Conference on World Affairs

Overall Impression: Love is one of the most important things in life and few people have a strategy for it.

Patch Adams

Patch came here last year and was a big hit. Every panel he was on was super well attended. He had the most people at his talk in Macky Auditorium. Patch has a clown character though that he will not do in a large room. Therefore Patch was booked by himself into a small auditorium. This room seats about 200 or so people. There were about 400 people squeezed in. It was actually quite impressive.

Patch is a very impressive speaker. He has a style that can range from forceful and intimidating, to pure clown. This talk featured an excellent recitation of Naruda's Lemon Poem, complete with a Lemon prop. Patch noted that if this much can be said about a lemon, imagine how much you can say about Love. "Love is a breadth thing." Heck, Darwin wrote four volumes on the barnacle.

After 9-11 Patch Adams called CNN to see if anyone had any National Love Strategies. There are none. There are no school classes to teach loving. Patch would like to see a national love strategy. Some of his ideas on this are in the list after the next section.

Eddie the Clown

Sometimes approaching with love scares people off. Clowning is a trick Patch uses to get close enough to allow love to do its work. Patch's clown character, Eddie, is based on a Down's Syndrome adult. Eddie has a fish he carries with him. Patch can do the switch in about a minute if he has to. Once the clown was able to stop a public fight.

QUESTION PERIOD IDEAS

• This quote showed up in some context: "Dancing the rim of the Bell Curve."
• Someone should find a love strategy big enough for Saddam Hussein and George Bush.
• Patch wears the wild outfit he wears to he doesn't have to start conversations. [Conversations can start themselves.]
• There are three universal nonverbal communication styles, clowning, magic, and music. His girlfriend Susan plays the accordion.
• You have to love three things. "Love Me. Love Life. Love You." (all six billion of you.)
• Patch has a common theme: Intention - Performance - Consequences. After each sequence you can evaluate the consequences to see if your performance advanced your intentions.
• Two strategies Patch mentioned are Attention and Affection. In the category of Affection he ruled out what he called "airport kisses." If you are going to kiss, kiss and mean it.
• He described a though disorder as "thought managing your life in a way you do not believe."