By Special to the Town Crier

The Morning Forum of Los Altos will launch its 51st season at 10:15 a.m., Sept. 18, at the United Methodist Church, with a talk by James Bushnell.

Bushnell, co-director of the UC Energy Institute and lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, will talk on the power crisis and the energy market.

Bushnell is a member of the Market Monitoring Committee of California Power Exchange.

The Morning Forum has arranged for experts in several diverse fields to give talks over the next four months.

These include Eleanor Clift, Newsweek contributing editor, who will talk on “Views from Washington,” and Jeffrey Langholz, professor of international environment policy at the Monterey Institute, who will deliver a talk titled “McNational Parks and Wal-Mart Wildlife Refuges: Perils and Promise of Privatizing Nature Conservation.”

Pamela Karlan, professor at Stanford Law School, will cover “The Supreme Court: A Year Later.”

Alan Dundes, professor of anthropology and folklore at UC Berkeley, is scheduled to give a talk titled “Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore,” while Lofti Mansouri, former director of the San Francisco Opera, will take a behind-the-scenes look at how to put on an opera.

Walter Bortz, clinical associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, will speak on aging. Playwright Wendy Wasserstein will conclude the fall/winter program with her reminiscences on life in the theater.

The Morning Forum meets on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, September through June. Membership is currently closed, but there is a waiting list.

To get on the waiting list, write to Morning Forum of Los Altos, Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0174, requesting a membership application.