Past Programs
SECOND QUARTER 2013 PROGRAMS
Thursday, May 9, 2013, DIPLOMACY: Security Challenges in the 21st Century, Ambassador Maurice S. Parker, Retired State Department Diplomat
Thursday, April 25, 2013, QATAR: Sand, Sea, and Sky, Diana Untermeyer, author
Friday, April 12, 2013, The Euro Area: Phoenix or Fantasy? Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
FIRST QUARTER 2013 PROGRAMS
Friday, March 15, 2013, SAUDI ARABIA ON THE EDGE, Thomas W. Lippman, Author, Journalist, Adjunct Scholar/Middle East InstituteThursday, March 7, 2013, WHAT CAN THE U.S. LEARN FROM THE CRISIS IN JAPAN? Michael Zielenziger, Visiting Scholar, University of California, Berkeley
Friday, February 22, 2013, NORTH KOREA: DEALING WITH A DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS REGIME, David Straub, Associate Director of Korean Studies, Stanford University
Friday January 25, 2013 GALA 25TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER, SONOMA COUNTY: A TAPESTRY OF CULTURES, Gaye LeBaron, Sunday Columnist, Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Thursday, January 10, 2013, NEPAL: Twenty Years of Change, Tom Arens, Peace Corps, founder of Friends of Nepal Pariwar (Family) Foundation
FOURTH QUARTER 2012 PROGRAMS
Tuesday, December 4, 2012, HONG KONG: From British Colony to PRC “Special Administrative Region”, David Wolf, Ph.D., Sonoma County Board of Education (2002-2010), participant in other academic councils in the U.S. and abroad.
Friday, November 2, 2012, Brazil: Our Giant Neighbor to the South, Brazilian
Consul General Eduardo Prisco Paraiso Ramos, FountainGrove Inn
Tuesday, November 13, 2012, STAYING AHEAD OF TERRORISTS, SPIES, AND HACKERS, Craig Fair, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco Division, Spring Lake Village Auditorium
Friday, October 19, 2012, WHY PAKISTAN MATTERS, DR. NEIL JOECK, Visiting Scholar, University of California, Berkeley
Tuesday, October 9, 2012, KENYA: Innovation and Leadership in East Africa, Dr. Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, Assistant Professor, Politics Department, University of San Francisco.
THIRD QUARTER 2012 PROGRAMS
Thursday, September 27, 2012, FRENCH PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: Between Economic and Political Crisis, Jonah Levy, Professor & Vice Chair of Political Science Department, University of California, Berkeley
Friday, September 14, 2012, OUR NATIONAL STRATEGIC INITIATIVE, Capt. Wayne Porter, US Navy
View more at
http://nationalstrategicnarrative.org/
Wednesday, August 22, 2012, WACSC ANNUAL PICNIC & BOOK SALE, Luther Burbank Art and Garden Center
Dinner catered by Laura and Dave of Oakmont Market
Dinner music by the BC trio
Thursday, August 2, 2012, WAC Member Tour, Quarryhill Botanical Garden, William McNamara, Executive Director
Friday, July 20, 2012, ARMED CONFLICT/FORCED DISPLACEMENT: A Comparative View, Nat J. Colletta, Advisor to World Bank, United Nations, Asia Foundation
Thursday July 12, 2012, THE END OF GROWTH: Peak Oil and the Economy of the Future, Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow-In-Residence, Post Carbon Institute
SECOND QUARTER 2012 PROGRAMS
Thursday, June 28, 2012, REACHING THE NEXT BILLIONS: IT Adoption in Emerging Markets, John Davies, V.P. Intel World Ahead
Friday June 15, 2012, RUSSIA AFTER THE ELECTIONS: What Lies Ahead? Andrei Tsygankov, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, San Francisco State University.
