Hello Future Salonistas,

Last month was fun - we had a pretty wide-ranging discussion & were graced with
a couple of new folks & some exotically colored out-of-town visitors. Also
parking was easy! Thanks very much to everyone who came & added to the fun.
This Sunday we'll be having another "Discussion & Book Review" format. I
thought I'd focus the discussion a bit more by choosing a topic. The topic most
favored by the few folks I checked with is:

The Future of War
- any chance we could dodge some?
- will they mostly be about economics or religion or territory or oil or water
or ?
- technologies that will likely come into play (e.g. Singapore's Urban Soldier
Robot Challenge, Swarm-bots, etc.)
- role of the U.N., NATO, the Catholic Church, & other similar/comparable
organizations

Please bring any books you have read that relate to this topic & be prepared to
say a few words about your book(s) at the meeting. Science Fiction is ok! As is
most any other genre.
I will look forward to seeing some of you this Sunday.

- Lisa

P.S.

Other topics under consideration for future meetings: (Let me know if either of
these sound good to you, and suggest any ideas that you have as well.)

Future of American Society - economic, social, techonological
- I saw in slashdot that no American City made it into the most technologically
advanced ranking according to the Intelligent Community Forum: "For the second
year running, no U.S. city has made the list of the world's top Intelligent
Communities of 2007, as selected by global think tank Intelligent Community
Forum. The ICF selects the Intelligent Community list based on how advanced the
communities are in deploying broadband, building a knowledge-based workforce,
combining government and private-sector "digital inclusion," fostering
innovation and marketing economic development."
- Part of his could actually be a book review - Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of
Empire"...I'm maybe a third into it...

Future of the Muslim Community
- This Sunday I'll be picking up a book I ordered last month called "The Caged
Virgin". I read about half of it while travelling in Canada over the holidays -
an amazingly courageous commentary and call to action by a Muslim woman.




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