MEETING OF NOVEMBER 7, 2002 By Steve Yarbrough with invaluable help from Clyde Noel and Matt Cabot
Editor Dick Blanding
Webmaster Steve GruberPresident Mary opened the meeting with the pledge of allegiance led by Rotarian Bruce Cann. Apparently, Bruce's Australian accent caused a delayed reaction before everyone joined together for the salute to our flag. Rotarian John Sylvester led our gang with "Smile" in his inimitable enthusiastic way. President Elect Al Traficanti welcomed visiting Rotarians, but there were none, so he welcomed Rotarians with guests, of whom there were several.
Finemaster Steve Shepard asked for confessions, but couldn't find anyone willing to let go, so he picked the pockets of several notables, including Marge Gratiot who was still smiling over the victory of Proposition H for Los Altos Schools.
Roy Lave gave his five-minute talk today, introduced by President Mary, who explained that Roy had given his first five-minute talk in 1912. Mary may have been joking, since Roy was born in 1935, and
joined the Los Altos Rotary Club in 1971. Roy went to the University of Michigan, picked up multiple degrees in engineering and business, and met his future wife, Penny. He taught at Stanford for several years, and then started his own transportation consulting business, Systan. He also was one of the founders of the Los Altos Community Foundation, formed to give local residents an institution that will receive their charitable bequests and benefit the community.
President Mary reminds everyone to bring canned foods to Rotary for the next several weeks for the annual Christmas season food drive.
Rotary Past President Boo Bue humorously reminded everyone of the Los Altos Rotary Club's commitment to 100 percent participation in the Rotary Foundation. The Foundation is the oil that makes Rotary the greatest service organization work so smoothly.
Clyde Noel reports:
Valerie Faillace was the speaker for the day.
Her topic: "Working With Indigenous Indians of Peru & Bolivia"
Ms. Faillace was the president of the Interact Club while at Los Altos High School. Her scholastic achievements took her to Princeton where she received her degree in Economics. She was an investment banker for 3 years before looking for new horizons.
She participated in a volunteer vacation with Amizade and wound up in South America where she worked with indigenous Indians of Peru and Bolivia. Amizade (a Portuguese word for friendship) was started in 1994 with the idea of saving the rainforest by helping the people of the rainforest. Today, Amizade collaborates with community-
based organizations around the world to participate in projects that are both beneficial to the community and rewarding to the volunteers. Ms. Faillace's contribution was a wall around the school to protect the children.As a 25-year old woman who was unmarried and not living with her parents, she compared her life with natives who could not believe her situation. She presented a photograph of another 25-year old girl who was married and had three children and they could not understand why Ms. Faillace was not married. She compared her life with that of a man who was a mechanic. The man started to work at the age of 13 and was married with three children. Ms. Faillace answered questions and received a rousing applause.
If you would like to propose someone for membership, please contact membership chairperson Steve Yarbrough to obtain an application. You can contact him at 650-559-0150 or email him at estebanlaw@yahoo.com.
Webmaster's Notes: In addition to problems with an internet service provider, which wouldn't allow me to send e-mails to Dick Hasenpflug, I managed to find yet another roadblock to e-mailing the Rotator. I tried to send out the new member notice and had it rejected by one member's office for the following reason: "Inappropriate business language." Study the new member announcement for a while and tell me which part is inappropriate. The member, who should remain anonymous, tells me the real reason for rejection was that there were too many names of the list of recipients.
Actually, the number of names on our list is 130, which is slightly less than the number sent by the average spammer, who can buy CDs with 10 million e-mail addresses for less than $100. We've fixed the problem with the most recent e-mail, but stop for a minute to consider the economics of spamming: If you can buy e-mail addresses so cheaply, and you get even a minimal .001 percent return, that results in 100 new customers, which will easily take care of the marketing cost of $100. We shouldn't expect spamming to stop anytime soon when it is this cheap and profitable. The spammers not only are a 24/7 nuisance, they are also causing ISPs and corporations to adopt new anti-spam software that is so bogus that it thinks that the e-mail Rotator is spam. Congress and the state legislature have passed laws and nothing has changed. What can you do? As usual, I have simple answers to a complex question:
1. Never buy anything from an e-mail, unless you have done business with the sender previously. If you are interested in the product or service being advertised, go directly to the website without clicking on the e-mail link. Spammers can check how many viewers came to their website from e-mails, and base their success on those numbers.
2. Set your e-mail software so that you can preview the e-mail without opening it. Services that send out spam know how many recipients open their e-mails, and that encourages them to continue spamming.
3. Never respond to spam or click the unsubscribe link at the bottom the e-mail. Most of these links are phony, and will help you get on even more e-mail lists. The CDs with millions of names come from this source, among others.
4. Try an e-mail service such as Hotmail or Yahoo for an alternate e-mail address that you use when anyone demands that you enter an e-mail address to buy a product or join an organization. I have had some success with suppressing spam through Hotmail because their filters are better than Outlook's filters.
5. Remember that your delete key is your friend and can be used to delete spam faster than you can say "delete."
Programs and Events
November
November 14: Sandy Ellenberg: Plastic Surgeon , Rotarian & RotoPlast "Assisting Third World Countries With Surgery, Cleft Palate"
November 21: Don Allen: District Governor Elect 2003 / 2004 "Polio Plus Program"
November 28: Happy Thanksgiving: No MeetingDecember
December 5: Gary Cavalli, Executive Director of the San Francisco Bowl, “The Building of a Bowl Game”
December 12: John Elman, Humorist, “Looking for Laughter in All the Right Places”
December 19: Main Street Singers, Los Altos High School, “Holiday Music” Choral Music: Mark Shaull Director
December: 26: No Meeting, Happy Holidays
NEARBY ROTARY CLUB MEETING PLACES
TUESDAY
Los Altos Sunset: The Echo Restaurant, Los Altos, 7:15 p.m.
Mountain View: Adobe House, Moffett & Central, Mountain View, 12:15 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
Menlo Park: Menlo Park Recreation Center, Menlo Park, noon.
Woodside/Portola: Woodside Village Church, Woodside, 7:30 a.m.
THURSDAY
Palo Alto Sunrise: Scott's, Town & Country, Palo Alto, 7:15 a.m.
FRIDAY
Palo Alto University: Sheraton, El Camino, Palo Alto, 7:30 a.m.
"Information in this newsletter is intended for the exclusive use of the members of the Rotary Club of Los Altos to facilitate the work of the club and to promote club fellowship. It is not to be used for any commercial or outside, unrelated, non-profit purposes. No publication of material in this newsletter should occur without the express permission of the club President or the Editor of the Rotator."Copyright 2002 The Los Altos Rotary Club
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