Authors and Ideas Other Than Me And My Own

On Friday, September 26th, York school's senior English students (myself included) took a wonderfully traditional field trip to the Authors and Ideas Festival at Carmel's Sunset Center. The show that they put on for us was meant to expose us to new ideas and stimulate our creative sides. The big name on the list of the speakers was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the first female justice to server on the Supreme Court, and I was looking forward to hearing firsthand what sort of decisions Supreme Court justices are faced with in the course of their duties.

Unfortunately, the interview of O'Connor was focused around her life prior to the Supreme Court, and her struggle with the sexism of others that initially held her back in her practice of law. Compelling and inspiring though it was, I learned nothing from the interview that I could not have found on Wikipedia. O'Connor's narrative was utterly devoid of any mention of her actions from her time as a Supreme Court justice, which was her distinguishing characteristic. I personally felt cheated to have someone who was in as unique a position as the first female Supreme Court justice speak only about how hard it was to have the media closely scrutinizing her every decision, yet never say a word about what those decisions were.

Aside from the anticlimactic letdown of O'Connor's interview, the first three speakers were surprisingly funny and insightful. I was honestly expecting most of the presentations to be condescending tirades about the importance of our vote (of which there was a little bit), yet the author, motivational speaker, and astronomer (respectively) managed to keep their audience entertained and interested. The major change that I would have made to the show would be to have these speakers conclude the show, leaving the audience with a better final impression of the event than that of O'Connor's sub-par interview.