Men, Sex and Power: World Affairs Council blog

Eclectic subjects top day at CU's world conference

By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published April 9, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated April 9, 2008 at 7:03 p.m.

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Photo by Joshua Lawton / Daily Camera

Boulder High School students relax during a panel discussion titled "Facespace, JK!: The Generational Divide" Tuesday at the Conference on World Affairs at the University of Colorado. The subject was the cultural influence of Facebook.com.

4:30 p.m.: Mike Franc ventures into Land of the Left

Political conservatives are in short supply here, so when people like Mike Franc, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, show up at CU's Conference on World Affairs, he's in demand.

Franc is a longtime politico who is an old fan of Republicans, including former Colorado Sen. Bill Armstrong and former Rep. Bob Beauprez.

Coming to Boulder, he says, "keeps me intellectually sharp."

The biggest issues facing conservative and liberal Americans, he said, the rising cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

"It's daunting," he said. "If you want enough money to protect the environment, then Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are your biggest enemy."

One idea he thinks is interesting: put these giant entitlement programs on budgets, rather than allowing them to grow as the number of recipients, such as the elderly and the poor, grows.

Rising pressure to raise taxes is also of concern, Franc said, especially since the Bush tax cuts are set to expire in January of 2011. That will occur at a time, he said, when the U.S. tax burden is "higher on average than it's been since World War II."

1:30 p.m.: Tim Long, Simpsons writer and executive producer

Like all good writers, Simpsons creator Tim Long carries his character with him. And that held true this afternoon as he showed hundreds of fans at CU’s Conference on World Affairs clip after clip of Simpsons cartoons, hilarious, bitter and off color.

Scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission, and the response of the Fox Network, which carries the show, causes Bart Simpson and his merry band of social critics, to writhe and turn in ways that wind up funny, but come pre-loaded with angst.

“Fox censors twist themselves into knots trying to figure out what will get us into trouble and what will not,” said Long, a Canadian who has won four Emmy’s and been nominated for eight.

“Now people can file complaints online with the FCC,” Long said. He reads them religiously.

One of his favorites came from a viewer who saw a commercial for the Simpsons, in which Bart was having a homosexual encounter with a space alien. “I think that would be entirely inappropriate for the preschool audience who would be watching this show,” the complaint read.

Asks Long: “Would a heterosexual encounter have been okay?”

In an encounter with Fox censors, Simpsons writers described a sexual act that was performed 1,000 times. The censors objected, saying the number 1,000 was inappropriate. When the writers suggested using 1 million instead, the censors signed off on the script.

12:30 p.m.: Men, Sex and Power

As hundreds of high school students arrived at the University of Colorado at Boulder this morning, they heard a broadcast of Time International Editor Michael Elliott discussing men, sex and power, in a grumpy, joking kind of way.

“When you come here,” Elliott says, “you have serendipitous experiences and you go back to your day reinvigorated. But there are things about Boulder that piss me off and this panel epitomizes it,” he says, grinning as the local crowd erupts in laughter. His teasing gripe is that the local press has failed to mention his high brow presentations on China and leadership, choosing instead to focus on his presence on the panel on sex.

“I have absolutely nothing meaningful to say about men, sex and power, but I have quite a bit to say on Chinese consumption patterns,” Elliott says.

Oh well.

It’s day three of the Conference on World Affairs, a week-long gathering that brings writers, economists, actors and diplomats to campus for one of the largest think fests in the country.

To ensure everyone can participate at some level, the university broadcasts key sessions via web cams in classroom buildings, and provides outdoor radio broadcasts in such heavily traveled places as the plaza in front of the University of Colorado Memorial Center.

Though most of the high schoolers probably didn’t know who Michael Elliott is, most would know Rachel Maddow, social activist and host of the Rachel Maddow Show on Air America.

She’s broadcasting live each afternoon from the conference, but this morning she’s expounding on Men, Sex and Power in Macky Auditorium.

