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The Spectator World reports on CEI’s Prometheus dinner

A Promethean night with CEI

Having attended Competitive Enterprise Institute events in the past, Cockburn knew his Thursday evening at CEI’s fortieth anniversary Julian L. Simon Memorial Award Dinner was going to be eccentric and entertaining. But he didn’t expect pyrotechnics.

“We’re holding it at a pagan temple, so it makes sense,” a dinner attendee dressed in a toga in keeping with the “Prometheus: Rebel for Humanity” theme quipped about the fire-dancing girls performing in front of the Washington National Cathedral.

Cockburn enjoyed a cocktail called “the Fire Thief” during the pre-dinner reception and chatted with a group from Reason magazine, CEI staff, a man dressed as Hercules and Grover Norquist. During dinner, Cockburn enjoyed decadent beef pavé and banter with the Washington Examiner’s W. James Antle III and joined in cheers for speakers espousing free-market principles, such as, “Economic freedom saves lives!” 

Magatte Wade, the author and Senegalese entrepreneur, attested to this truth by telling her story of “making something out of nothing” after receiving the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award. George F. Will received the Prometheus Award for Human Achievement and delivered the keynote remarks before National Lagoon’s Policy House, starring CEI staff, set the stage for the “Afterglow” event: more pyrotechnics, a Cirque-du-Soleil-style acrobatics performance and women roaming the cathedral on stilts.

Cockburn is relieved to find that CEI’s reputation for a memorable party remains fully in tact.

Read more at The Spectator World