Rotary Club of Bellingham Tattler - APRIL 29, 2024
Tattler Reporter: Catherine Riordan
Tattler Editor: Tom Grinstad
Photographer: Brad Burdick
Dr. Wen Chen
"Human Rights Movement in China"
Opening Welcome:
President Doug Cole brought the full house to order with the usual enthusiasm. Lucky us to have this tenacious leader!
Guests:
John Moffat introduced out speaker Dr. Wen Chen
Members on Zoom: Monty McAllister, Loch Trimingham, Nancy Jordan
Visitor: Gary Goldfogel from Arizona (great to see you join us!)
Club Events and Committee Announcements
May 6, 2024 Program update: Chuck Robinson, with Village Books will be speaking on Artificial Intelligence: The Past, Present, and Possible Future.
Major Awards announcement:
RCOB Annual Award Nominations are being accepted thru mid May. Send nominations to Exec. Secretary Sandee Lindhout or the Executive Board: Doug Cole, Paul Grey, Steve Ban, John Moffat and Steve Gray Click Here for List of previous awardees
Community Boating Center Wheelhouse Donor Celebration: An opportunity to celebrate our 2021-2022 Fund Raising efforts!!
Special invite: We are in the final stretch of the construction phase of our Wheelhouse and the end is in sight! Thanks to your support the building will be finished and open for "business" by the end of next week! We'd love to invite you to come by and celebrate!
Join us for a donor celebration event to express our heartfelt gratitude for your support of the Wheelhouse Campaign.
Date: Thursday, May 9th, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: Community Boating Center's NEW Wheelhouse
Enjoy an evening of wine, beer, and bites as we come together to celebrate your generosity and our collective achievement! Take a tour of the newly finished facility, mingle with fellow supporters, and experience the impact of your contributions.
We can't wait to express our gratitude in person and celebrate this milestone with you!
Meal Packing May 4 (Volunteers and Donors sign up now)
District Conference occurs on 4 May, coincidentally the day of our food packing day. Marty Haines assured us that we selected the date before the District. And he hinted that maybe it should be an event of the social committee – it is so much fun. Food packing this weekend! Thanks Roland and Marty—and all those who joining them this weekend. The funds have been raised! Goal exceeded!!! Five more volunteers are needed for the packing on Saturday. Supplies will be arriving to for 40K meals!!!! Roland Trenouth announced that volunteers are needed to set up the afternoon before, May 3, after 5PM. Event will occur at Assumption School gym. Last year, we packed 37,000 meals with 106 volunteers, including Rotaract members and other clubs’ volunteers. To help with packing, the main event, come Saturday before 9am. Expect to stay a minimum of a couple hours.
The format for the Conference is family inclusive and the same day as our Meal Packing Event. President Doug is looking for members to register to go down with him later in the day, after the Meal Packing Event. Other options to participate include Friday, May 3rd for Bowling and a meet and greet and Sunday May 5th for a service project at Camp Korey.
Prexy Doug put in a plug for the Memorial Day Parade, encouraging all members to get out there and walk. Walk like you mean it. We have a Rotary float, which we escort over the mile-long parade. If you start conditioning now, you will be in shape to even run laps around the float as it careens down the route.
Apparently, Nathan’s member moment inspired Paula's Backpacking Around the World: 1984- 1985. Paula was 15 years old when her mother offered, she and her brother a chance to leave their sailboat home in Port Townsend for a trip around the world. In her usual humorous and self-depreciating style, Paula shared stories of travel to exotic places, accompanied by the hair style challenges of her teenage years, as documented by her passport and other photos. They started their world tour in Japan, and traveled, often by trains and buses, to China, Thailand, Bangkok, Singapore, New Zealand, Calcutta, India, Nepal, and Rome. She turned 16 years old with a celebration in Athens, continuing to an icebreaking arctic cutter in the North Sea and on to Helsinki and Stockholm. Rather than crashing back in the United States, they continued their adventures to New York City, DC, and Niagara Falls. They left the eastern states to travel cross country in an old jalopy, the Ghost Car, so named because of its multitude of missing parts. Paula was later “gifted” this car. She quickly “recycled this car.”
From all those travels, Paula learned that we’re ‘more alike and interconnected than we realize’, a point Rotary drives home constantly.
Weekly Payment Reminder
VENMO:
@RCOB- Bellingham.
Give Sandee a call if you need help. 360-734-5532.
CASH / CHECK:
Yes, we still take these and saving on fees is appreciated.
Born in China at end of the Cultural Revolution that resulted in the destruction of Chinese culture, Wen Chen and her family lived under this regime. She had won a national prize in science by age 16 and headed to the U.S for grad school at Cal Tech. While there, studying biology, she adopted her life’s work to be a voice for the voiceless, sharing stories of experiences of the victims of the Chinese government. Now she does scientific outreach, is a Rotary member, and also of Amnesty International, focusing on China. She lives now in Pasadena and publishes a blog at wenchenview.blogspot.com and is on Facebook.
When in China she saw many students killed. She awoke to the realities of Tiananmen Square and the cultural revolution in 2001.
Human Rights—
She told us about a group, the Falun Gong, which she said this is the most highly persecuted group in China. It is a large worldwide meditation organization (Faluninfon.net). Falun Gong is an individual practice rather than a shared ceremonial practice. She said the Chinese Communist party worries about the independence religious organizations and control they have over their members. In China there are also Christians, but they use a different version of the bible than most other Christians.
The Falun Gong has been a focus of organ harvesting in China. She charges that medical ethical practices surrounding organ donations and reporting of accurate number are not happening. The official number of transplants is very small, but the expectations for potential customers wanting organs are bolstered by advertisements claiming remarkably high organ availability and very short turnaround times to secure organs. For example, waits for kidney and liver transplants are advertised as two weeks when the average wait in the US and many other countries is two to three years. In China in a recent year there were 60 organ donations on official records, but records of 60-100K transplants year.
Donors
The problem is with the donors, who the speaker argued are often not willing donors, as medical ethical practice would dictate. She argued donors are drawn disproportionately from the Falun Gong population, who disappear after blood tests or other encounters with the medical stem.
A member asked how these individuals are killed in order to secure the organs, and noted similarities to Germany in the 1940s. They were “killed as if they were animals.” Animals not worthy of the value placed on human life and ethical treatment.
Today there are a number of countries that have banned organs offered for transplant by China, including Spain, Taiwan and Italy. The US currently has a non-binding resolution. She encouraged us to reach out to our legislators as two pieces of legislation are before congress now that would enhance regulation surrounding organ transplants.
When asked why we don’t hear more about this in the US, she said the Chinese Communist Party has infiltrated international media, which often publishes info directly from communist party, without further investigation. She also mentioned the intentional influencing of the movie industry and tech companies in China and worldwide, including Cisco; Yahoo, Microsoft,
She is concerned about her personal safety. 1998. Does not feel she can return to China.
Dr. Chen feels, like current immigrants, that she was brainwashed. Even after coming to U.S.,
immigrants to the US often stay within the propaganda circle of China in their use of social media, etc.
Guess Who?
Music by Bob Kuenzel
Paula McCandlis Rotary Moment Photos of her trip around the world for a year!!
RCOB apparel, including polo shirts, dress shirts, vests and hats is now available. These are items that every Club member simply must have in his/her wardrobe! Besides looking great, Club members will be contributing to branding for the RCOB as well as supporting our Club's Foundation, which will receive part of the proceeds.
Click on the button below for the the clothing catalogue, with the Order Form on the last page. Fill out the order form, turn it into Vinson Latimore at a meeting or email a scanned copy to embroidery@choicesscrubs.com.
Rotary Moment
