Weekly News & Views by: Dick Bourne
Photos by: Patsy Inouye
Get Up and Go 1/3/2020
By Dick Bourne
Wasting no time in our 2020 Rotary year, we stumbled before sunrise into Oddfellows just the day after the day after New Year’s. Sadly, the piano was silent and, perhaps worse, this sub reporter takes the scribal place of pianist Dave Morse, who would otherwise have multi-tasked this morning. Some little machine up front was emitting subtle front-ground music, and even kept us from resorting to acapella versions of Smile and America the Beautiful. (Is it really acapella if Chuck Snipes voice is in play, as it was this morning?)
President Tim Daleiden attempted, while waving eastward at a set of side-lined international flags, to bring us to order with the enticing news that today we would learn the destination country of our outgoing exchange student, Halle Gabriel, currently a DHS Junior. After determining that we had no visiting Rotarians, Tim passed the mic to Bob Poppenga to introduce Halle, her mother Tierney Jordan, and her grandparents Vick and Deliliah Kozielski. In the spirit of exchange, we all noted and applauded that Meaghan Likes was wearing her original exchange jacket, and that IT STILL FITS! The only other visitors were daughters Ella Errecarte, who needed (and received) no introduction, and Lauren Pratt, whose father Mark clarified that she was “nearly-partially-awake.”
After these introductions, Bob Poppenga led us through a quiz about exchange destinations, first showing the district 5160 outbound countries for 2020. There are 11 of these, which will host 21 students from our district. Bob’s sequential “factoid” clues about the destination country were:
- Citizens have the world’s 2nd longest life expectancy
- Has no president, instead a seven member “governors council”
- Requires that guinea pigs be kept in pairs
- Has many cows
- Has a square flag, like the Vatican
- Is historically known for exporting mercenary soldiers
- Loves chocolate: a major exporter, has world’s highest consumption per capita
- Flag (ceremoniously unfurled, not properly square) has white cross on red background
It’s Switzerland- lucky Halle! We soon learned that she wants to be a pediatric surgeon. She happily accepted our gifts including a Rotary desk flag, some chocolates, and a Rotary T-shirt. She posed by the Swiss flag for a photo-op with Dave Murphy who, representing our Youth Services Committee, noted that we have an incoming student from Bolivia, and another outbound student to France. Referencing flyers on our tables, Dave gracefully and graciously “pleaded our need” for host families; this is our bottleneck to greater exchange participation. We need two more families for 2020-21, each to host a third of an academic year. Remember the significant of this year’s theme- “Rotary Connects the World.”
We skipped announcements, but before moving on to sergeants, Prez Daleiden recognized postcards from: Ken Firestein (Hawaii), Brian Sway (South Africa; how old is this one, or did Brian just hand-deliver to save international postage?), Mark Pratt (Salem in Duckland), and Lucas Frerichs (but where?).
Bolstered by his sheaf of papers, Sergeant John Morgan strode forth and immediately opened both the floor and assistant Rick Stromberg’s roving collection basket, to Happy Bucks. In the joyful spirit of the new year, many were forthcoming:
- Gretchen Peralta: for club donations of household items to a woman in her first apartment after years of homelessness, now substance-free for a year.
- Dick Bourne (Me): for Dave Murphy’s willingness to become a cub reporter, and then I digressed to the “double Dave M” problem, noting rudely that I’d abbreviate Dave Morse as “DaMo” and Dave Murphy as “DaMu.” I apologize to both!
- Lori Raineri: for Dave Murphy and Bob Poppenga doing such a creative job on the Switzerland revelation for Halle.
- Rose Cholewinski: for Vanessa Errecarte’s selection as Chamber of Commerce member of-the-year; Rose also offered 5 tickets for the Chamber dinner; were these for Vanessa only?
- Cliff Shepard: happy to be here this morning, Cliff apologized for missing many “breakfasts he doesn’t eat” but promised to remain a member, even though it means continuing to buy those uneaten breakfasts! (Cliff, thanks for staying with us.)
- Carolyn Stiver: for yielding her role as Chamber Chair on 12/31 to Joe DiNunzio (is he a potential Rotarian?) saying, “Happy New Year, it’s all yours!”
With all happiness declared, Sergeant John started lobbing fines at our best-known football fans. For the Ducks, who eked out a rosey Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin, Duncan Hay and Will Portello each tossed in $5, as did Chuck Snipes for his Georgia Dogs’ sweet success over Baylor in the Sugar Bowl. Don Morrill and Lori Raineri’s 60% discount ($2 fine) for Cal’s win over Illinois was apparently due to the lowly status of the Redbox Bowl. This scribe suspects that Dick Berry received a similar discount for his Spartans’ victory in the little-known Pinstripe Bowl. Confusion followed as John attempted to fine Jack Latow for a USC victory, but Jack retorted that he was a Bruins fan and happy that the Trojans lost. Our quick-witted sergeant then claimed authenticity of his initial intent (i.e. that he knew Jack’s outlook).
