Wealth and Money

Thursday, August 7, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Wealth and Money is the theme for August and we will start with a meeting to select the topics for the month. We will do a session on income inequality for the second meeting, but we need topics for the third and fourth meetings.

We had several suggestions, including Bitcoin, the FED, minimum wage and the Import Export Bank. Please consider if these topics are appropriate for a 90 minute meeting, and if you would like the lead the discussion. Suggestions for other topic are also welcome.

To get things started, we will show a TED Talk by Michael Sandel about the use of markets in our civic lives.

Global Trends

Thursday, July 31, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For the final meeting in July, under the theme of International Affairs, we will Zoom-Out to look at overall global trends. No one is better able to do this than Hans Rosling who uses UN data in dynamic and entertaining ways to show how the world has progressed beyond our preconceived notions. Rosling has given many TED Talks, we will look at the first two.

• The best stats you've ever seen - Rosling demonstrates how data tells how most of the world has caught up with the west
• New insights on poverty - Rosling shows why there is still hope for the parts of the world that is still in poverty

Zoom-In on Immigration

Thursday, July 24, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

The group had a lot to say about immigration, though somewhat disorganized. While that was normal, there was a sense of frustration because we hopped for issue to issue. Nevertheless, the group wanted to spend another week on the immigration topic.

Please leave a comment on the blog on what immigration issue you want to discuss. We will discuss the issues in the order that they are submitted.

Immigration

Thursday, July 17, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

For the third session in International Affairs, we will discuss the broad topic of Immigration. To get the conversation started, here is a TED Talk by Jose Vargas, about the plight of Americans w/o Papers, aka Illegal Aliens. After that we can talk about any immigration issue of interest.

There are many topics we could cover, so if you have an immigration issue that you want to discuss, please leave a comment to reserve your spot.

Afghanistan

Thursday, July 10, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We will continue with the International Affairs theme by zooming-in on Afghanistan. Skye, who was deployed there, has prepared a presentation and will lead the follow-up discussion.

Please help our group by preparing before coming to the meeting. General background information for Afghanistan can be found HERE in Wikipedia. Any other information or questions related to Afghanistan is welcome.

Schedule for 2014Q3

Thursday, July 3, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

We start a new quarter next meeting. For July we will zoom-in on international affairs. Ron will lead a survey meeting.

Here are the themes for the rest of the quarter:

• July - International Affairs: Regional hotspot and global trends

• August - Wealth and Money: What is it and who gets it

• September - Energy and the Environment: How we balance energy needs while preserving our environment

Generational Legacy, Conclusion

Thursday, June 26, 2014, 10am to 11:30 in the Meeting Room (behind the fireplace)

Last week, there was general agreement with Colin Powell's TED Talk about kids needing structure, but some Zoom-in members objected that he used the military as the primary example. What seemed to be missing was a sense of morality. Hank did remind us of the importance of passing moral values to the next generation. But so far we have been more concern about how the next generation will cope, given the extraordinary circumstances they will face.

If we accept Powell's contention that coping depends on the structure provided by our institutions, is it important that our institutions have high moral values? The answer is yes, according to Bryan Stevenson. In his TED Talk, We need to talk about an injustice, Stevenson encourages TED to adopt high moral value as an institution. What makes his talk relevant to our discussion on generational legacy is that Stevenson tells about three times that received advice from the older generation that influenced his course in life, once as a child, once as a young man getting started, and once as a practicing lawyer.

It is said that Stevenson's talk received teethe strongest standing ovation ever seen at TED. Enjoy.