City Club's lunch this week will be with Janine Terrano (Topia Technology), Jim Merritt (Merritt Architecture), and CR Roberts (The News Tribune). The topic is downtown business. "Solutions only" is the tag line. I think it's going to be a pretty great lunch. RSVP by the end of Monday (office@cityclubtacoma.org). $22 for members, $30 for non-members. And if you're not a member, and haven't been before, mention you saw it here and we can invite you in at the member rate).
Our last program was our dinner on 7/7. The speaker was Ziad Abusamha, a trustee at the Islamic Center. It was a … heated program, to say the least.
I still don't know how I feel about it exactly. On the one hand, I think "Yay City Club for addressing clearly touchy subjects head-on." On the other, it's "could we have done that without the heat?" We had one person walk out, and the questions were very pointed.
It was certainly interesting. Questions about specific customs and dogmas rankled some attendees, and questions about extremists (honor killings, etc) rankled the speaker. There was an attendee in the audience who was particularly interesting–a self-professed "moderate" Muslim who challenged some of the practices at the local Islamic Center. That back-and-forth was certainly one of the high-points of the night and it made me wonder what a panel on the same topic might have been like.
So. An interesting dinner to say the least!
I would have been worried if nothing “sensative” came up at the islamic luncheon. I’m sure being on UPS’ campus helped 🙂
I am excited for this Wed though, seems like it should be interesting.