Posted: 3 years ago

Been working all week to help put our house and the neighborhood back into some semblance of what one could call "normai" after Hurricane Ike came through Galveston, the coastal cities, Houston, Kingwood, and then took a hard right into the interior of America. Everywhere it touched, there was flooding and devastation. When our fence was blown down, I thought that I would inquire whether my insurance or FEMA could help. My insurance has a deductable of 1% of the value of our home and FEMA will reimburse only if damage is done to your "main structure." I gave this information up and down the block because it did fit some homes.

The kids in the block this week played "normally" and then helped when we had to carry parts of  broken fences and bags of debris for stacking (to be taken away someday in the future- a future none of us can guess as its date). When they helped me, I paid them in fruit drinks and the continued promise of popsickles (which they get all the time when they ring our front door bell) when the stores get back to having refrigeration for frozen foods.

Up and down streets, here and all over Houston, you see people sitting outside and sharing barbecue pit foods which could not be kept and must be eaten. We all seem to have folding chairs. And what is wonderful is that the faces that wave and smile back as you pass are a "true rainbow of America" - all colors, all nationalities, sharing what we have and giving what we can.

Actually, Hurricane Ike, besides being a pain everywhere- all joints, was a kind of blessing that reminded us that we have neighbors and we all are our neighbor's keeper. No complaints! An interesting ten days!

Joy of joys, (Anne just came and told me) "our neighbors across the street now have electricity" (so they took back the extension cords that have laced this short, dead end street, streching from those with power to those who needed it for at least running one refrigerator). Now, there are only 700,000 in Houston left without power. It was, at one time, close to 3,000,000!

Joe

Posted: 3 years ago

September 28, 2008: Got the news yesterday that Paul Newman died. Immediately CNN had a survey that asked, "What was Paul Newman's best picture?" I read over the list (which, by the way, left out The Silver Chalice, by far his worst performance where he took out a full page ad in Hollywood, stating that he apoligized for his "awful acting". How many actors would do that?) and could not decide on any one. I loved them all. He was the underdog who rose to the level of his principles (in his roles and his life). I will miss any new adventures from this outstanding actor (who only won one Academy Award for The Color of Money out of the ten that he was nominated for) but his passing will start a movement to see his films again for a new young audience (and an older audience, where I will be first in line). He was a special man for me, in his films, his political activism, his philanthropy, and his understated wisdom about life and himself. His greatest gift may have been that he did not take himself too serviously for his fame on the screen or on stage. He only took the cause of children, his politics, his love of racing and Joan Woodward most seriously.

This week, I have lost a friend that I only knew virtually but I know that I knew him. Since his work will live after him, he is really not lost to me.  

Posted: 3 years ago

This is my first meeting and first post as a full member of RECSWUSA, and I am very happy to be part of the team!

Here in Santa Clara, a small city of surprising community, given our place in the expanse of the San Francisco Bay Area, I have spent the last six weeks working to get my high school students in serious gear with how they approach learning Japanese.  I believe that efficient, effective habits make learning fun and easy, and I toss ideas at them whenever I can to get them to see what they are capable of, when they put forth the effort.

This was also the week when those kiddos who want to go to Japan with me in February had to plop down their deposits.  With the increase in ticket prices over the last year, I was worried we'd have trouble getting enough to go, but here I am with fifteen names on the list!  Sure wouldn't have bet on such a big group.

Certainly a high point of the last few days was getting the e-mail that welcomed me as a new member of this club.  I believe we have the chance to truly explore the possibilities for service and fellowship online, in cyberspace, on the internet, or within the metaverse, whatever we wish to call it.  I thank all of you for your encouragement over the last few months, look forward to your guidance as I settle in, and hope powerfully to give something meaningful to this community.

As they say on that side of the Pacific, "Yoroshiku onegai shimasu!" (a standard for when you meet someone new).

