The Future Forum serves as a nexus for Austin's leaders. Our members are actively engaged in many organizations. We encourage you to find out more about these Doers and Builders Organizations on our Website.
The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law. The Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, a national resource, champions law and policy promoting equal opportunity and support for low- income individuals, families, and communities so that they can escape poverty permanently.
The Shriver Center takes action to end poverty. From idea to law to practice to monitoring, we work to overcome the myriad issues that combine to cause poverty.
Our tools are advocacy, policy development, and communications. Together our work creates an information channel among advocates, grassroots groups, researchers, policymakers and lawmakers. We strategically work nationwide with attorneys, advocates, and grassroots groups to define and employ best practices that make the most of antipoverty law and policy.

To learn more about the Shriver Center, and about how you can get involved, check out their website.

Come find out more about our Four Future Forum Clusters: The Cultural Cluster, The Film Cluster, The Book Club, and the Public Policy Cluster.

The Film Cluster will meet next to watch "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." http://www.sonyclassics.com/threeburials/. Come join them for the 7:05 showing at Barton Creek Square (which is the theater in Barton Creek Mall). They will be meeting at 6:50 in the lobby of the theater; get your ticket and come on inside. We'll gather in front of the concessions.
"As a vision of the American West and the wide country around it, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" strikes both fresh and familiar chords, most of them pleasingly dissonant. Directed with a steady hand and an eye for eccentric detail by the actor Tommy Lee Jones, who also stars, this western about a Texas ranch foreman trying to bury his Mexican friend is an accounting of those borders that separate rich from poor, men from women, friend from stranger, and as such, is less an act of revisionism than one of reconsideration. As in most westerns, as in John Ford's "Searchers" and Cormac McCarthy's "Crossing," the journey here is as spiritual as it is physical, as much inwardly directed as outward bound." From the New York Times Review.
The April movie will be "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room."
If you would like to be added to the Film Cluster email list, or have a suggestion for a film, please email Taline Manassian at taline@austin.rr.com.
The Film Cluster meets on the first Monday of the month to watch and discuss a film.

The Book Club will be picking its next book soon, so get ready to start reading. If you would like to be added to the Book Club list, please email Rob Crosnoe at crosnoe@mail.la.utexas.edu.
The Book Club will soon start picking its next book. If you have any suggestions, email Rob.

Come join us on March 23rd and 30th for two event on Alternate/Renewable Energy. There was so much to discuss that we couldn't do it all in one night. Both events will be held in the Atrium and both will start at 7PM. More information on these events wil be coming soon.

The Film Cluster will meet on March 6th at Barton Creek Square to watch and discuss "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." The film starts at 7:05.

On February 27, 2005, we held an event on Hip Hop with Snoop Daniel of The Beat 104.3 moderating the panel. Other panelists included: Hip Hop artist and Austin Music Foundation Category I Incubator award winner, KJAE, and, Jennifer Gorn, Hip Hop attorney.
We taped the event, so if you missed this event and would like to check out the DVD, let us know.

On February 23rd, Future Forum members joined the Friends of the LBJ Library for a speech on National Security by Senator Joe Biden.

Don't forget: You can always give the gift of a Future Forum Membership.

If you have any ideas about how we can improve the Future Forum, events you'd like to see, or other thoughts, please let us know.

Other LBJ Family sites - LBJ Library: www.lbjlib.utexas.edu, LBJ Now: www.lbjnow.org, LBJ School: www.utexas.edu/lbj/

More about the Future Forum: The purpose of the Future Forum is to expand the involvement of young Texans with the LBJ Library and its programs by initiating dialogue about current issues and by providing educational and cultural information to its members. It is the ultimate goal of the Future Forum to foster greater civic involvement within our community. Future Forum Seeks to Inspire!

Come check out the current exhibit at the LBJ Library - The Vietnam Experience. Visitors to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum can experience the Vietnam War through the eyes of U.S. Navy combat artists. The Vietnam Experience is strongly interpreted in this selection of 22 paintings, watercolors, and drawings by six combat artists.

