Symposium mulls defense spending

Flathead Valley Community College's eighth symposium lecturer addresses "The Dollars and Non-sense of Defense Spending" at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Kalispell Center WestCoast Hotel.

The speaker, Karen Adams, specializes in international relations and national security. She serves as an assistant professor of political science at the University of Montana.

Adams also taught at University of California Berkeley, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Mills College.

Adams relocated to teach in Missoula in 2004.

Her defense spending lecture ties into the 2005 Honors Symposium theme, "Public Policies and Private Interests: Whose Rights at What Cost?"

Lectures explore political economics as America reinvents itself in the information age of the 21st Century. Lectures consider choices for action among the environment, the military, social security, health care, education and the media.

The symposium is free. Due to the popularity of the series, college officials recommend participants arrive early to ensure a seat.