This Week's Program: 
Los Altos Hills - 50 years

Upcoming Events:

June 29th:  KICKOUT LUNCHEON ROAST

June 30th:  Kickout Dinner, Los Altos Country Club

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rev 06/19/06

PRESIDENT'S CORNER
This Relay For Life weekend we'll be thinking of Past President Firooz and other loved ones who have struggled with cancer. Many of us will be fundraising and walking in the relay; others will be supporting friends; still others will be living Rotary ideals in myriad ways. I'm so grateful for the humanitarian service that Rotary encourages and the good fellowship we enjoy at our club!

PURPLE MAJESTIES
Do you ever wonder what purple majesties are?  This Reporter does.  In any event, ALAN LAMBERT led the peanut gallery in a rousing rendition of AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL, which was followed by KURT HUEG, who educated us concerning the origins of FATHER’S DAY, which goes back to 1906.  This Reporter’s notes indicate that RICHARD NIXON, father of two daughters, had something to do with the solemnification of FATHER’S DAY.

RAMBLING FOR ROTARY
KENDRA GJERSETH and SANDY BOZICH, of undergarment fame, are the leaders of the ROTARY RAMBLERS, dedicated to walking long and hard in the RELAY FOR LIFE to raise money for the AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY.  KENDRA auctioned off a succession of paper bags purchased by such luminaries (pun indented) as BUD OLIVER, PAT GRAY, JOANNE KAVALARIS, and JEAN MORDO, all of whom paid big bucks for the paper bags. 

 They were followed by LARRY MADSEN, affectionately known as “OLD JOCK” by his teammates on the LARC basketball team, which, thankfully, played its last game many years ago.  LARRY, whose career as an old jock has been resurrected by a stunning round in last week’s Rotary Golf Tourney, donated a poker chip set to the RAMBLER auction, and KENDRA sold it to STEVE FICK for more big bucks.
PAY FIRST, CRY LATER
STEVE YARBROUGH, known as MR. COMPASSION by his clients who are a little short when he sends them his bill, fined right and left, including DICK HASENPFLUG and LOUIS BOREL, who emptied a Nebuchadnezzar of wine while auditing his books a while ago.  In their drunken stupor, they left the empty bottle lying in a corner of his office.  They’ll never do that again.  ALAN LAMBERT and JOHN HAMBLIN were fined for being all talk and no show.  Each ran up a big I.O.U. with previous finemasters.  DICK DUHRING pleaded that he was already a Cheesehead, to no avail.  TRACIE MURRAY paid a fine to announce a golf tourney by the Sunnyvale Rotary Club at Sunnyvale Muni.  She should have paid more!  BILLY RUSSELL, youngest colonel in the Army, was fined for appearing in the San Jose Mercury on June 9.

MORE STUFF
KATIE NUTTER is the person to see to sign up and pay for the KICKOUT DINNER EXTRAVAGANZA.  KATIE also announced that daytime KICKOUT participants will meet after next week’s meeting to plan for the affair.  Rehearsal for the final meeting of the year and roast of President Marlene, are to convene immediately following this Thursday’s meeting (June 22^nd). 

IF YOU HAVEN'T RSVP'd for the dinner at Los Altos Country Club, be sure to do so.  Go to our website and click on KICKOUT RSVP, or just click here.

COETA CHAMBERS and the absent KELLY HUDSON biked to Los Angeles for charity, and survived.  Or at least that is what COETA says.  KELLY is still recovering.  White wine and champagne from the Art Show are available for purchase. 

TODAY’S PROGRAM
Dolores Davidson, professor at Foothill College, discussed the status of women in the Soviet Union.  Only the oldest Rotarians will recall that John Lennon was boss of the Soviet Union from 1917 through 1924 before he took a long snooze and reemerged as one of the Beatles in the ‘60’s. Lennon rarely spoke about his earlier life, hinting about it publicly only once – in the song “Back in the U.S.S.R.”  Influenced mightily by his wife, Yoko.   

LENIN (not Lennon) and the rest of the Bolsheviks, who gained power in the Revolution of 1917 which was precipitated by women factory workers who went on strike, promulgated laws which empowered women, such as granting 112 days’ maternity leave to mothers and making abortion legal and paid for by the state.  Unfortunately, LENIN was succeeded by a good ol’ Southern boy, Stalin, who was born and raised on a cotton farm just outside Atlanta.  Stalin surrounded himself with like-minded Southern boys, and as a result women disappeared from political life, and laws favorable to them were repealed.  Abortion was outlawed in 1935.  Women’s place in the Soviet Union rose only thanks to the intercession of Hitler, who invaded in 1941. 

Stalin had no choice but to reintroduce women into the workplace as men left the workplace for the front lines and then perished.  By 1970, one-third the engineers in the Soviet Union were women, and by 1975, 75% of physicians (but not surgeons) were women.  Since the demise of the Soviet Union, curiously enough, the status of women may have fallen in Russia.  It is estimated that women work three times the number of hours as men, though there are certainly some Russian men who will argue that raising a vodka bottle to your lips is hard work.

Greeters: 

JEANNE MAC VICAR, JOHN CARDOZA and ELLEN YAMANE FLANAGAN

Webmaster's note:  Last week's Rotator noted that the "renewable energy school" project was on hold.  Actually it is not on hold.  Here is WCS co-chair Allart Ligtenberg's correction:

"AL reported that the "renewable energy school" project in Nepal is progressing quite well with the first batch of villagers (females/males of different castes/ages) "graduating" and producing solar/sustainable devices.
In Afghanistan, the matching grant project for the Noor Eye Clinic was on hold for a while because the RC of Kabul ceased to exist. The RC of Jalalabad is our new local partner now and we will soon order eyeglass lense edging equipment for this Clinic that provides 85 % of eye care in Afghanistan."