The UT Global Challenges Initiative is pleased to invite the UT community to the next presentation in its International Security Speaker Series.

March 7 Jessica Stern Lecturer in Public Policy, JFK School of Government, Harvard University “Anatomy of Terror: Understanding Religious Violence” This talk will be held from 5:00-6:30pm on the 10th Floor Brown Room of the LBJ Library and Museum Biography Jessica Stern is a faculty affiliate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and a Lecturer in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. From 1994-95 she served as Director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council, where she was responsible for national-security policy toward Russia and the former Soviet states, and for policies to reduce the threat of nuclear smuggling and terrorism. Stern earlier worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In 1998-99, Stern was the Superterrorism Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and in 1995-96 she was a National Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She is the author of The Ultimate Terrorists and Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, as well as numerous articles on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Professor Stern received a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in Chemistry, a master of science degree from MIT, and a doctorate in public policy from Harvard University.

Also, don't forget, the LBJ Library and Museum is open from 9-5 every day of the year except Christmas day. And, admission is free (we are the only Presidential Library that is free). By the way, another bonus of the LBJ Library and Museum - the view! The great picture of Texas Tower and the Fountain looking out from the LBJ Library and Museum is courtesy of Charles Bogel, who always takes the great pictures at our events.

There are lots of great events happening around Austin. On March 29, Azar Nafisi will speak as part of KLRU's Engaging Speakers Series. "Reading Lolita" Author to Speak Azar Nafisi rose to fame with her best-selling book Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books. She comes to Austin in March as part of SPARK: KLRU's Speaker Series. All lectures begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Paramount Theatre, 713 Congress Avenue. Currently a Visiting Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, Nafisi had been a professor of English literature at the University of Tehran. After the Iranian revolution and rise to power of the Ayatollah Khomeini, she became restless with the stringent rules imposed upon women. In 1995, she quit teaching and began having secret meetings to study books like Lolita, works considered dangerous to read in Iranian society.
And, if you haven't gotten enough of Hip Hop, on April 25th, Chuck D and Leonard Pitts are the speakers. In this moderated panel discussion, rap artist Chuck D and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Leonard Pitts will discuss culture, social issues and race. University of Texas professor and author of Hip Hop Matters, S. Craig Watkins will lead the conversation. For more information email spark@klru.org or call 512-475-9021.

Leadership Austin presents Experience Austin Friday, March 31, 8:00 a.m-6:00 p.m Thursdays, April 6, 13, 20, 4:30-8:30 p.m. Explore Austin’s Icons and Institutions Meet the People Who Make a Difference Are you a new executive? Are you new to town? Are you looking for new ways to get involved in the community? Experience Austin is for you! It’s an intensive orientation to the things that matter in Austin, now and in the future. You’ll learn about the history, trends, issues, institutions, and social and cultural fabric that make Austin special, with behind-the-scenes insights from elected and appointed officials, regional leaders, and other community experts. You’ll enjoy a guided bus tour to take in unique Austin sites, with several stops for further exploration. And, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to connect with your fellow participants and rub elbows with the folks who make things happen in Austin. Experience Austin can’t be missed! Cost: $685 Fun, Focus, Connections and Insight Price includes course materials, meals and refreshments, and bus tour For more info call Kirsti Krejs at 499-0435 x10 Register online today at www.leadershipaustin.org Or by phone at 499-0435 x11

On Sunday, March 5, the Austin Film Festival’s 4th Annual Oscar Party will be held at Ranch 616. A delicious meal from Ranch 616! Beer, wine and top shelf margaritas! Celebrities! Fabulous Silent Auction! All for under 100 dollars! Our Silent Auction will have items from: The Driskill Hotel, Daya Day Spa, The Stephen F Austin Hotel, Yoga Yoga, and many more! Call now for more information or to reserve your tickets. 512-478-4795. Single tickets - $90 non-members ($75 for AFF members) Booths and reserved seating are available. Please call for more information. email: info@austinfilmfestival.com