I am taking a move and kid induced longer Future Salon break, hope some of you are missing it, would be sad if no one did.
But don't fret, the beauty of the Bay Area is that there are always other really interesting events happening.
Our Cybersalon friends from Berkeley are going to have another timely and oh so important one. Or have you not heard that the Senate again voted against giving 'war on terror' prisoners the right to challenge their detention in federal courts. It is one of the basic human rights and a shame that it even is a question besides that it is in the constitution: Article 4, which states that habeaus corpus shall not be suspended unless in cases of rebellion and invasion when the public safety may require it.
With the new technologies in the making, and we are not talking about voting machines here, no, can Web 2.0 help with better networking, organizing possibilities, easier ways to get involved ... tip the scale? Remember the Howard Dean campaign, and how the established media squashed it like a little fly? Have the times changed in the last 4 years? Answers to these questions this Sunday:
September 23. "Politics 101 Meets Web 2.0: Democracy or Demagoguery?" 4 to 6 p.m., Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., $15 at door for food, drink, and open mike discussion for digital and analog political activists. Political candidates of all stripes now have web sites, participate in social networks, and can respond to folks via YouTube. So are we closer to democracy?
I am a bit bummed that I can't join as I will enjoy the last days of summer, or so we hope, camping up north.