http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog EthanZ's musings on Africa, media and international development Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:56:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Jonathan Lyons was a correspondent for Reuters for 21 years, the first American national to be based in Tehran after the revolution. He and his wife both wrote from Tehran, and between them, they published in Reuters, the Guardian, the Economist, and the International Herald Tribune, which made them very ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/04/jonathan-lyons-on-the-islamic-resolution-of-science-and-monotheism/ Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund gave a talk yesterday about video and social change, featuring the video below that tries to convince people to think through the impacts of their consumption, and what changes could be made to make use of resources more efficient. His talk this morning looks ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/04/jason-clay-and-measuring-the-environmental-impact-of-agriculture/ The Humphrey Winterton Collection of East African Photographs: 1860-1960 Extraordinary collection of early photographs from the colonization of ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/04/links-for-2009-07-04/ Futurist and consultant John Hagel caught my attention with a talk titled "Shaping Serendipity". He's introduced by John Seely Brown, his frequent collaborator. Brown and Hagel are writing a new book together, and a chapter focuses on serendipity. (And as a chapter in the book I'm failing to write is ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/john-hagel-on-serendipity/ I jogged (yes, me, jogging!) from Tim O'Reilly's talk to a session on immigration reform at Aspen. I was still late, so I arrived during David Kennedy's historical perspectives on American immigration. He reminds us that, despite our myths about people coming to the US out of a love of ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/aspen-ideas-festival-immigration-reform/ Pioneering technology publisher Tim O'Reilly tells us that "government as a platform" is the definition of government 2.0. To explain to a non-technical audience what this means, he explains that his company specializes in finding innovations at the edge and amplifying them, through events, publishing and market research. This involves ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/tim-oreilly-on-government-20/ Elliot Gerson of the Aspen Institute introduces a conversation titled, "Your life in a surveillance society". The discussants are Jack Balkin, legal scholar and philosopher at Yale Law School and Admiral Mike McConnell, former director of the National Security Agency. Gerson offers examples of surveillance in our lives, including the ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/aspen-ideas-festival-surveillance-society/ This morning at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the Brian Lehrer show is being broadcast live as we act as breakfast-eating studio audience. The first guest is Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. Lehrer introduces Pawlenty as the Republican's Obama - young, smart, charismatic and a party leader, who was considered a front-runner ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/aspen-ideas-festival-digital-natives/ In the closing "conversation" today at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Charlie Rose interviews former Secretaries of State Madeline Albright and James Baker and current deputy secretary James Steinberg. The conversation, unsurprisingly, begins with the recent protests in Iran. Secretary Baker saw the protests as encouraging, despite the violence against protesters. ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/three-secretaries-no-waiting/ Anna Deveare Smith holds a conversation with Dr. Elizabeth Alexander, who was the inaugural poet at President Barack Obama's election. Smith notes, "When I heard she'd been asked to compose a poem for the inauguration, I hollered out loud, but I wasn't surprised." Smith has brought three poems for Alexander ... http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2009/07/03/elizabeth-alexander-not-britney-spears/