Rotary Club of Santa Monica

"2001/2002 - A Rotary Odyssey"

Rota-Monica

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OUR CLUB PAYS HEED TO GOVERNOR’S RACE

             Quite often, in election years, our club seeks to persuade a few candidates to come and urge their views.  This season we invited both the Democratic and Republican nominees for governor – Gray Davis and William E. Simon, Jr.  Governor Davis declined.  Simon accepted, at the urging of our member Dee Menzies.  Simon’s children are pupils at the local Carlthorp School, where Dee is headmistress, and his wife, Cindy, teaches there. 

            Simon will urge the case for right-wing Republicanism.  He is known as a Reagan Republican.  His late father was Treasury Secretary in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and later headed the John M. Olin Foundation, known for its conservatism. 

            Later Bill Jr. joined his father and younger brother in founding the private investment firm of William E. Simon & Sons.  Still later he served under Rudolph Giuliani, then U.S. Attorney in New York’s southern district.

             When Simon announced his candidacy for governor of California, he was seen as a threat to former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, the leading Republican hopeful for governor.  Republicans charged that the Gray Davis organization spent $10 million to block Riordan’s quest for the nomination on the theory that Davis has a better chance to beat Simon in the election.  Now that Riordan has indeed been blocked, we’ll see in November whether this theory is valid.  Meanwhile, we’ll get a chance to judge the odds for ourselves, as we listen to Simon’s talk at our meeting this Friday. 

STALLED AT THE LAST HURRICANE

             As the last hurdle comes in sight, the money may be running out.  Today – but perhaps not tomorrow – on a muddy bend off the Congo, health workers with bullhorns stop every dugout canoe, every ferry, to give children their mandatory two droplets of vaccine.  Soon there may be no vaccine left.  The drive on polio will be down to its last dollars, even though the Gates Foundation sent another million to it on May 30th. 

            In southern India a packed third-class passenger train stops between stations as doctors clamber aboard to give vaccination doses.  In Sudan, two volunteers tote a cooler of vaccine to a village a day’s walk across the baking plain.  They wonder if it may be their last hike on such an errand.

             They’ve seen photos of what they’re fighting.  Photos of a bunch of pleat-skirted New Delhi schoolgirls, giggling and lively despite their withered legs encased in metal braces; of a disabled Somalian nomad left behind by penniless parents; of paralyzed Congolese teenagers with makeshift wooden crutches and wheelchair contraptions put together from bicycle parts.

             In 1988 an estimated 350,000 children in 125 countries lay paralyzed by polio.  That was the year when the World Health Organization and the UN Children’s Fund launched their anti-polio drive.  A few months later Rotary International, the drive’s biggest source of private financing, joined them.  Rotary has given $462 million to date, plus the hands-on help of a million Rotarians.

             Now, after fifteen years doling out billions of dollars to inoculate two billion kids around the world, the campaign leaders find only 480 new cases of polio cropped up in 2002.  All these cases are in ten nations where the UN and Rotary now focus their efforts: Afghanistan, Angola, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Sudan. 

             To reach those targets will take shack-to-shack campaigning as well as roadside vaccination stationers, where each child receives two droplets.  At 9 cents a dose, these oral polio vaccines may be the greatest public health bargain of all time.  But those droplets add up to $80 million in costs – not including the donated services of busloads of Rotary volunteers.  “The Rotary Foundation is truly deserving of recognition for exemplary achievements in global health,” said Bill Gates Sr., executive officer of the Gates Foundation.  “I’ve seen Rotary volunteers in action.  They do tremendous work.”

             Naturally Rotary will renew its campaign for the millions needed to finish the job.  Can our people do it?  We think so.  Watch Rotarian magazine for the results.

THE ROTARY PIN – WHAT IT MEANS

             The wearing of this pin denotes a person who is willing to address local and international community needs.  These needs may be vocational preparation (scholarships), student exchange programs, or serious health issues, such as the eradication of polio worldwide. 

            The principles of Rotary International are simple.  Is it TRUTHFUL, FAIR, will it build GOOD WILL AND BETTER FRIENDSHIPS and BENEFIT all concerned?  These principles are proudly represented by approximately 1.2 million Rotarians of every sect.  Applying these principles and “Service above Self” has caused friendships to develop among those who might otherwise have remained at a perpetual distance. 

             Rotary International humbly began in 1905.  Chicago businessman Paul Harris met weekly for lunch with a small group of fellow professionals, rotating in each place of business to discuss the needs of the community.  Thus the word “Rotary” evolved, igniting this desire to be of service. 

            The emblem of Rotary International is a gear with clogs, or teeth, representing persons regarded as an important part of the entire machinery of this noble activity.  Also note the keyway in the hub when keyed is to connect and transfer this collective energy to the shaft in order to provide an applied force KNOWN AS ROTARY INTERNATIONAL. 

            Rotarians – wear you pin daily with pride.

                                                                                           -- Lionel Ruhman

COMING IN JUNE

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