Our guest speaker (with thanks to Aaron Overton) was Cliff Chiet—the Publisher of Montgomery County’s Gazette of Politics and Business plus a new job with the Washingtonian magazine where he is President of Washingtonian Custom Media, a division of the magazine.

Unfortunately, our speaker did not have a prepared talk, mainly because of a last minute commitment last night to accompany his gifted 11-year old son to a band concert in Silver Spring where they not only took in the music, but also watched an elderly lady dancing in the balcony (who turned out to be Chiet’s mother).

Next, our speaker said he’d “like to share a little bit about myself with you,” and asked the question “have any of you ever written a book?” He then stated that he looked at his life as a book, and everything that is good and bad is another chapter. ”I also believe,” he said, “that you have the pen and can write the next chapter. It’s up to you. A lot of people do not realize that and think the book is being written for them.”

The rest of Chiet’s talk was devoted to the circumstances of moving from New York to Maryland when he was a teenager and the various jobs and experiences since coming here.

Steve Silverberg, who lives in Japan and is a Rotarian, reported on Japan’s recent earthquake and tsunami with the help of Past District Governor Jun-ichi Yamazaki. With a display of 24 photographs, they began with the map showing the area in northern Japan where the tragedy struck, and the city of Goshogawara where Steve lives. There followed scenes of the seasons in Japan, with emphasis on Autumn when the fantastic apples of the area ripen (they brought samples of the apple chocolates). Next came a photo of the stricken area, with Fukushima the nearest major city. Damage has been estimated at more than $2 billion and the death toll stands at more than 20,000. Our club made a donation through Rotarian Steve, for which we received thanks.

Last week’s breakfast speaker was Ms. Elaine Rose, who represents Primerica in the field of Long Term Care insurance, and who gave us insight into this form of protection. Approximately 70% of us who reach 65 will need this coverage, and Ms. Rose warned “Care giving is a killer, and those giving care may find that the patient outlives the care giver.” She spoke from personal knowledge as her husband was stricken with dementia at age 65. They estimated that they would require $4,000 per month over a projected four years (for a total of $192,000).

Long term care insurance covers daily living activities such as bathing, transferring, toileting, dressing, continence, and eating. Any two of those needs would activate the insurance.

Claes Ryn wound up his two week program about Rotary’s Four-Way Test by having four of our club members relate how they use the test in their daily business and professional activities.

Rob Follit, a financial planner with UBS finds that much of what he does is tightly regulated with regard to what fees may be charged. Only in the trading of securities is he permitted to use discretion in charges, and here he relies on the question, “Is it Fair to All Concerned?”


Steve Vaccarezza, a medical physician, must place the patient’s interest first. New drugs that come into the market place can create pressure on the doctor who must recall the long-standing caution “do no harm” and follow that with seeking a win-win situation that is good for the patient.

Lasse Syversen, who has operated his own business for 13 years, has decided that he will say “no” to outsourcing and will not invite outside investors, He feels that each would exert outside pressure upon him. He cited instances of pressures upon businesses when John Warden, a Rotarian of 36 years and operations were moved to Russia and China.

John Warden, a former Episcopal priest in South Africa, stressed the fact that certain careers (spying) may bring questions and there may be some adjustments.

Our speaker last week was David Fitzwilliam, and unfortunately our recorder did not function properly with the result we cannot give an accurate report on Dave’s “U. S. Economic History” dissertation.

However, Dave (right) was good enough to send us the following comments:

“I compared the post Civil War period, 1865-1915 of free market capitalism and dynamic economic growth of 6% per year to today’s American Progressive Socialism with anemic EDP growth of less than 3% plus high unemployment.

Dave also talked about how the Tea Party and Herman Cain (a free market capitalist) and others are trying to reverse American Progressive Socialism back to Free Market Capitalism and economic growth of 4% or better and more jobs. John D. Rockefeller, Sr. and others ere responsible for building the largest middle class in the world in the 50 years after 1865. When Tromka says “the unions built the middle class,” it is bogus.

Nancy Weinstein, CEO and Founder of Nancy’s Lifestyles LLC in California, presented a chilling report on doing business in China. Her ordeals began about seven years ago when she sought to open a store in Shanghai for her company, only to encounter unbelievable resistance from her landlord, local criminals, the local police, all of which cost her enormous amounts of money. All of this resulted in her being called to testify before a Congressional committee. “This,” she said to the committee “became the worst nightmare of my life.”