Posted: 3 years ago

October 4, 2008: Found out that Larry Levenson would be attending a conference called Discovery (a meeting of all NPR representatives and other businessmen like Larry), we arranged to meet on October 3rd in the afternoon and then have a meal together. Anne and I drove to San Antonio from Houston in the morning (3 1/2 hours), met with Larry at the Grand Hyatt and later (after a brew or two) walked The River Walk). Our conversation covered eRotary, Rotary, our families, how to solve insoluable problems (you start, even if you do not know where it will lead), peace (a serious talk of peace and the jobs that need filled for peace projects in our eClub and other Rotary Clubs, plus engaging a wider community if possible), education (on all kinds of levels), business (on all kinds of levels), love (one woman, one man, children- consistency- and other kinds), stories upon stories, food and cooking, etc. We had five hours of serious, not so serious, informative, funny conversations, then Anne and I drove home to Houston (so that we could feed and walk our dog Honey). One idea that Larry and I agreed upon (actually we agreed upon many ideas but this was something that we thought might happen) was, "We, everyone in the eClub, should tell others when we are traveling, for fun or business, so that we can get to meet, face to face, and just talk." Yesterday was a 12-hour "blast": no TV, no IPod, no cell phone calls, no interruptions. Yet, the technology was there if we wanted it. Just consider, "Just talk!"

We hugged on leaving, which it is hard to do on the Internet, and we learned volumes from our stories and body language. I would recommend this kind of visit to all our eMembers. As I have said, when talking of history as President of Rotary Global History Fellowship, 2007-2009, "To know is to grow." Yesterday, I think that both Larry and myself grew a little closer to understanding each other. It was a day trip well worth the time spent.

Posted: 3 years ago

Hmmm... Joe posted first, and said everything. We had a wonderful time together. Laughing and learning. Good beer. Good food. More laughing.

I will definitely continue to call our club memebers when I'm coming to there areas. . . Lots opf fun!

Thank you, Joe and Anne, for making the trek to San Antonio.  It was wonderful to get to know you both!

Regards,
Larry 

 Larry Levenson / Prescott Valley, Arizona USA

Posted: 3 years ago

It is great to have a reliable computer again, and easy access to the internet.  After spending 4 months in the mountains of New Mexico, with only dial up, when we had phone service made me really appreciate high speed. On top of slow or no service for internet my new computer crashed. I was using my dinosaur to do SAA minutes, etc, so it is good to be back.  Carol

Carol Anderson

Posted: 3 years ago

Hmmm . . . well, Kate and I toured Chapman when she was looking for a college - one of her camp friends went there.  She decided on Boston and Tufts but that's a different story. 

However, this week I mentioned an acquaintance's name in passing to my husband (as a result of walking past another person's house).  Ten minutes later, I ran into this woman in the grocery - I probably haven't seen her for 18 months since Kate graduated. 

The connection to Chapman?  Her daughter, who is at UCSD, is away at World Afloat as we speak.  Of course, it is now sponsored by UVA, my husband's alma mater (actually both of my husbands'). So both of you are one degree away from several people you've never met . . . or even heard of!

Karen -

Posted: 3 years ago

Hi Karen,

Chapman University is my Alma Mater.  Jim Doti was my Accounting, Econ, and Statistics Professor.  I am so thankful for his outstanding leadership as the University's President.  Since taking office in the mid 80's, he has transformed the University in ways many of us (back when I was an undergrad) never imagined would be possible.  

Today, I proudly serve on Chapman's Alumni Board.  Another Rotarian from District 5320, Vaugh Kelly also served on the Board.  I am sad to report, however that Vaugh was recently diagnosed with Cancer. 

My only regret is that I was not more involved as an undregrad.  But I had to work the entire time.  So between studying and work, there was no time for social life.  

If your daughter is considering Chapman, I highly recommend it.

Go Panther!!! 

Posted: 3 years ago

Just came back from two days with my daughter and her family (and of course our two grandchildren, age five and nine) and read Mamie's new entry on the forum.

On the subject of Chapman: It is a small world (as I have mentioned to Mamie before) and now I say it again to Karen. Many of us have a connection with Chapman University (when I taught there it was a College}. I taught on Chapman's World Campus Afloat in 1968, traveling to 19 countries and 19 different ports of call, teaching art appreciation (nothing on earth like teaching on baord ship about the Parthenon, the old city of Jerusalem, the Nightwatch and Rembrant's other paintings in the Riksmuseum,the tribal arts of the coast of Africa, the architecture of Guidi in Barcelona, the young artists' work and studios of South America, then setting anchor and walking through the actual place and experience). Finally, we came home in Los Angeles, after leaving from the East Coast originally. It was marvelous for the faculty as well as the students. Chapman shaped my teaching and thinking greatly after that voyage of knowledge. No one can be the same after that kind of multiple culture shock. It is good training for global understanding and learning to appreciate networking.

