Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show March 24, 2011

“The Best Rotary Club in the World!” meeting was opened on time by DENNIS, this reporter was told, though the incredible downpour made driving to Los Altos in the fast lane hazardous today. However, like the postman, neither rain nor sleet nor snow keeps Rotator writers away from LARC duty.

JERRY TOMANEK presented a thought-provoking Thought for the Day: The U Turn, or Metaphors are Where you find them. “Sometimes a U turn is a really good idea. The bridge is out. Your employer went bankrupt. Time to take a U turn! Sometimes it is not. Abandoning your children is frowned upon. So is welching on a bet or deserting your regiment. No U turn!

Usually you want to make a U turn cautiously, looking both ways before proceeding. But there are times you need to crank the wheel, hit the gas and get out of Dodge. I missed the class at business school where they might have told us we would someday work for someone certifiable; The dark side of the Force. I discovered my boss, the president of a startup, trying to alter the corporate minutes of a Board meeting. I dated not one but two women who experience a different reality, aka crazier than bedbugs. Crank the wheel, hit the gas. Metaphors are where you find them.” Whew; makes one think about the risks off the road, also.

JERRY MOISON’s song choice was appropriate for this rainy, wintry day. We sang a serenade in a minor key:  “Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone”.   A smiling President Elect Nominee JOHN SYLVESTER snickered that he had to quiet his nerves while standing in for missing PE MONA during the introductions. Our three visiting Rotarians were Past District Governor Don Allen from Cupertino RC, Steve Turner from Sunnyvale RC who invited us to their bike/walk event, and Denise from Santa Clara RC, representing our new garbage hauler in Los Altos. Guests today were introduced by DAVID SMITH and JEANNE MACVICAR.

What a string of announcements!  We appear to be a rather active club, to put it mildly. Everyone even remembered to state their classification.  For those who actually plan with their calendars, events are listed in chronological order, beginning with current, “now” announcements.

• Date: Now.
  • STEVE POMEROY gave us the latest streamlined method of Art Show staffing. Amazing what one can accomplish online versus our former method of taping paper lists to the Garden House walls!  He sent us by email “the easy way” to check our work assignments, so no need to review the detailed directions he gave today from the podium.
  • In addition, STEVE announced 6-8 new job openings for accounting and visitor counters, as well as the need for more traffic directors and shuttle drivers. This year beer and wine booths will be separated and wines will be poured by winery staff.   Chef Chu’s will be serving that delicious chicken salad at two booths. Please volunteer for more than two shifts, if possible, due to so many LARC members being gone on vacation during our Art Show plus some added duties.
  • LONNIE GARY and STEVE POMEROY solicited sponsorships for the Fine Art in the Park show. The list of sponsors to be displayed in public will be finalized by the end of March. Sponsorships in amounts from $250 to $5,000 are essential to the show’s success, so individuals and companies should quickly add their names to the growing list of 21 sponsors.
  • BAIDRA MURPHY explained, with three assistants, that her Finemaster questions last week had netted $500 in donations to the Joanne Byrne Fund, including her own $100. The assistants offered names of organizations to which checks may be made payable.  The choices were;  The Community Foundation (LACF)  The Rotary Foundation (TRF), or Los Altos Rotary Endowment Fund (LAREF).  All donations are welcome, but If you want to contribute to the Joanne Byrne fund, the answer is; write your check to LACF!
  • Past Pres SAM PESNER, Chair of Lost and Found everything, held up found eyeglasses and promptly dropped a once found, and now again lost, Pooh Bah pin.
  • March 25: Past Pres DICK DUHRING invited all to hear Harper’s longtime editor, Lewis Lapham speak March 25 at the Los Altos Library.
• April 1: DAVID SMITH reminded us of the Los Altos/Los Altos Hills Community EXPO Volunteer event for ages 50 and up on Saturday, April 2nd.
• April 6: JACK KELLY gleefully announced that Akshay Shrivastava, winner of speech contests at LARC on Feb. 17 and March 3, has again won first prize at the Regional Speech Contest, taking home $250. The District contest takes place April 6 at the San Jose Doubletree Hotel at 6 pm.
• April 9: Club Secretary KENDRA encouraged us to attend the District Assembly, aka “Rotary University” on April 9 at the San Jose Doubletree Hotel. So far, 17 have signed up in anticipation of possibly winning the prize for most attendance to be given by DGE Arley Marley and his dynamic wife MARY.
• April 10: BARBARA SMALL gave a very believable impersonation of conductor PEN JOHN while inviting Rotarians and families to the April 10 barbecue from 1 – 4 pm at Shoup Park to honor the visiting Russians who are sponsored in part by RI and LARC. They are part of the Open World Program grant from RI. The cost is $10 each for a complete barbecue menu.
• April 13: JEAN MORDO announced the Community Grants Committee meeting April 13 in Neutra House. All LARC members are welcome to join in the process. Grant applications to LAREF will be accepted until April 1.
• April 23: KATHY BERRY announced Relay for Life on June 19 at Egan School and Kiwanis Club’s Ride the Rails fundraiser on the Niles Canyon Railway April 23. Departures are at 10:30 am, noon and 1:30 pm for $25 adult tickets and $15 for children between 2-12 years old. Contact Jan Masters of Los Altos Kiwanis Club Relay for Life at jemasters@earthlink.net.
• April 29: PEN JOHN SYLVESTER, who hadn’t changed his classification since this morning’s introductions, he said, announced the next social event to be hosted by STEVE FICK at Borel Bank on April 29. No need to bring anything. Just sign up on the clipboard.
• May 5: STEVE SHEPHERD (announcing his classification at “the $1,000 sponsor Northern Trust”), and Past Pres CINDY  had fun sparring over the men’s vs. the women’s golf teams in a friendly competition at the District Golf Tournament. This reporter believes they finally agreed that the losing team would donate $100 to the Haiti Fund. They even shook on it!

