Partnering with the League of Women Voters, explore far reaching, current civic issues vital in 2020, including the Census, redistricting, systemic racism, implicit bias, and the impact of fake news and social media on public perception. Explore the concept of the Common Good, engaging in facilitated dialogue with others about these issues and the election process 2020 and much more! Guest speakers include Ruby Lewis (NAACP), Auditor Greg Kimsey, Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle, Arbitrator Sandra Gangle, Clark Librarian Laura Nagel, former Rep. Betty Sue Morris, former Councilperson Jeannie Stewart, Alan Unell and Ellie Hutton. Learn about how spending priorities are generated. Time allotted for discussion groups.

The Italians claim that Italy has a green heart and that heart is the Province of Umbria, a region also being described as the new Tuscany. It is a part of Northern Italy that has remained unchanged for centuries. It is a mountainous region packed with tall mountains, rocky crags and lush valleys. It is a region filled with castles, defense walls, and tiny villages. It is the home of St. Francis and St. Claire. It is filled with the art of Giotto, Piero della Francesca, Rafalleo, Perugino, and hundreds more just waiting to be discovered. Visit Assisi, Perugia, Città di Castello, Spoleto, and Orvieto. Visit the Umbrian churches and museums free from tourists and waiting for your arrival. Experience a region with an unmistakable personality, one where nature's beauty mingles with creations of the human genius.

The second half of our examination of the world of espionage will continue with case histories, including discussion of intelligence gathering philosophies and approaches, technologies and trends from WWI into the Cold War and then into the present day. Issues that have come to the fore in this last century concern the rise of professional espionage agents, the rise of modern COMINT, SIGINT, and cryptography, and the increasing reality of domestic surveillance will also be discussed with emphasis on the on-going debate over the reach of government and the future of civil liberties in our own day and age. Similar issues regarding the use of sophisticated algorithmic software and corporate information gathering on consumers and the right to privacy are also topics that command our attention.

Do we have a health care system or a disease management system? Does gender bias and racism in healthcare alter outcomes for patients? Compare the outcomes of the U.S. system to other countries. Understand how to advocate for yourself in the health care system. Learn how pharmaceutical companies are price-fixing, altering outcomes, and using statistics to obscure results. Review the current research on addiction and which type of programs are most helpful. Learn about the lifestyle approaches to increase your immune system function during the pandemic.

When many of us in the West think of Japan, we often visualize such disparate mental images as the urban tech jungle of the Akihabara District of Tokyo side by side with more tradition-bound images of castle-towns and Shinto festivals relating to the past. This course will set these images into proper historical context and tell the epic 150-year story of warriors, artists, philosophers, generals, peasant-soldiers, business men, and regular men and women, who created the modern Japanese nation of today. The ideas and political, cultural, and geo-political predicaments that such people faced and the outcome of the controversies, upheavals, and transformations of which they were also a part provide the backdrop for a look at the ways in which their lives fashioned a new nation and a different, non-Western, version of what it means to be "modern." Through lecture and discussion and through examination of documentary and audio-visual sources we will discover how both change and continuity have catapulted Japan, within the last century and a half, from a comparatively peripheral player in Asian or world geopolitics to one of the world's largest economies and a nation with a surprisingly influential and increasingly exportable "soft-culture" in the bargain.

Between 1347and 1350 the pandemic known as the Black Death devasted Europe. In Italy, the epidemic had a shattering impact on Italian society, a society which was transformed by social, economic, cultural and religious changes. These modifications resulted in the emergence of the Renaissance, one of the greatest periods in human history. It was more than just painting and sculpturing that were changed by the plague but also architecture, city planning, religious celebrations, traditions, and literature were transformed as well. Throughout the course comparisons will be made between the events that unfolded during the Bubonic Plague to similar events that we are experiencing during the present pandemic.

The story of Italy's Il Duce from 1925 to his execution at the hands of irate citizens in 1945: He, not Germany's Adolf Hitler was the creator of Fascism, the first of the modern "Tough Guy" dictators. To know how he attracted millions of his countrymen, and why they ultimately rejected him, can guide us in understanding present day authoritarian leaders like Erdogan of Turkey, Orban of Hungary, Bolsonaro of Brazil and others closer to home.

We live in a world transformed by the combined efforts, talents, and sacrifices of dreamers, inventors, engineers, and civil and military aircrew, all part of a process of technological development begun half a millennia ago. This class will focus on that process and the challenges, personalities, technologies, and historical interludes, that pushed it forward.