Utilities of this blog: Sharing, Extending, Responding

I imagine at least three purposes for this blog -- there are doubtless more, but these occurred to me right off:

• At the end of each session of Civics 101, we were asked to "review" the session and to say how we intended to share the information we received. I kept saying "I'll blog it," so that's one thing I'll do here: try to provide summaries of some of the splendid presentations, with links where possible, so that someone coming to this material fresh will, one hopes, find something useful.

• I'm sure some folks will be taking information presented and run with it -- the fascinating information about gardens, water, libraries, health, traffic control, public works, land conservation, parks, budgets, purchasing and more -- offer many paths to follow. It will be interesting to see where they lead us.

• A third purpose would be to respond to what we've been exposed to. The rich store of information about how things work was superb; meeting some of those who make them work was terrific; but now what? What thoughts, observations, questions, responses does all this information prompt? If we ask, what are we to do with all this transparency, perhaps one response would be to utilize social media to turn monologue into dialog. It might be your turn to speak.

These are some of the purposes that occurred to me for a Civics 101 blog. All those attending Civics 101 are welcome to post here - just email Tom at lakesarasota@gmail.com and I'll make you a co-author here. Or if you'd prefer, just send along what you write to that address, and it'll be posted here.