UNOFFICIAL MEETING TO DISCUSS HOW THE OTHER HALF BANKS

[johnkarls]

.
UNOFFICIAL MEETING TO DISCUSS HOW THE OTHER HALF BANKS

In the wake of our failure to achieve the minimum quorum of 6 RSVP’s for our Wed July 13 meeting, the 5 RSVP’s did agree to have an UNOFFICIAL MEETING THAT EVENING AS DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING E-MAIL in order to discuss How The Other Half Banks.

All are welcome to participate.


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [Fwd: July 13th Meeting Cancelled – Attila Relenyi’s Topic Proposal Is Our Focus For August 10th]
From: readingliberally-saltlake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat, June 25, 2016 2:16 am - MDT
To: Elizabeth (“Tucker”) Gurney; Ted Gurney; June Taylor (“Utah Owl”); George Kunath
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Dear Tucker, Ted, June and George,

Our weekly e-mail to our approximately 150 members that follows immediately below, announces that we failed to achieve a quorum for our July 13th meeting and, accordingly, the meeting is cancelled.

It also explains why the focus book for our August 10th meeting is Dragnet Nation by Julia Angwin.

Since I know this must be a disappointment to many (if not all) of you and since I have not yet cancelled our regular Conference Room C at the library for July 13, I would be happy to meet with any or all of you for an UNOFFICIAL meeting on July 13 to discuss How The Other Half Banks.

Since the meeting would be UNOFFICIAL, there would be no further promotion (e-mails, short quizzes, suggested discussion outlines, etc.).

And it would NOT be possible to attain official status even if another person decides to join us -- if, for no other reason, than anyone who might oppose a Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign to have the Post Office re-assume its historical role of providing banking services is entitled, in the wake of the cancellation, to make other plans for July 13.

[Accordingly, attaining official status if a sixth person decides to participate would require unanimous consent from all 150 recipients of the weekly newsletter and I, for one, could not in good conscience consent.]

However, I would provide the regular cookies and coffee.

Please let me know whether you are interested.

Your friend,

John K.

PS --

Re the possibility of members refusing to RSVP to prevent a quorum, a dozen or so e-mails are received every month from members explaining why they cannot attend or, alternatively, why they refuse to attend.

And one was received from a member who hopes a quorum will not be achieved due to opposition to an E-mail Campaign for restoring the banking function of the post office.

But even if no such e-mail had been received, I always oppose action that would require unanimous consent in order to avoid embarrassing anyone who is reluctant to voice opposition -- such as ruling out of order at our March meeting on Just Mercy an attempt to hijack the meeting to a discussion of environmental matters which, for however short a period, would have required unanimous consent both to permit the hijacking and then unanimous consent for a decision regarding the duration of the hijacking.

It would be a breach of confidence to disclose the name of the person who sent the e-mail about opposing the restoration of the banking function of the post office.

But no, it was NOT that Master Manipulator, Bill Lee, who adores announcing ostentatiously whenever he will be out of town the following month, that he is voting for a topic he despises in order to get it out of the way while he is gone!!!


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: July 13th Meeting Cancelled – Attila Relenyi’s Topic Proposal Is
Our Focus For August 10th
From: readingliberally-saltlake@johnkarls.com
Date: Sat, June 25, 2016 2:14 am - MDT
To: ReadingLiberallyEmailList@johnkarls.com
Bcc: The Approximately 150 Recipients of Our Weekly E-mail
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Dear Friends,

*****
Cancellation Of Our July 13th Meeting

As stated in last Saturday’s weekly e-mail (and, indeed, in the first e-mail of every monthly cycle), our July 13th meeting would be cancelled unless a minimum quorum of 6 RSVP’s had been received by 11:59 pm last evening.

Unfortunately, only 5 RSVP’s were received -- from Ted Gurney, Elizabeth (“Tucker”) Gurney, George Kunath, June Taylor (aka Utah Owl) and Yours Truly.

Accordingly, our July 13th meeting is cancelled.


*****
Maintaining Standards

We should be proud (in a perverse sense) that this is only the third time in our 10.5-year history that we have failed to achieve a quorum.

Each of the previous two times we had received only 5 RSVP’s, the Q arose whether an exception couldn’t be made.

However, we have always adhered to the principle that making exceptions to standards really means having no standards.


*****
August 10 Topic

The August 10 topic is Attila Relenyi’s Proposal = Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance by Julia Angwin ($14.38 paperback + shipping or $9.99 Kindle from Amazon.com - 320 pages).

Explanation =

Ordinarily, each month’s participants vote on the topic for the following month.

However, that is not possible when a meeting is cancelled.

On both occasions that it was necessary to select a month’s topic following the cancellation of the previous month’s meeting, we followed the principle that rather than become stuck on a topic that might never be capable of mustering a quorum, we would select the Proposed Topic that had received the greatest number of views on our bulletin board, http://www.ReadingLiberally-SaltLake.org.

Ironically, of the three topics currently posted, the greatest number of views (currently 314) has been received by Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed which was proposed by Lewis Williams, a Delta Airlines pilot.

The reason why this is ironic is that the proposal of The Vision of the Anointed expired on June 15 when it failed to receive a vote for the 6th meeting in a row.

Accordingly Julia Angwin’s Dragnet Nation (currently with 136 views) is the focus for our August 10 meeting.


********************

We hope to see all of you on August 10th.

Your friend,

John K.

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