May 31, 2012, ARAB SPRING OR ARAB FREEZE: Prospects for Democracy in the Arab World, Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
May 10, 2012, THE MEXICAN DRUG WAR: Prospects for the Future, Alex Saragoza, Professor of History, U.C. Berkley
April 27, 2012, Nuclear Hotspots, Nuclear Abolition,
Philip Taubman, former New York Times Bureau Chief and now advisor to the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation.
April 19, 2012, INDIA, America’s
True Friend in South Asia,
Ambassador Shri N. Parthasarathi, Consul General of India.
March 16, 2012, THE DAY THAT SHOOK JAPAN: 3/11, Tsuneo Akaha, Ph.D., Professor of International Policy Studies, Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
March 6, 2012, The International Criminal Court at The Hague, Jacob N. Foster, Associate Attorney of San Francisco law firm Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP.
February 24, 2012, THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONAL SECURITY WIRETAPPING SINCE 9/11, David Kris, former U.S. Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice, discussed origins and evolution of law governing electronic surveillance for national security.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012, Refugees and the Red Cross at Home and Abroad, Tim Miller, American Red Cross Chief Executive Officer of Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties Chapter.
Friday, January 20, 2012, The Challenge of Achieving Good Governance in Asia, David Arnold, President of the Asia Foundation.
January 12, 2012 - CHINA CHANGING: One Journalist’s Perspective, Lynne Joiner, journalist and author.
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New Books Published by WACSC Members
“Pitcairn Island, the Bounty Mutineers and Their Descendants” by Dr. Robert Kirk
This is a riveting and revealing record of the Bounty mutineers and their forging of a society with the native Polynesians (1789) on a tiny “fly-speck” of an island in the South Pacific, the smallest inhabited island in the world!
After Captain Bligh and other shipmates were set adrift in a launch, the remaining crew came upon Pitcairn Island. There they survived disease, evacuation, and even a dictatorship. Author Kirk artfully captures the centuries of change that occurred through world-wide attention and In-attention. This was a community of people who remained loyal, proud, and determined. The reader will even learn the origin of “three square meals a day” and “the cat’s out of the bag.”
This is the first “full” written history of Pitcairn Island up to the present time. It tells of the incredible people, the tragedies and ancestral triumphs of the mutineer’s descendents. The future of this now British Colony is in question.
You’ll learn of the religious influences, the crop sharing, the ravages of nature that all combined to bring this small island into the 21st century. (The book can be ordered on Amazon or from any bookstore). Review by Nancy Broomhead.
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"The Landscape of Time" by Lois Foyt and Jon Foyt
(Baltimore: Publish America, 2009)
At a recent book signing event at Barnes and Noble on Santa Rosa's Fourth
Street, WACSC members Lois and Jon Foyt quickly sold out all copies of their
eighth novel, The Landscape of Time. Lois and Jon moved to Oakmont from
Santa Fe a couple of years ago. Both Stanford graduates, they are art
dealers when not penning fiction; in fact, their gorgeous home is filled
with museum-quality European and Asian bronzes. The Foyts are a fascinating
couple, and their novel is well worth reading. Most of their previous books
were set in the Southwest, but Jon traveled to Syracuse, New York, to
research for "Landscape." The setting is the Erie Canal in the early 1800s
-- and today.
Columbia doctoral candidate Josh Foreman is searching for a dissertation
topic. His grandfather dies, he travels to the ancestral mansion in Syracuse
to settle the estate, meets a cast of characters including the woman of his
dreams. Not only does his dissertation topic come into focus, but he learns
deep and compelling family secrets. Josh's journey is one of self-discovery
and discovery of his roots as he learns about his grandfather's deeds and
the father from whom he has been alienated.
"Landscape" is based on historical fact. Intriguingly, the Foyts refer the reader to eight footnotes, letters and diary entries from 1797 to 1825 which provide essential historic background to the story. One must read these notes carefully to see, for example, how Governor DeWitt Clinton was seduced into promoting the Erie Canal. This is a compelling book. Review by Dr. Robert Kirk
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