This is an e-mail I got from WordsWithGrace, the major collaborator behind a special project we’ve been working on for too dang long and I’m going to get it set up this week if it kills me.
So I was really trying to do work, and of course I started thinking about the Report again, particularly this mysterious reference on Thursday’s show:
Stephen Colbert: Nice to see you again. The last time we were together we were at that Renaissance Weekend, you know, just changing the world, hobnobbing with other world figures, you and me, something I do.
Shashi Tharoor (former undersecretary general for communications and public information at the UN): And you looked very comfortable doing it.
What is the Renaissance Weekend, I wondered? Sounded vaguely familiar. So I Colboogled it and this popped up:
Holy City plays host to 25th anniversary of Renaissance Weekend
Apparently it happens four times a year, and Bill Clinton often attends. The hosts, the Laders, are from Charleston. The one Stephen went to was a year ago in Charleston, and check out the guest list!
- “This year’s event, held from Dec. 28 through Jan. 1 [2006], marked the 25th anniversary of the Renaissance Weekend, an event focused on the ‘exchange of ideas,’ according to Philip Lader, the event’s founder…The event hosted more than 1,800 invitees…This year’s attendees included former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, former Bush Administration Attorney
General Dick Thornburgh, presidential adviser David Gergen, Apollo 13 commander James Lovell, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, comedian Stephen Colbert … The weekend was packed with roughly 700 discussions tackling issues ranging from ‘World Peace’ to ‘Corporate Governance after Enron.’”
[that's really where they listed Stephen, btw ... right after the Supreme Court justice!]
A writer for the conservative “National Review” described the weekend this way:
“These are the famous conclaves associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Founded 25 years ago by another couple, Phil and Linda Lader, the weekends include people from many walks of life, talking about a variety of subjects on a slew of panels…. The Laders don’t want Renaissance Weekend to be an exclusively left-leaning and Democratic affair, and they go out of their way to welcome and even protect their right-leaning guests. They are, in fact, the soul of kindness, hospitality, and ecumenism. This is our kind of
Democrat, National Review readers. He is a policy expert, a business whiz, and a former ambassador to the U.K. (in the second term of Clinton); she is a dynamo whose résumé includes the National Prayer Breakfast.”
There’s more on the Renaissance Weekend on the list of six high-profile “power camps” that attract world figures, at HiddenMysteries.org … right up there with the Bohemian Grove …
This is brilliant. I can’t tell you how tickled I am by the thought of Stephen at one of these events. Not only because I admire the man and his show, but because I think it’s wonderful for highly intelligent people (and Stephen is certainly that) to have a chance to get together and trade ideas about important issues.
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It was all those New Moon Rituals with Del that led to this….
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Shout Out (Hey!):
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