So what was Barbra Streisand doing at the "Ayn Rand" Festival in Aspen?

[JDPriestly]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lynda-resnick/aspen-ideas-festival-spea_b_641415.html

Welcome to our 6th Annual Speakers Dinner for the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Each year, Stewart and I host the speakers to our great joy, and to paraphrase Greg Mortenson, our "Three Cups of Tea" runneth over.

. . . .

A feast of superficiality claiming to be creativity.

Aspen, it seems, is where superficial people with lots of money who have everything done for them in their daily lives meet to congratulate themselves on how wonderful they are for sitting and listening to other superficial people make superficial remarks about the superficial world in which they live.

Meanwhile, I clean my own house, wash my own clothes, tend my own garden and cook my own food. And for many years, I did all that on top of working a 40-80 hour week and raising a family. My help -- my husband.

Thank God, because we are and always have been poor we don't have a maid, a gardener or a cook. Never had.

We have worked for everything we have. What we have may not be much, but it is ours. Every book, every beat-up old car, every musical instrument, every broom, every pot, every pan. We don't have things we don't need. And we find a good use for everything we have.

We don't have to go to Aspen to hear other people talk about how wonderful they are and tell us how wonderful we are for listening to them.

A call from our wonderful children, a kiss from each other, a clean floor, clean clothes, blooming flowers, ripe tomatoes and the delicious chicken soup I made last night congratulate us very well, thank you.

If we want good ideas, we talk to friends, Google or read a book. Cheap -- but I will bet we are, between the two of us, better educated than most if not all of the speakers at Aspen. Plus we live in and have always lived in the down-to-earth-real-world.

I honestly feel sorry for the Lynda Resnick who posted the breathless article (a series of one-line hints at somethings -- more a reminder list than an article) on Huffington Post.

Sorry, got to say it again because it really is the best word for it, SUPERFICIAL. Ms. Resnick seems to have nothing better to do than sit in a chair and listen to some know-nothing loudmouth like Friedman talk about free markets and incentives (for other people I presume). What ______s. You fill in the blank. And these folks feel so superior. You can just smell the superiority complex oozing from every line Ms. Resnick writes.

As for Barbra, with a voice like hers and all that money, surely she could find better things to do than hang out with the superficial and superfluous at Aspen. Maybe she needs an incentive? Hmmmmmmmm. May I suggest that she try mopping her own floors, washing her own clothes, tending her own garden, cooking her own food, plus working 40-80 hours a week -- oh, yes and raising her own children (no maids, paid childcare, nannies, no cheating). Maybe then she would finally know for herself what the word "incentive" means -- without wasting a lot of money trying to find out at Aspen.

[davidinalameda]

1. write her a letter and ask her if you're so concerned

[patrice]

2. Attribution Error is highly reliable: I got to where I am because of my intrinsic virtues. My flaws,

such that they are, are the result of transitory situational factors. Other people got to where they are because of transitory situational factors and their flaws are the result of intrinsic liabilities.

It is my duty, therefore, as one of the virtuous, to correct those who need it.

[Birthmark]

3. Pointing and laughing?

[3waygeek]

4. Maybe they hired her to sing....

"People, People who don't need people" :evilgrin:

[JDPriestly]

6. Thanks, 3waygeek. You get it.

[SunnySong]

8. lol

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[EOTE]

10. Are the most objectivist peeoooopllleeee in the world!

Makes sense to me :shrug:

[fishwax]

5. the Ayn Rand festival?

:shrug:

[JDPriestly]

7. You may have missed the thread that my post was reacting to:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/BrklynLiberal/496

It discusses an article that was apparently published in the Atlantic about the Aspen conference.

My post would have been off-topic in the other thread, so I started my own thread.

This is not a serious matter, but he Aspen conference is a complete and utter fest of superficiality. Any conference that invites Friedman and Ayn Rand apologists is a waste of time. I just wanted to have some fun thinking about the fools who spend good money going to that thing.

Seriously, visiting DU you get a better education than you could possibly get at Aspen. I would bet that an average day's worth of people posting on DU have more advanced degrees and more knowledge in a wider range of fields than all the visitors and speakers at Aspen put together.

[fishwax]

9. ah, I did miss that thread -- it's a rather broad mis-characterization of the festival

Perhaps not a mis-characterization of that particular session (which apparently also included David Gergen :eyes:), but also at the festival were people like lefty author Barbara Eihrenreich, liberal commentator E.J. Dionne, and socialist former president of Ecuador Rodrigo Borja.

You can definitely learn a lot on DU, though sometimes there's a bit of misinformation :)

[JDPriestly]

11. We have a bit of fun here on DU to, don't we.

My crowd organized a book club. We read, for example, Three Cups of Tea. We discuss it amongst ourselves. And interestingly, our group is made up of extremely well educated, well informed people from different areas of life. We exchange ideas, read books that we discuss, are good friends and learn a lot from each other.

We really don't need Aspen. If you can't afford Aspen, you can create your own group. Agree to read mostly non-fiction, be tolerant of each other's ideas and have a good time together learning and talking. Aspen is for the rich, but knowledge and understanding are for everyone who tries to obtain them.

That is the real point of my post. That is why I am making a bit of fun of Aspen. Who needs it? Not me.