Get Up & Go Feb. 5

By Dick Bourne

 

Pre-meeting banter had already begun by the time your cereal-wolfing scribe-of-the-day emptied his bowl and tuned in, catching glimpses of “Ella and Stella” (President Vanessa’s next-gen and Clay Brandow’s next-next gen) and John Morgan’s drinking habit (this presumably referenced his coffee cup).  Apparently, Vanessa was counting heads; never-mind the clock, and when we hit two score participants she rang the bell.  We could hardly hear her command “All Up!” but in due time she tweaked her mic to higher volume.  Songmeister Chuck Snipes, choosing a phone link over “Zoomike”, came through loud and clear, luckily with enough strength to largely overpower the delayed and garbled crowd.  And so began our Rotary February in the continuing era of Covid.

 

 

A call for Visiting Rotarians netted Marlene Vega of Dixon, Justina’s mother-in-law (if Marlene would join us, they would be our first “member and MIL” pair, reminiscent of Dick Berry and SIL Carl Schwedler years ago).  Our Visiting Guest was hopefully-soon-to-rejoin former member Kelly Wilkerson; did she make a commitment when (jumping ahead) she gave Happy Bucks?

                                                                                                

Prez Vanessa next posted postcards, including one from Lori Raineri and Meaghan Likes, from Lake Tahoe where their threesome (including Jeff Likes) celebrated former member Daisy’s passing.  Next came announcements- skipped here because Vanessa, respecting her negotiated settlement with the GUAG Scribal Union, detailed them in her post-meeting email to all members.  Thanks Vanessa!  But instead of announcements, we now must report results of the weekly presidential poll, which today netted the following essential data:

With food as a segue, Sergeant John Morgan took over as a self-proclaimed “non-cheating vegan.”  But none of the ensuing Happy Bucks even mentioned food:

 

While not a record number of happy bucks donors, this felt like a record HB donation day.  Despite the “HB-OD”, Sergeant John pressed on, noting next that 2/8 is National Boy Scout Day and requesting that all former scouts give ‘til it hurts.  Discussion of BSA origins followed; the Boy Scouts were actually founded in England by Robert Baden-Powell in 1908, with the US branch formed in 1910 by W. D. Boyce in 1910. 

 

After musing about: Groundhog Day; Punxsutawney (thank god for spell-checker) Phil, seeing that shadow again this year; that old Bill Murray movie; and his sense that the Covid era just feels like the same day over-and-over; John’s shadow passed over all of us without mention of fines, and he was on to birthdays.  Tyson Hubbard was fined for not declaring happiness about his, but Gary Johns escaped similar treatment, perhaps due to his Morgan-like origins in Missouri, or to distracting Sgt. Morgan with braggadocio about already receiving his vaccine.

                                                                                             

Despite his apparent pre-paid insurance protection, councilman Lucas Frerichs was tarred and feathered for being quoted in the New York Times, apparently over the Healthy Davis Together Covid test project, wherein our sergeant claimed folks can “stand around and spit together” in the ultimate viral social event.  Apparently, Kelly Wilkerson also appeared in the article, attired with daughter, son-in-law, and canine.  (This GUAG edition likely contains the highest-ever “in-law” count.) Sgt. Morgan passed along his understanding that Lucas would soon be named to a position in the Biden administration, that his insurance policy only covered him for local news, and that this event likely portended a four-figure fine.  Can a candidate’s election slush fund be applied in such a case?  At this point Nancy Storm supported Lucas by kicking in late happy bucks on his behalf, and Will Portello donated late too, happy for receiving a replacement coffeemaker by 4 PM after a morning failure.

 

After vicarious gavel-passing from the sergeant, Vanessa began introducing our speaker, Heghnar Watenpaugh, but the complete introduction came from those fast-growing kids of Keith and Heghnar, Arda and Arun, who passed the task back-and-forth in describing their mom’s interesting path from birth in Lebanon to her study of art history at UCLA, with the help of many scholarships before ultimately landing at UC Davis in 2005 where she is a Professor of Art History.  Her focus has been human rights and the arts, and she has recently been working under a Guggenheim Fellowship with a focus on protecting much-threatened Armenian (AM) culture in lands now controlled by Azerbaijan (AZ). 

 

Heghnar began with a map showing the very strategic location of Nogorno Karabakh (NK) region in AZ.  AZ is a major world oil producer surrounded by Iran, Russia, Armenia, and Georgia.  The very mountainous NK region has a large AM population and has only recently been under AZ control.  In the late 40’s Stalin set up the NK as an autonomous region in AZ (like a Native-American reservation in the US) but after a 1990 war and subsequent negotiating stalemate, AZ decided to implement a “military solution” in 2020, with Turkish support.  This effort, also with Russian support, succeeded and placed the NK region solidly back under AZ control.  There have been many documented atrocities including murders of civilians and the destruction of many Christian religious and cultural sites dating from the 5^th and 6^th centuries, as Heghnar detailed with photos.  These events have been described as “the worst cultural genocide of the 21^st century.”  What can be done?  Heghnar described a November 2020 UNESCO petition to halt this cultural carnage, and noted a successful communal response to a similar situation in Cyprus.  As Heghnar concluded her presentation, Vanessa suggested holding questions until the post-meeting “coffee chat” and Heghnar offered her email address: hwatenpaugh@ucdavis.edu.

 

Pushing out the Q&A period had the following two effects:

 

Despite the looming importance of Valentine’s Day, next Friday’s meeting will feature Students-of-the-Month, which gives new GUAG scribe Frances McChesney an “easiest” start, without required reporting on a speaker’s presentation.  A big welcome and thanks again to Frances for joining our team...