Last Friday night, Ayaan Hirsi Ali visited the Phoenix area to accept the 2007 Goldwater Institute Award. Someone from the Goldwater Institute noticed that my brother had posted something about this on his blog, as mentioned previously at Rantburg (in the highlighted section at bottom of this post). They gave him two tickets, so I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the fund-raising dinner for free. If you'd like to read my brother's report on this, follow the main link. I added a few comments there too.
She is such an amazing person and impressive speaker; the admiration - and love, really - for her in the room was electric. Steve Forbes gave a rousing speech before Ms. Hirsi Ali as well. I had never thought of Mr. Forbes as being particularly charismatic before, but his speech was just what was needed to get the audience alert and focused after a nice meal and several award ceremony type speeches. I felt like a bit of a slacker being in a room so full of accomplished people, but it was an honor to be able to attend. It's nice to see the Goldwater Institute paying attention and reaching out to the blogging community, and my brother and I are very greatful to them. |