderman started off the panel by summarizing, in about 20 minutes, nearly the entirety of western philosophical thinking about evil, ranging from plato & aristotle to leibniz, hegel, and kant, and covering everything in between. evolutionary psychologist tom macnamara next presented that profession's view of evil as a sociological construct, and then iranian polymath mohammad mahallati continued on achim's philosophical discussion by presenting the muslim and sufi ideas of evil. the final speaker on the panel was terri jentz who discussed an event that happened while she was a college student -- a psychopath attempted to kill her and her friend while they were camping in oregon -- and then her subsequent investigation of the attempted murder, 20 years later (which is documented in her book, strange piece of paradise). it was a fascinating discussion that can't be adequately summed up here.

and today... we shall see what panels i make it to -- and then there's the amazing (free!) jazz concert tonight.