“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”  – Oprah Winfrey – Actress – Producer – Talk Show Host

 

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson – 1803-1882 – Lecturer-Poet-Essayist

 

A brave man acknowledges the strength of others.” – Veronica Roth – Novelist-Writer

 

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS

 

Bucket Bucks for this month are going to Books 2 Prisoners.

 

Jerry will be emailing a survey from Survey Monkey to vote for our bylaws. Please respond as soon as possible.

 

The Feeding our Kids service project took place Saturday, 3/27/21. Mary Kay thanked all who signed up.

 

 

PROGRAM

 

Tom Ulen introduced Jason Mazzone as our speaker. Jason is a Professor of Law at the University of Illinois since 2012 and is a nationally recognized expert in constitutional law. His educational background includes degrees from Harvard BA and JD, Stanford MA and Yale LLM and JSD. Jason’s focus this morning was on the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America and its relationship on the events of today.

 

He presented the 1791 original wording of the first amendment and noted the intent of the federal provisions and the adoption later by the individual States’ law for freedoms of religion, speech, the press, assembly and petition. 

 

Jason explained how freedom of speech has evolved and its meaning and significance today. He presented several examples and explained differences and the legal requirements that differ between the government and private businesses. 

Among the many examples, subjects included the limiting or not limiting viewpoints, regulating scope of conversations, hate speech, threats, violence, and civil disobedience. Jason also discussed cases currently before the courts.

 

Answering multiple questions from club members after his presentation, Jason commented on several hot topics occurring today. Those topics included the differences between the print media and social media(e.g. Facebook, Twitter), legal regulations, the difficulty to prosecute someone for inciting a crowd, freedoms in political speech content, and the current erosion of facts.

 

Jason concluded his presentation with the important point that the country’s court system has performed very well by casting aside political party leanings and relying on evidence and facts and thus throwing out the many cases of false election results. 

 

 

 

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  Apr 1st Apr 8th Apr 15th Apr 22nd
         
Reflection Jarrod Scheunemann Jen Shelby Charlie Smith Cary Woolard
Notetaker Hodson Conforti Perry Hodson

 

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UPCOMING SCHEDULE (with program committee member responsible listed in parentheses)

*All meetings via Zoom unless otherwise noted*

 

April 1st – Jarrod Scheunemann will discuss his wild adventures in parks and recreation in Illinois, including the tamer years at Champaign Park District (Andrew)

April 8th – Lin Warfel will discuss farming technology and agricultural issues (Bob)

April 15th – TBD (Cary)

April 22nd – TBD (Charlie)

April 29th – Club Social – no morning meeting

May 6th – Winnie Stortzum will discuss her trip to Portugal (Mary)

May 13th – TBD (Tom)

May 20th – TBD (Bob)

May 27th – TBD (Cary)

June 3rd – TBD (Charlie)

June 10th – TBD (Mary)

June 17th – TBD (Ondine)

June 24th – Pass the Gavel ceremony