Aspen Ideas to Go

Insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. As a nation, America has cycled through the same defense and intelligence issues since the end of the Cold War. In her book Insanity Defense , Congresswoman Jane Harman chronicles how four administrations have failed to confront some of the toughest national security policy problems and suggests a...

Ransomware attacks on Colonial Pipeline and top meat producer, JBS, have catapulted malware into the mainstream. Ransomware isn't a new threat but it's getting significantly worse, say cybersecurity experts. In recent years, thousands of schools, government agencies, healthcare providers, and small businesses have fallen prey to it. The malicious software that's designed to block access to compute...

People often talk about maintaining their physical health but brain health is an afterthought. It turns out brain fitness at any age heightens and protects brain function and can even prevent brain disease. Sanjay Gupta, author of Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age , Maria Shriver, founder of the Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, and Natalie Morales, West Coast anchor of NBC’s Today Show, all...

Award-winning author and playwright Ayad Akhtar grapples with identity and belonging just like the protagonist in his book Homeland Elegies . "In some ways being an outsider has given me a freedom to be able to withstand and bear some of the forced outsiderness. It gives me a perspective," he says. His fictional book, named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by the New York Times , draws from Ak...

Throughout American history, racism has been embedded in health and health care. To justify slavery, scientists promulgated falsehoods about African Americans and health. More recently, social policies rooted in racism have led to less access to care, higher disease rates, and lower life expectancies for communities of color. Science writer Harriet Washington says structural racism is a well-oiled...

The type of conflict that's permeating America today is the intractable kind where normal rules of engagement don't apply. High conflict is the opposite of useful friction or healthy conflict. It's when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud — an  us  and a  them . Sound familiar? In this time when everything is political, including aspects of the pandemic, everyday Americans are at...

The world's largest economy is rebounding from the pandemic more slowly than other global powerhouses. The European Union's economy is "on crutches," and isn't yet ready to stand on its own, says Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, which serves the 19 EU countries that use the Euro. Now that Europeans are getting vaccinated and the pandemic's peak has likely passed, she pred...

The professional sports industry in the United States has historically been a man's game. Men have held leadership roles, designed competition formats, chosen which sports stories get elevated, and dictated how athletes are treated. What if pro sports were owned, designed, and run by women? It's already happening, in part, because fans are demanding it. But in the midst of this change, pro sports...

Rodney Foxworth says the racial “wealth gap” is a misnomer because it implies something that’s achievable to close. “Wealth chasm” is more on the nose since we’re talking about disparities created by centuries of oppression. Growing up in Baltimore, Rodney witnessed firsthand what many Black and brown communities face in America—systemic racism, over policing, economic dislocation. Now, as CEO of...

There's no denying the world is already paying for climate change. The price is stronger hurricanes, bigger wildfires, and unpredictable heat waves. So, how can people living on a changing globe literally pay to mitigate the effects of climate change? One solution is to utilize the social cost of carbon, says economist Michael Greenstone. He co-led the development of the US government’s social cos...

America has been shaped by a hidden phenomenon that touches all of our lives. A rigid hierarchy of human rankings, or caste system, influences our culture, politics, and even our health. Race is the metric by which one’s position in the caste system is determined. In her book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson describes how these inherited rankings have been passed down throu...

The United States is facing one of the most difficult tests in its 244-year history. American democracy is struggling, economic and social justice are under interrogation, faith in institutions is declining, and a pandemic is touching us all. Is national unity a far-off dream? Jon Meacham, presidential historian, Samar Ali, research professor of political science and law, and Bill Haslam, former T...

In tax law, most people think the only color that matters is green. But, after more than two decades of research, tax scholar Dorothy A. Brown discovered that America's tax system is not color-blind. In fact, societal racism is deeply embedded in it. "Regardless of what white and Black Americans do, tax policy subsidizes white Americans and disadvantages Black Americans," she says. From attending...

When she met him, Tanya Selvaratnam thought New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was her perfect match. But as time went on, Schneiderman became controlling, mean, and manipulative. In her new book, Assume Nothing , Selvaratnam chronicles how domestic violence took away her voice, how she managed to get it back, and her decision to use it to help other women find their way to freedom....

Biographer Walter Isaacson's latest book tells the story of biochemist Jennifer Doudna. She helped develop a controversial tool that has the power to transform the human race. CRISPR can edit genes to cure diseases but can also be used to create designer babies. Doudna's involvement in pioneering the technology won her the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Before CRISPR, Doudna was known as the scien...

In the United States, the odds are stacked against women and people of color who want to start a business. As a Black entrepreneur, Danielle Kristine Toussaint understood this first-hand. Before opening her creative agency She Thinks Purple, she dealt with barriers only a community of women could help her overcome. In her book, Dare to Think Purple: A Survival Guide for Women in Social Entrepreneu...

The sobering impacts of the pandemic, and the need for a rapid transition to a clean energy economy compel us to consider opportunities that lie at the intersection of the two. President Biden wants to invest $1.7 trillion toward the mid-century goal of a net-zero America, creating ten million new, high-quality jobs, his administration predicts. Recent announcements from major auto companies coupl...

Grappling with the challenges and problems life throws at us is difficult, especially during a pandemic. Psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb says the stories we tell about ourselves and others can make it even harder to cope. She says we must look closely at the running commentary in our own minds to see if we are being too self-critical, or if we are not taking responsibility for our situation. Making...

In this pandemic recession, millions of Americans are going hungry, and Black and Hispanic households are hit harder than white ones. Throughout US history, hunger and health have been tied to race. Slave owners gave slaves just enough food to survive. “To be enslaved was to experience hunger,” says food historian Fred Opie. Now, Covid-19 is affecting low-income, communities of color disproportion...

President Trump’s second impeachment trial is beginning. In his first days in office, President Biden is navigating a pandemic and an economic crisis. With presidential leadership once again at the forefront and President’s Day just around the corner, we’re revisiting an episode featuring presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin . In her book, Leadership in Turbulent Times , Kearns Goodwin exam...

America’s Founders didn’t envision activist groups mobilizing on social media and disinformation spreading across the internet. Thanks to the web, new threats to democracy — like the January 6th attack on the US Capitol — have emerged. Following a similar deadly march in 1787, the Founders questioned the strength of the democracy they built. Shays’s Rebellion led to more support among the Founders...

Most Americans see religious freedom as an important right. Yet how that freedom is defined and applied isn’t consistent, and efforts to safeguard the religious freedom of some may be discriminatory for others. Experts say it is critical to address this issue politically, socially, and culturally or risk alienating people from all backgrounds. Religious liberty lawyer Asma Uddin works for the prot...

Joe Biden is a centrist who believes in the power of bipartisanship. To get both sides to listen to each other, he’ll have to break down the barriers created by today’s polarized politics, says New Yorker magazine staff writer Evan Osnos whose latest book is “About Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now.” Osnos speaks with Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation on CBS News. They discuss h...

Last year Russia infiltrated the digital networks of federal agencies and many of America’s largest corporations, and last week’s armed insurrection on the US Capitol was fomented through disinformation campaigns on social media. Cyberattacks and manipulation of elections and domestic affairs threaten national security and global relations. John Carlin of the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity &...

Even though women are likely to live longer than men, their hormonal changes make them far more susceptible to age-related memory loss like Alzhemier’s disease and other conditions. Yet gender is often not a primary consideration by the medical community  — but more and more research shows that it should be. Professor of neuroscience, neurology, and radiology Lisa Mosconi directs the Women’s Brain...