Conference On World Affairs, Monday

I had an unusual commute to work today. I left the Kassoys, headed uphill to the top of the street, and took a footpath along the “blue line” toward Paula’s house to meet. The blue line is the highest elevation along the Flatirons that the city provides services to; everything above it is wide open. There's a hiking path that follows the back fences of the topmost houses. I noticed that they're pretty sturdy fences, which seems unusual because the Boulder hikers don't strike me as the rampaging, vandalizing sort. I was thinking about my upcoming first presentation and what I was going to say, so I wasn't paying attention to details. When I did focus on what I was walking on, I realized that alongside the expected boot marks were mountain lion nearly the size of my hand! I suppose the fence is more designed to keep pets in and pests of the four-legged type, rather than the two-legged type, out.

When I got there Paula wasn’t at surprised to hear about it, and pointed to a pile of bear scat almost directly underneath her deck!

We took a bus into campus. In Boulder, it seems, even the bus routes are athletic. There’s a “hop”, “skip”, and “jump”; there’s probably even a “samba” but I haven’t seen it yet.

It was a bright sunny morning, and breakfast for CWA participants was held on the quad in the center of campus. Our breakfast burritos from Illegal Pete’s were accompanied by a student string trio playing chamber music. The conference had a student volunteer there to fend off the students that smelled the possibility of a free brunch, and Paula and I had breakfast at a table shared with Molly Ivins.

The CWA headquarters is in a museum, so it’s an unusual juxtaposition of hubbub among ancient fossils. The Triceratops skull was popular, probably because it had decent light for us computer users. This is where participants meet their session moderator, the producer and often each other before the meeting. If they’re very organized, they may even discuss what each participant is going to talk about. Usually, however, each panelist takes a few minutes before the session to compose their thoughts for their 10-minute opening remarks. Despite the calm the audience sees of the panelist, from my perspective it’s not as simple as that. Many of our hands shook while speaking, betraying the presence of inner butterflies.

The opening plenary session in the auditorium was interesting, not least of which because I ended up sitting next to Molly Ivins, syndicated columnist and high profile liberal. I introduced myself as a fellow blue Texan, besieged in a red state. The conservative speech, given by Charles Krauthammer, definitely kept people's attention, and I noticed Molly furiously making notes in the margins of a book. I had to leave early to prepare for my session, so I never had a chance to hear any of the interplay between Charles and the audience.

I survived my “future of music” session successfully. Due to a little last minute juggling, I ended up being the first on my panel. I hadn’t seen any panels yet, so it was truly a blind beginning. Nonetheless, no one threw any cabbage so I guess either I did okay or the Boulder audience was especially polite. Dave Grusin was thoughtful, softspoken, and honest (which, I learned during the week, is how he always is). Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the SETI Institute and science writer, was simultaneously witty and scientific. And Kevyn, the public performer out of her natural element, in front of her first CWA audience spoke straight from her heart.

I had to add a third vector to the participants and organizers I spoke about yesterday: the moderators. Another accomplished bunch of people, the moderator of this session turned out to be Dan Sher, Dean of the College of Music and Mike and Kevyn's host).

Later in the afternoon I attended a session on “Evolution vs. Creation Science”. Though a messy session in many ways – for example, no creationists on the panel – it did reveal one interesting fact. Roger Ebert, one of the panelists, is a lot more than just a film critic. He’s extremely well read, eloquent, and an experienced and compelling public speaker. His 10-minute (okay, more like 20) exposition of what evolution is, and what creationism is, was worth the price of attendance.

Well of course…it was free.

The evening's social function was at the Koenig alumni center. Of the approximately 110 panelists, 50 were new so introductions continued from the previous evening. I introduced myself to Andy Ihnatko, tech columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and professional übergeek, since I was going to be on several panels with him. The week became a series of vignettes, usually prefaced by something like "So what do you do that has the CWA interested in you?" or as I grew tired later in the week, "What's your schtick?" That's how I met Mark Magniere, Beijing correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, former Iraq war correspondent, and all-around world traveler in the line for the bathroom :).