New Red Badger JARRETT FISHPAW was inducted into LARC by Membership Director CLYDE NOEL who named him our most appropriate “hometown hero”.  JARRETT attended Los Altos schools, became an Eagle Scout with Troop 37, attended UC Santa Cruz, is employed with Cisco Systems, and was recently elected to Los Altos City Council.  His sponsor is JEAN MORDO.

Bio-Intensive Gardening. JEAN MORDO introduced a 10 minute update on the current Bio-intensive Gardening in Ixil, Mexico.  The project is headed by Cindy Wilbur of Stanford  University’s Jasper Ridge Preserve and World Community Service’s Projecto Itzaes. JEAN even managed to pronounce the titles in fluent   Spanish!

 
Cindy stated that the bio-intensive gardening project has been “tremendously successful” in affecting more than the goal of 75 participants and their families for one year. Some of the weekly classes are even taught by original participants of the program. Why teach agricultural people how to farm? Because the young people there have become addicted to TV and advertised junk food.

Cindy showed simple drip watering on the dry, rocky terrain using recycled plastic milk cartons with holes punched in them. The recipients who live on less than $1/day/person never had the appropriate tools before and are delighted with the gardening tools supplied by our World Community Service committee. The “compost tea” that they have learned to prepare has increased their banana production by 33% and their bean production by 80%. The most important effect has been a resurgence in their good health rather than increasing diabetes.

Due to a longer than usual announcement segment, fine master ABBY AHRENS will have to wait until next week.  Presenting an historic barrister’s wig, as a preface to today’s program and in honor of our guest speaker, ABBY AHRENS  graciously relented to this postponement.

JEANNE MACVICAR introduced The Honorable Stephen V. Manley, Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara "Collaborative Courts".  Judge Manley has served on the Bench for 30 years and was inducted into the Federal Court Hall of Fame in 2003. He is the Supervising Judge for all Felony and Misdemeanor drug cases as well as all mental health cases in the Drug Court Division, Santa Clara County.

Judge Manley’s energetic commitment to making courts become problem solvers was evident in his dynamic presentation. Because the criminal justice system has become the final “safety net” for veterans, judges should become advocates for better treatment, diversion and rehabilitation alternatives. The result of the current failure to affect mental illness and drug addiction is our overcrowded prisons, repeat offenders, spending for California prisons that exceeds the cost of higher education, and offenders who do not get better nor succeed in our communities.

Eight to ten percent of the jails are filled with veterans, especially Vietnam War vets, stated Judge Manley. We must anticipate a large number of Afghanistan and Iraq war vets returning soon, keeping in mind that 200,000 veterans have already entered the criminal justice system in the last 8 years. The magnitude of the problem is overwhelming, as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is over-represented in prisons and affects 2% of the entire US population, he stated. The difficulty of PTSD rehabilitation is increased because of soldiers’ denial due to the stigma of mental illness, fear they will be jailed, hopelessness after years of failure, the relapsing nature of the condition, co-occurring disorders, and flashbacks that cause them to react violently.

He estimates that the percentage of prisoners who are both mentally ill and addicted to drugs is 50%! Judge Manley works directly with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide treatment alternatives to prison for high risk parole violators.  He established a Veterans Treatment Court in collaboration with the local Veterans Administration and County agencies to work with offenders, nearly all of whom suffer from co-occurring disorders.

Judge Manley’s Veterans’ Treatment Court brings the Veterans’ Administration into the courtroom as part of the team to create a collaborative treatment program. He also brings in housing providers to build hope in those who have served our country. It should be noted that all veterans are eligible, regardless of their status or length of service. This program reduced recidivism, according to a McArthur Foundation study.
“If you’ve been a judge long enough, you start seeing the grandchildren of people you’ve tried,” quipped Judge Manley. Fifteen years ago, he grew tired of seeing the same people back in court, and he began instituting new approaches, leading to establishment of the Veterans´ Treatment Court.
 

THIS THURSDAY'S PROGRAM:

Dr. Ravindra (Ravi) Majeti Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hematology, Stanford University Medical School "Stem Cell Biology & Regenerative Medicine"   Dr. Majeti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology, and Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University.

He was an undergraduate at Harvard, earned his MD and PhD from UCSF, and trained in Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Majeti completed his Hematology Fellowship at Stanford University and is a board-certified Hematologist. While at Stanford, he completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Irving Weissman, where he investigated early human blood stem cell development and characterized acute myeloid leukemia (AML) stem cells.

Dr. Majeti’s research is focused on investigation of human blood cancers, particularly leukemia stem cells, as well as the targeting of such leukemia stem cells with therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. Dr. Majeti is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists.