Letters (October 2007)

W e hate junk mail just as much as you do, so it certainly brightens our day to get an actual letter from you, even if it’s just to blow off steam. Or maybe you want to share an opinion about something you’ve read or want to read. Don’t just tell your club – tell us and the rest of the Rotary world too.  So keep those cards and letters coming, with your suggestions, insights, criticisms and yes, even compliments, to yourletters@rotary.org or The Rotarian, One Rotary Center, 1560 Sherman Ave., Evanston, IL 60201 USA.

Book the end of poverty

The May feature “World Without Poverty” contained many compelling ideas for Rotarians to think about. Can we really end poverty? The underlying social and economic causes of poverty were explored – and, many feel, explained – nearly 130 years ago by one of America’s greatest, but often overlooked, social philosophers. Henry George has been praised by thinkers as diverse as Winston Churchill, Milton Friedman, Franklin Roosevelt, and Sun Yat-sen, to say nothing of people like Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Buckminster Fuller, Helen Keller, George Bernard Shaw, Leo Tolstoy, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

George’s classic Progress and Poverty is now available in an easy-to-read version, which I spent five years modernizing and abridging. I would invite any Rotarian concerned about really ending poverty forever to add this to their reading list. As another great American philosopher, John Dewey, proclaimed: “I do not claim that [Henry] George’s remedy is a panacea that will cure by itself all our ailments. But I do claim that we cannot get rid of our basic troubles without it.”

Bob Drake
Chicago, Ill., USA

Old format was better

I agree with the letter in the July issue [“Go Easy on the Eyes”] about the type. I also find The Rotarian very hard to read overall. I used to read it from front to back, but now I just skim through it. It is hard to tell the advertisements from the articles. Everything is jumbled and confusing. I compared the old format with the new, page by page, and the old is much more user friendly. The content is still great.

H. Gordon Thomson
Mt. Shasta, Calif., USA

Treatment after polio

“Polio Plus One President” [July] is about the 12th article I’ve read which spells out the doom and gloom of polio without any reference to the work of Sister Kenny in postpolio rehabilitation. Sister Kenny was the Australian practitioner who advocated rehabilitation by strengthening opposing muscles immediately after the fever subsided. My mother, Elisabeth Falconar, introduced Kenny’s system of physiotherapy to Canada, principally in Regina, Sask., and Winnipeg, Man. Many grateful children in the Regina area showed few or no traces of polio after treatment.

Hugh Falconar
Edmonton, Alta., Canada

Safe Passage

My copy of The Rotarian arrived yesterday, and I congratulate you on the great job you did on the Safe Passage story [Field Reports, July]. You got the tone and sized up the involvement of so, so many Rotarians well and in very few words. I know that’s not easy to do. By the way, just last week Safe Passage announced the hiring of a new executive director to replace Hanley Denning [who died in a car accident in January at age 36]. Her name is Barbara Nijhuis. She is a Dutch national who has been working with rural, poor children in Guatemala. She certainly has big shoes to fill. Thanks again for your good work. You can learn more at www.safepassage.org.

Marty Peak Helman
Boothbay Harbor, Maine, USA

A smile long

An article in your May issue [Field Reports] states that the longest word in the English language has 1,909 letters. In reality, the longest word is smiles because there’s a mile between the first and last letters.

Daniel Lack
Kingston, N.Y., USA

More make-up tales

I read with interest the article about making up meetings [March, “Take Five”], which I have been doing and enjoying all over the world. My most memorable make-up was on a pre-Tokyo convention tour. My most enjoyable make-up was on a business trip to Amsterdam. I found myself with some time at lunch, so I looked up the nearest Rotary club. When I arrived, the happy hour was just starting, and after I introduced myself to the president, he asked if I spoke Dutch. When I answered no, I was escorted to a seat (after procuring a glass of Heineken beer) and told to wait. I was soon joined by a Rotarian who was to be my interpreter: the international sales manager for Heineken.  Seeing that I was enjoying my beer, he made sure that for the rest of the meeting, I not only knew exactly what was going on but that I couldn’t ever reach the bottom of that glass. Making up in strange places is a great experience – just another benefit of being a Rotarian.

Joseph S. Harris
Jackson, Miss., USA

Vital importance

I have been a Rotarian for 53 years and served RI as district governor in 1968-69. Please begin publishing monthly Rotary statistics again. I induct many new club members and need the latest figures (for example, how many clubs, how many countries and geographical regions, how many members). Not everyone has access to a computer, believe it or not. Thank you.

Bob Tomko
Bishop, Calif., USA

Make-up birthday

The letter in the July issue from the gentleman who visited the Rotary club in Taiwan reminded me of experiences my wife and I had last year when we went to Copenhagen for the 2006 RI Convention. We arrived a week early to tour the Nordic region. We started out in Odense, Denmark, visiting the Rotary Club of Odense Hunderup, and later the Rotary Club of Stockholm-Högdalen, Sweden. The meetings were conducted in the native languages, but those who spoke English told us what was being said. The Stockholm club sang “Happy Birthday” in Swedish to my wife. She still talks about that! It was fun and memorable. Everyone traveling abroad should enrich their experience by visiting Rotary clubs wherever they go.

Bruce Duggar
Jacksonville, Fla., USA

Population control

As a longtime Rotary club member, I have read many articles that document the great work that Rotarians all over the world do to improve the lives of less fortunate people. The polio vaccination program is especially dear to me because I had polio in 1943.

As a practicing physician, I became interested in population growth throughout the world. During my travels in Belize, Egypt, Guatemala, Peru, and other countries, I have been aware that population growth cannot be sustained if we are to improve the standard of living for the millions of impoverished people living in deplorable conditions. There is not enough living space in these countries to support the population without destroying the environment.

Rotarian efforts to help are worthy, but to do so without the same effort in birth control education is irresponsible. With effective birth control, the results of Rotarian economic aid can be multiplied manyfold; without birth control, the results will be diluted. There is a precedent for Rotary to be involved with birth control: The RI president several years ago had birth control education at the top of his agenda. Unfortunately, it was dropped the following year without any continuing program. Rotary International should embrace birth control education just as it has embraced polio vaccination to amplify the benefits of all our other work.

Harold E. Manhart
Montrose, Colo., USA

Rotary TV?

Why doesn’t Rotary have its own TV network? It seems to me that the media are always avoiding the works done by Rotarians. If Rotary had its own broadcasting station, the massive work done by Rotarians would reach every home.

Rajesh Sarawgi
Purulia, India