The Shanghai experience included 18 months to get electric connections. Demands from the landlord for bribes, brazen robbery of merchandise, physical threats to her employees, and no action by the police or U.S. consulate who shrugged and said “there is nothing we can do.”

Currently, Nancy Weinstein is writing a book about China, which (hopefully) will alert others to the dangers and difficulties of doing business not only in China, but throughout that part of the world

Our speaker was Rotarian Lionel Betancourt, a member of the Benito, Texas Rotary Club, who explained the “Adoption Awareness Program”—a model project listed on the Rotary International web site. This program involves a Rotary party bringing together potential parents to play with children that might be adopted. About 400,000 children are now in foster care in the U.S.

Children have been adopted in numbers beyond normal levels. This is not an advertised program, and details can be found on the website www.adoptionawareness.com.

Lionel said that his involvement in the project kindled his interest in Rotary at a time when he was ready to drop out. He has spoken before R.I. conventions, to Rotary clubs all over the country, “I am the messenger, that’s all.”

Greg Wims, who serves as Assistant District Governor reported on some of the actions now being considered by District 7620. Greg is a member of the B-CC club which has worked frequently with our club, particularly with projects in Africa and Maryland. A rather new action has been taken by R.I. with the creation of the “New Generations” lane of service, which is an effort to include younger participation in Rotary.

Each club is expected to appoint a member to head this avenue of service (we suggest the club’s immediate Past President), and one area of action will be forming interact clubs throughout the district.

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Our club’s newest member is Dr. Bruce Fowler, who was inducted into Rotary membership this past July 31 and who will give his Rotary classification talk this morning

Bruce is a Toxicologist by profession, and a Senior Fellow with ICF International in Northern Virginia where he is leading ICF’s efforts in the areas of computational toxicology and risk communication. He is a Fulbright scholar with a Ph.D from Oregon Medical School and as a result of his accomplishments and expertise, he has served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences/ National Research Council, World Health Organization, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Lyuba Hubbard was our speaker last week and completed the story of the Russian castle “Kachanovka” in the Ukraine (right) that she partially told in her three minute talk several months ago.

“This time,” Lyuba said, “I will try to make it more personal, since the story of the castle has already been told.” Her presentation included a large number of family photographs, many of which she had taken herself. During the summer months, Russian families left their homes in St. Petersburg and traveled to Kachanovka where they vacationed with other members of the aristocracy and partook of the arts.

Lyuba’s great grandfather was an operatic baritone who loved to sing “Eugene Onegin, and other relatives were famous for the arts and letters. The picture to the right is typical of the collection that Lyuba exhibited and (we think) is also typical of other photos that were taken over 100 years ago. Whether or not it is one of Lyuba’s relatives remains to be seen!

Past President Lasse Syversen, who is in charge of securing our breakfast speakers, selected a very good one last week when he put together a program in which he documented the events of July 22 in Oslo when over 80 people were killed by reason of the actions of a Norwegian terrorist. Before describing the events of the day, Lasse llit a candle as a “sign of hope in time of darkness.”

Late in the morning of the 22nd, a powerful bomb was exploded in the business section of Oslo, badly damaging three government buildings, injuring about 60 people, and killing a half dozen or so. It was the most severe explosion in Oslo since World War II. Several hours later, the perpetuator, dressed as a policeman, made his way to Uteya Island where about 700 young people were gathered for a summer outing held by the local Labor Party. He opened fire at the random groups of young people, killing about 80 and injuring a number of others—many of whom tried (unsuccessfully) to escape the violence by trying to swim away.

One reporting journalist described the action as follows: “Due to absurdly slack security, which is part of the identity of Nordic countries, Norway has laid itself open to a Timothy McVeigh character who I suspect made the car bomb himself and detonated it at a distance with a mobile phone.” The shooter was eventually captured, and identified as Anders Behring Brevik —a Norwegian who had been planning his action for several years.

Rotarian Johnny Young (B-CC Club) , retired from the Foreign Service and now an official with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke of the United Nation Council on Refugees which recently observed its 60th anniversary.

Ambassador Johnny began by defining the term “refugee” as one who crossed into another nation because of a well-founded fear of prosecution. The convention on refugees seeks to establish ways whereby refugees can be accepted by welcoming countries and provided with housing food, and other necessities. The U.S. has accepted 73,000 refugees in 2010, but few other countries join the effort.

The Q&A session revealed that China cannot be expected to chip in, leaving the task of financing the refugees to a handful of countries.