Strange news from another star

I relent; here goes, and a reluctant hello to all the accidental googlers now trampling all over my blog. TED report.

In the mind-blowing and forward-thinking category: Craig Venter is genetically designing bacteria and believes that within a few years, they can be modified to produce fuel from carbon dioxide. Now, that would really be something. Al Gore gave a wonderful, passionate speech on the need to reclaim citizenship to solve the climate issue. He answered the "endorse?" question very well. All three candidates are head and shoulders above the current administration on climate issues. However, during this campaign, they have been asked at most 2 questions out of thousands by any of the networks on this subject-- creating an environment in which climate control is turned into a non-issue. Citizens, arise! The TED prize winners were electrifying-- Neil Turok with the success of his current math institute in Capetown which has turned kids from villages into professors, Dave Eggers with his amazing movement to tutor kids in reading and writing. He challenged the community to increase involvement in one-on-one tutoring in the public schools. Phil Zimbardo discussed "the Lucifer effect", based on the Stanford prison experiment, that he has further developed in the context of the Abu Ghraib case where he has been acting as expert witness. After summarizing the institutional contributions to creating the "bad apples"-- rather, the "bad barrel-makers"-- he turned to a more positive idea: the banality of heroism, and exhorted fostering "the heroic imagination" in our children. This was a phrase taken up by many of the subsequent speakers, including Al Gore, whose fluidity and ad libbing led to one of the best talks I've ever heard-- in contrast to his dry, meandering presentation at Town Hall in Seattle to an audience hungry for exactly that passion and conviction. Paul Stamets talked about the bizarre science of fungi and their powerful potential to create soil, process spills, seed ecosystems. Paul Collier gave potentially effective prescriptions for moving the bottom billion out of poverty.

A potentially fascinating but ultimately weak discussion was held one night that was filmed for BBC world: a panel on new vs old media, with Carl Bernstein, Queen Noor, one of the Google guys (they are sort of indistinguishable, and strangely affectless) and an African journalist whose name I regret not recalling as he was the most interesting member of the group. The best input was from an audience member, the CEO of Public Radio International, who gave an excellent three-minute presentation the next day on the lack of overseas reporting in the US. The second best input was an extended spontaneous ad lib from Robin Williams who could not let the uncomfortable stage pause go unfilled while the TV crew failed to get signal (unbearably provoked, I think, by the BBC guy's ironically self-described "witty banter").

In the beautiful and stimulating category: Yves Behar gave a great design talk with some genuine insight into his process and aims. Doris Kearns Goodwin gave an insightful and moving discussion of the character of Lincoln. Samantha Power gave a riveting talk about Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN guy killed in Iraq. Her complex worldview had extra pungency given that she is Obama's foreign policy advisor. Chris Abani shared stories of his family and friends during growing up under political repression in Nigeria. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist, described succumbing to stroke while remaining fully aware and analytic of the experience. Seven years to recover. Amy Tan gave a weird, wondrously mystical description of her lifeview and writing process. Bob Ballard described the new frontiers of undersea exploration that convinced Blaise and me that he was also a fan of Willard Price when he was a kid! The heroic imagination, indeed. Chris Jordan showed his immense photographic works illustrating the meaning of numbers-- of bad things-- in beautiful ways: message art at its best. No fewer than three speakers discussed particle physics, complete with charts, all with great clarity: I would vote for Patricia Burchat as my favourite. Ben Zander, of the Boston Philharmonic, managed to pull together all the emotion of the meeting in orchestrating a full volume rendition of The Ode to Joy from a standing audience of hundreds. While this sounds corny, it was a profoundly moving experience.