Thoreau Center Brown Bag - Social Media Discussion

In the news:

• Bing and Facebook form a partnership to bring your social network into your search results.
• President Obama answers your questions from Twitter.
• Malcolm Gladwell claims that Twitter and Facebook cannot be used to change the real world, angering Clay Shirky and activists around the world.
• Google’s new exec in charge of location-based and local services loves Foursqaure.
• While Ning launches a new service to create highly customizable social websites and mobile applications that allow you to connect to them anywhere.

There are new developments in the world of social networking daily. Online social media has already changed the environment in which nonprofits, foundations, philanthropists, and social entrepreneurs operate in rapid, novel, and often unexpected ways. What does it all mean and where is it all going? This event is an opportunity to meet with other organizations and individuals working in the Thoreau Center for an informal lunchtime discussion about such issues. Learn about your neighbors' experiences with these new tools, share strategies and lessons learned, and hopefully have some of your questions answered.


Representatives from United Religions Initiative - @global_uri, and Tides - @TidesCommunity (and the library - @WholeEarthLib) have signed on to give brief presentations to get the discussion started, and if you have experiences, projects, etc. you would like to arrange to share, please contact John Bertland at library@thoreau.org. Otherwise just come with your ideas, thoughts, and questions and join in the discussion.

Thoreau Center Exhibition Opening Reception:

Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here

Art and readings about the 2007 destruction of Al-Mutanabbi Street, Baghdad, Iraq

Thursday, October 14
5:00pm to 7:00pm
Thoreau Center for Sustainability, San Francisco

On March 5, 2007, a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 30 people and wounding over 100 others. As the center of Baghdad’s bookselling, Al-Mutanabbi Street was the heart and soul of the city. In April 2007, San Francisco bookseller and poet, Beau Beausoleil, and Al-Mutanabbi printmaker, Grendl Lofkvist, formed the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition, asking letterpress printers to craft a visual response to this attack.

And they did. Over a hundred printmakers submitted their own broadsides depicting Al-Mutanabbi Street’s thriving haven for artistic freedom and a place of civil discourse.

Join us for an evening of art, wine and storytelling in support of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition. The evening’s program will include an exhibition of artwork from many of the printmakers who created and donated their work to help support the progress of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition. Also, three printmakers will read from their own writings in response to this 2007 incident. The readers include Deema Shehabi - Palestinian- American Poet - Co-Editor of the anthology, "Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here"; Esther Kamkar - Iranian -American Poet - Contributor to the anthology, "Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here" ; Bettina Pauly - A California Printer - A Letterpress Contributor to the "Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project"

Brown Bag events are free informal mid-day learning sessions hosted at Tides. Friends, neighbors and colleagues are welcome. Visitors, please sign in at the front desk.