On the subject of cancer: Mamie, both Anne and I beat it once through surgery (and now, recently,  Anne has it again in both lungs- slow-growing, early stage where nothing can be done except getting second and third opinions). What one learns about cancer or anything in life that makes us question our immortality is: "It is not that we have more moments to live" but "It is how we live the moments we have." I forget now who told me that. It might have been George Carlin, who was wise for a comedian. Anyway, it is a mantra for spending the time that we have.

On the subject of lessons learned: In this season to look back, give thanks, and give presents, the best presents that I can think of getting are "more time for those that I love so that we can live each moment to its fullest," "embrace the love that is around us," "enjoy the moments we have and fill them with joy," and "work our butts off to improve this crazy world where war has been more used as a tool for change than peace". 

On the subject of appreciation: Thanks to all the members who have shared by writing something on the Forum, therefore giving to our eClub a slice of YOU and filling some of our moments with wonder.

Joe

Posted: 3 years ago

I'm heading for Delhi, India on Jan.7th.  This is my third trip. The first was to visit the headquarters of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala; the second to Bodh Gaya, where Buddha received enlightenment.  This one is to Faridabad, outside of Delhi, where Jiva.com has a clinic and experimental school. I will let you know what happens when I return. I will also try to find a meeting in Delhi:-0

Francine Hardaway, Ph.D

Stealthmode Partners

http://www.stealthmode.com

http://blog.stealthmode.com

Posted: 3 years ago

March 16-17, 2009: Spent a whole day with the artist, Louis Katz, a professor of art at Texas A & M in Corpus Christi, after being asked to write a review of his exhibition of two videos in our galleries at Lone Star College-Kingwood. Here it is:

Louis Katz: “I am a clayer”A review by Joe Kagle

Voice One: What do you think of Louis Katz’s two videos in this exhibition with multiple voices, multiple personalities and multiple points of view expressed in words?

Voice Two: I think he has an ‘edifice complex’. Just look at all those Styrofoam bricks, all sizes but one form, all light except where clay weights hold them down. He is a builder of ideas.

Voice Three: You are full of words. He loves clay which sets him off in other directions.

Voice Four: He must know what he is doing. He teaches at Texas A & M in Corpus Christi.

Voice Five: (loudly) A professor who teaches ceramics. Wow, a professor exhibiting at a college gallery! What else is new in the world?

Voice Six: He speaks and writes Thai (in fact, he had a Fulbright there in 1988-89, I think).

Voice Seven: So what, I do not understand Thai and cannot read it.

Voice Six: (softly speaking) Well, so what? He does!

Voice Eight: The whole exhibition seems to be Louis Katz. We are all inside him, speaking our own language, all at the same time, all with different ways to express ourselves and different eyes to see the world and different minds to interpret his simple but mind-blowing philosophies. These voices (all Katz) are all coming at us in the same unit, all different and all true to themselves.

All the voices together: Louis Katz is a clayer. His manifesto told us so. We are the clay. 

Joe Kagle, the reviewer: ‘But I have to write a review. Where do I start?’ 

All the voices of Louis Katz speak at once: “Start with the man, move to process, then concepts and finally arrive at philosophy, knowing all the time that this is a circle that will ultimately return to process since process is concept and philosophy. It is all functional and a cycle. Everything is. He is a clayer. We are the clay.”