“The most concrete way I have prepared for this panel is by ensuring that my water bottle is bigger than all the other bottles on this stage,” she says. “And if you think that’s an accident……”

On a slightly more serious note, Maddow offers this notion. That despite popular social myths that suggest everything men have achieved is somehow symbolically phallic, is wrong.

“There is so much men have accomplished that’s worth bragging about that isn’t phallic,” she says. “Like booze, for instance. Distilling – that’s just not a phallic display.”

Highlights from Tuesday:

What would Bart Simpson say? Ask the man who helps put words in his mouth, Tim Long, a co-executive producer and writer for The Simpsons.

Midweek at University of Colorado's 60th annual Conference on World Affairs, which is free and open to the public and being held at various venues around Boulder, the crowds keep getting bigger, forcing students, visitors and townies alike to sit on floors, stand in line and listen remotely to dozens of world-famous politicos, entertainers, diplomats and writers, chew the fat.

Today, in addition to Long, conference-goers can listen and weigh in on "Men, Sex and Power," and how that charming electronic gadget, the Wii, is "Changing the Face of Sports."

But there's plenty more. For details on today's lineup, visit colorado.edu and click on the conference's link. To see the Simpsons' co-creator Long in action, click on the CWA's live Web Cam at 12:30.

10:30 a.m.: Politics

Loyalty is wearing thin in American politics and that means if voters survive what Mother Jones publisher Jay Harris described as an "unprecedentedly" ugly presidential campaign, issues such as health care and the war may decide who wins in November.

Harris and Robert Jones, an editor for the New York Post, were among panel members examining voter tendencies this fall.

Jones, who is black and a supporter of John McCain, said race is challenging the voting habits of Americans. Until this year, he said, Americans have had a clear idea of the person who should be president. "There's always been an archetype for what a president looks like," Jones said. "He's a white guy."

Jones said that he normally likes to ask blacks to respond to a series of questions. "But there's only one person here I could ask," Jones said, talking to a young black woman in the front row. "You work for (Democrat Barack) Obama, right?" he said to her.

"Actually, I'm a Republican," she said.

12:30 p.m.: Facebook

This is the power of Facebook.

More than 150 people jam into the Boulder High School room set aside for the confab, where online luminary Sasha Cagen and others are set to speak.

Another 100 or so sit on the floor in the long hallway outside as conference organizers scramble to arrange an impromptu radio broadcast for them. Few if any people turn away, so intent are they on hearing more about this social phenomenon.

"I'm a heavy user of Facebook because I work in this space," says Cagen. "This morning I checked my e-mail and I had six notifications from Facebook."

Among them: that two of her friends have signed up for a tango class and two others are attending a party in a park.

"Some people are on Facebook two hours a day," she said, and other people are like 'Why are people sending me these friend requests?' "

Cagen said the site has potential for keeping people connected to one another. "It's become the town crier of the Internet," she said.

But the site has its problems as well, Cagen said, because it sometimes connects in ways that are intrusive and potentially harmful. Earlier this year, a partnership with Amazon.com, which automatically posted Facebook members' purchases online, created an outcry among members, Cagen said. The program was restructured to include only those who wanted their purchases made public.

3:30 p.m.: Naughty tricks and sexy tips

Coercion is out, but just about everything else is in where sex is concerned.

"Mutuality is critical," says Evelyn Resh, a sexuality counselor. "What does that mean? It means the absence of coercion. That's the only thing I consider aberrant where sex is concerned. If everybody wants to be tied up, that's fine. I can tell you where to get the scarves and the best knots."

Resh's colleague on this advice-giving panel, Margot Adler, a National Public Radio correspondent, said she prefers a good conversation or dinner with a friend to real "in and out" sex.

"I'm a very sensual person, but I gotta tell you, it's about No. 10 on my list," she said. That indifference, despite wild times in the 1960s and 1970s, has deep roots in her life. "During the Summer of Love," she told the crowd, "I was a left-wing nun."

• April 9, 2008

  5:06 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  happymike44 writes:

  Wow i know i would want someone like the simppsons creator to teach my kids how to be a druken buffoon on t.v.Hail to the mindless cartoon called the simpsons.I watch it to drop off om my i.q. points.ha-ha

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