Friday, March 27, 2015

Privacy and the War on Drugs

Thursday, April 2, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For the next meeting we will try a new format. Rather than focusing on one topic, we revisit an old topic and introduce a new one. This way we can go into greater depth while keeping in mind the big picture. You could say we will both Zoom-In and Pan.

For the first hour of the next meeting, we will continue the topic of privacy from the last meeting. For those that missed that meeting HERE is the TED Talk that introduced the topic. Here is another TED Talk by Glenn Greenwald which goes into greater detail. 

For the last half hour, we cover one of the skipped topics that was on the list from our previous meeting. I thought all the topics on the list were good but we just did not have the time to cover all of them. So I am just picking the War on Drugs, just to get the new format going.

For those curious about the other popular topic on the list, Race Relations, we will cover that topic in May so that it will fit into Sherman's schedule, who volunteered to lead the discussion. We will also work-in the meetings by Tim, Norm and Bill, which were cancelled due to bad weather.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Zoom-In Reboot

Thursday, March 26, 2015, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Spring is near and the Bain Center will reopened next week; so we will restart our Thursday Zoom-In meeting at the same time and place. We have a lot of catching up to do; several canceled meetings need to be rescheduled.

Since the next meeting is the last Thursday of the Winter Quarter, I thought we could use it to plan what we should cover in the Spring Quarter, Apr- Jun. To get things going we will review the five TED Talks that were suggested in the previous blog post. Of course these are just suggestions and you are encouraged to make your own suggestions.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Looking Forward to the Spring

No meeting until the Bain Center reopens

Until the Bain Center reopens, just enjoy the winter. Bad weather is not a problem if you can stay inside and watch TED videos on the Internet. Here are some TED Talks that you might like. Please let me know if you would like to have a session on any of these talks.
  1. James A. White Sr. on racial relations
  2. Catherine Crump on police surveillance
  3. Ethan Nadelmann on the war on drugs
  4. Gail Reed on Cuban doctors
  5. Michael Rubinstein on a new kind of microscope