Next ensued a lengthy discussion regarding Dave Heard’s color appearance on the front page of the Sunday Bee, apparently with folded arms in an intimidating pose; and Sarge John claimed there’s even a video. It was likely Gretchen Peralta who asked whether Dave had clothes on, but needless to say, the potential fine was mounting as further detail emerged. In the end Dave simply tossed his wallet across the room to John, then asked if he would need a mortgage for his fine. This episode likely set the laughter meter max for the morning. By the way, this all regarded folks who have moved to far north Davis (south Woodland) and John wasn’t done. When he asked other South Woodlanders to self-identify, Larry Greene, Matt Crider, and Jack Latow all stood and paid their due.
And still John had dirt on fellow members. It seems Lori appeared on Channel 3, greeting guests at the Davis Community Christmas Eve dinner, but didn’t even mention Sunrise Rotary. She graciously paid fines for both herself and Daisy. Greedily out-of-sync, our sergeant returned to football and fined a multitude of 49er fans $5. Last in John’s crosshairs was prior speaker Brian Sway (notably a former club president and well aware of the 8 AM drop-dead-line) who last week kept talking anyway; was the $5 fine enough to curb this thoughtless behavior? Only time will tell.
Finally, it was speaker time, and Lori introduced Barbara O’Conner, an Emeritus Professor at Sac State who wears many hats. Lori identified Barbara as a political commentator with lots of visibility on public television, and as founder of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media. Barbara serves on many boards and…Daisy is one of her biggest fans!
Barbara’s main topic was the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF), which she has directed since 2006. Speaking without slides, Barbara wisely noted first that we are a lot more fun than the Sacramento Rotary, before turning to her main subject. The CETF was founded with funding from the cell phone mergers in 2005, with the purpose of “accelerating the deployment and adoption of broadband in rural and underserved communities.” The goal was to “close the digital divide” by 2017, but this still hasn’t happened. (For much more about the CETF, see http://www.cetfund.org.) CETF work has focused mostly on trying to be sure that all localities have choices of broadband providers. Barbara also discussed the California Advanced Services Fund, a partner public organization to the CETF, formed to help finance broadband deployment facilities in underserved areas.
Finishing her presentation by 7:45, Barbara allowed much time for Q&A, and ten inquiries were forthcoming:
- Clay Brandow noted that effective communications are crucial to fighting fires, yet rural areas where fires most often occur typically have very poor coverage; Barbara responded that a new federal law requires that communication lines stay up in fires. (But how can this requirement be met in extreme fire conditions?)
- Andrew Newman: Why do federal agencies have so much influence? A. Because they have money…lots of broadband funding came to California under the Clinton and Obama administrations.
- Vanessa Errecarte: Are our rural areas comparable to developing countries regarding broadband access? A: Yes. But California’s mountain and coastal areas both have issues, despite higher average incomes on the coasts.
- Bruce Wolk- Is public support for broadband a threat to cable companies? A: Yes.
- Jack Latow: Are we looking to government to pay for it all? A: No, all the money in play has come from the cell company merger funds; ultimately, the providers pay.
- Carolyn Stiver: was on a task force looking into fiber-optics for Davis- could 5G be better? A: Maybe…
- Cliff Shepard: some countries provide the service; and it’s working; why not here? A: We made a different choice. Speed is the issue; democracy works best with speedy communications.
- Chuck Snipes: How concerned should we be about the security of 5G hardware? A: Very! The UC system has better cyber security than the CETF systems. But the best security requires smart consumers.
- Lori Raineri: Can you tell us more about how better technology in schools helps parents? A: When kids take their tablets home, and when parents must come in for training, the data show amazing results. Both the kids and parents really change.
- Dave Murphy- Do these public entities provide job training? A: Yes. Her grandson has benefited and is now ready for college after believing he needn’t go to achieve his goals.
Tim thanked Barbara; after much applause, both proceeded to the book signing. As additional speaker gratitude, Tim presented Barbara with a Peet’s Coffee gift card. At last, we closed with the draw-of-the-day, with Dave Heard allowing outbound Halle to draw. She selected Mitch Mysliwiec’s #558; good in the end for a free breakfast. Slowly we dispersed to enjoy the first Friday and weekend of this new decade.