About the Man: Louis Katz (through the voice of the reviewer): ’ I think that if I had to give any painting in the history of art to Louis Katz as representing the process/concept/philosophy cycle, it would be Leonardo’s Mona Lisa. That painting has survived because it is a “question” not an ‘answer’. It is “and” not “or” in content :that is, it is the woman smiling in front of the deluge where the floods have come in and this is the scene after the waters recede (Da Vinci wrote a book called The Deluge where he outlines this); it is the question “Why is she smiling? This is the end and beginning of the world” (DaVinci makes the smile even more of a question by having two scenes, one on each side of her body); and then DaVinci makes this a showplace for his knowledge of water and its actions (through the scenery and the woman’s folds in her garment). It is the perfect gift for a man who tried to see reality times one million to the trillion power. He is the perfect exhibitor for a college whose mission is to learn while teaching and teach while learning.’Of course, if this reviewer would allow Katz to introduce himself, he might say:‘I am the product of my heroes: like Kurt Weiser. I am the extension of my travels: inside myself and outside to the world (Thailand especially where I am now a member of a family in a Thai village). I am the process of allowing clay to shape my life as I shape its existence in some form.I am numbers: a driver’s license, social security nine-number code, an address, a website, a telephone number, and like the Styrofoam cups that I explore in my video, I am stamped somewhere with a sign that says, “Return to sender”. I am explanations, voices in my consciousness, conflicting personalities that try to define me, a Hippie and professor, a scientist and an artist, a lover and one loved, one and other, self and un-self, me and many. I am Western and Oriental and….really other,  again’. Mostly, to define myself, I say: “I am a clayer”.

Louis Katz-The Thinker: (The reviewer’s voice, pretending to be Katz, says): “Art is everywhere, everything, and all people and processes.  Technique is doing something well and improving the self to make it better. Art is the building blocks of life. Art is in the interpretation and the defining moment when it is allowed to breath. It is the utilitarian pots sold at Wal-Mart, the over 10,000 3 ½” pots that I love and sell for $2.50 each (if you buy a gross of them), and the most elegant pot that was ever made (which are many and hard to define except if you were my wife who makes elegant pots). Pots are what made me choose my profession and I love them all. Art is more than “trying to stir the pot” but it is that too. Art is the key, the window, the door, the hand-skill tool, the language to find the art of ARS.”

The Exhibition and Louis Katz: In one room, a viewer enters him or herself, cut off from the outside world by curtains (paintings, Katz would say) made by soaking canvases in linseed oil and held down with clay weights so that the wind (the ch’i) of words coming from the videos about Styrofoam’s ordinary-ness and elegant-ness are explained and over-explained by the multiple voices of Louis Katz. The cups, white but “compared to what”, are handled, explored, researched and evaluated until the listener shouts inwardly, “I don’t care. It is just a functional item that pollutes the world today”, and Katz’ (now in our heads) quietly remarks, “There is nothing as simple and complex as just “functional”. A picture of one of my pots is supposed to be worth a thousand words. OK, give me one. Now give me a thousand. Now give me a million…and on and on and on. Art is not words. Words cannot make art (except in literature).” Katz believes (but even that concept of multiplicity might be placed in front of the viewer for debate) that we must, each of us, build our own world to live within. We do not need size codes or brands to tell us where we were manufactured and we certainly do not need some reviewer to tell us, the viewers, what our inner life should use to form or reform our existence (although if it were not for reviewers, where would all the voices come from). Sitting or standing in this exhibition, you, as a viewer or listener or learner, are placed inside yourself looking out to the world and/or placed inside a world from which you must go out to find yourself. And if you stay long enough within this Louis Katz exhibition, called Louis Katz, Clayer, you, the viewer, and this reviewer, begins to become Louis Katz and you enter your own ‘edifice complex’, building the structure of your life with multiple voices and multiple characters in multiple cultures (you even see the flame that finishes the pot reflected in a multiple 3 ½” pot- covered screen) …and the edifice of yourself starts to listen to the voices of the world about other edifice makers, other “wombs with a view”. Listen, they are speaking to us now. Louis Katz is not a clayer only but a door to where those other voices reside:

Posted: 3 years ago

Posted: 3 years ago

Saturday, June 6, 2009: Just returned from the Y, working out for an hour, not many there but the die-hards like me and Anne were and used the pool (Anne) and the weight room (me) to keep the body where the mind and spirit still are. It is a good day to think of 'something wonderful' in your life. Here are two quotes  

Posted: 3 years ago

Saturday, June 6, 2009: Just returned from the Y, working out for an hour, not many there but the die-hards like me and Anne were and used the pool (Anne) and the weight room (me) to keep the body where the mind and spirit still are. It is a good day to think of 'something wonderful' in your life. Here are two quotes  about

Posted: 3 years ago

Saturday, June 6, 2009: Just returned from the Y, working out for an hour, not many there but the die-hards like me and Anne were and used the pool (Anne) and the weight room (me) to keep the body where the mind and spirit still are. It is a good day to think of 'something wonderful' in your life. Here are two quotes  about that topic