A Foretaste of Rich...For reasons that went unexplained, President Elect President Rich Standard ran the meeting while President Jim Valinoti was just a member of the crowd. After bringing the meeting to order, Rich introduced Ellie Lowry who led us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Robin Marrs gave the invocation or Rotary Moment, reminding us that today is the anniversary of the 1986 Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor disaster.
Visitors and GuestsRon Street introduced eighteen Visiting Rotarians. Guests of Rotarians included Jim Groom, guest of Bob Marigo, introduced by Mike Moore as "The Godfather of the local Republican Party," and Bob Zeni's guest, Pamela Neal, from Piner High School. In the interests of equal time, there are Democrats in Rotary. |
Mark your calendars...May 4- Mount Tamalpais Theater May 15 - Sunrise Club golf tournament May 18 - Industrial Waste: How do we get rid of it? - Tom Leland May 25 - Memorial Day - May 29-31 - District Conference June 1 - Santa Rosa Players - Excerpts from Anything Goes! June 6 - Healdsburg Rotary Golf Tournament June 30 - Windsor Rotary Golf Tournament |
Gil Lucas again reminded us that great opportunity for your children, if they are juniors or seniors in high school, approaches. For years our club has done its own exchange program with some Rotary clubs in Holland. Last year we hosted kids, and this year it is time for us to send kids to Holland. There are four spots available for 17-18 year olds for the summer trip to Holland. This special trip is open to any Santa Rosa West Rotary member's children who would like three weeks as the guest of a Dutch family. They will need to pony up air fare of about $900. The trip is from July 15 to August 7. Call Gil at 526-1139 (work) or 579-4678 (home.)
AnnouncementsRich Standard reminded us that April is Rotary Magazine Month. Read your Rotarian, and visit the Rotary International Web site. The District Conference is coming up May 28 through 31. Jim Valinoti's reign is nearing an end. His Celebration is on June 27, at Lake Sonoma. |
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Ellie Lowry reported that the Quad Clubs of Santa Rosa again were honored for their SOS (Save Our Students) program. Janet Codding reminded us of her coming event, The Kids Street Theater Fundraiser, on May 2, from 3:00 to 6:00 PM. Titled "The Pirates Remember Mother's Day," it's a play and a party and a wine and food event. Call Janet 546-0416 for details.
David Bjorklund was born 32 years ago in Salt Lake City. He grew up in Bangkok, Thailand, and had an interesting entrance into U.S. Schools when his family returned to the States. He has lived in Sonoma County for 12 years and recently hung out his own shingle as a lawyer. He went to Sweden with his wife to visit in-laws and learn Swedish so that he could put a stop to his wife and mother-in-law's giggling comments about him in their native tongue. David joined Rotary for business contacts, but has gotten pumped up about the prospects of strengthening world peace and understanding though Rotary's international efforts.
Bob Zeni introduced the two Piner High School "Students of the Month" that our club sponsors every month. Becky Gong was three years old when she followed her 6-year-old brother to school. She got sent home. She walked around the back and sat in the window and listened to the whole lesson. That was 14 years and a world away in China. Becky is now thrilled to be bound for UCLA as a neuroscience major, hoping to go on to Medical School. Brian Miller is bound for UC Santa Cruz and has his sights set on becoming a lawyer. Brian sings and dances as a Chucky Cheese employee and volunteers to help kids with Cerebral Palsy.
Jim Valinoti got to pass a $10 hit to Rick Rybicki who doubled it because he's so glad Becky Gong is going to be a Bruin. Joe Perez got touched for $30 for not being involved in a robbery. It was another Joe Perez who made the papers. Chuck Baker passed his fine along to Henry "Von" Von Der Mehden.
New Member ProposedTeri Evans is proposed for membership. Teri lives and works in Windsor and her classification will be Truck/Trailer Finance and Leasing. Don Ling is Teri's sponsor. Inquiries regarding Teri should be directed to Paul Schwartz (work 566-2200; home 579-0977 email: pschwartz@sonic.net) RafflePatsy Barnes got the marble. It was not the lucky marble. Ken Davenport got the $20 and donated it to the community fund. |
| Bob Marigo introduced Gisele
Stavert, who gave an articulate, impassioned discourse on the perils
democracy faces in the United States today. Gisele was born in Paris to a working class family of Russian Jewish immigrants. World War II forced her and her mother into hiding in the South of France with forged papers. She came to the U.S. in 1947 with her mother. Her father and the rest of her family had died in Nazi death camps. She loves the United States and has gotten a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1978. She currently teaches at Dominican College in San Rafael. |
 Gisele Stavert |
 She used her compatriot, Alexis de Tocqueville's
masterwork, Democracy in
America to structure her observations. De Tocqueville was a French aristocrat
whose family had known the ugly side of democracy, the mob rule which characterized part
of the French Revolution. He came as a petty bureaucrat on a junket to the United
States in 1831 ostensibly to study the American prison system. He reported back on
a much larger subject: Democracy in the fledgling United States.He was more prophetic than almost any other observer, predicting the American Civil War. He looked at the infant United States, experimenting with democracy and he looked at Czarist Russia, still largely a medieval monarchy, and somehow saw that both nations would become antagonistic world powers. De Tocqueville realized that of the three great cries of the French revolution, liberty, equality and fraternity, the two former ones were contradictory. Equality of opportunity tends to and equality of outcome definitely curtails liberty. De Tocqueville observed that local government, town meetings were good, clubs and voluntary associations (e.g. Rotary) were good and free press was essential. Professor Stavert pointed out that local government is largely without much power today. Voluntary associations are going strong. The press is becoming centralized and controlled by a few. The saving grace of the press situation today is the easy access afforded by the Internet. Gisele's parting quote brought cheers: Today's government in the United States is not of the people, by the people and for the people -- rather it is "of the pollsters, by the staffers and for the benefit of the loudest special interest group." This Bulletin was written by Bo Simons. |
Bo
Simons (bo@sonoma.lib.ca.us), Bulletin Editor
Bob Harris (bob@hlenv.com),
Secretary
P.O. Box 14744, Santa Rosa, CA 95402 (707) 524-7866
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