Events

Professor John Leshy came to UC College of the Law, San Francisco, formerly UC Hastings Law, in the fall of 2001, after serving as Solicitor (General Counsel) of the U.S. Department of the Interior throughout the Clinton Administration. Previously he taught at Arizona State University College of Law (1980-1992), and served in the Interior Department in the Carter Administration, as special counsel to the Chair of the Committee on Natural Resources, U.S. House of Representatives, and with the Natural Resources Defense Council in California. He started his legal career as a litigator with the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

In 2008-2009 Leshy co-chaired the Obama Administration transition team for the Interior Department, after heading the Interior transition team for Clinton-Gore in 1992-93. In 2013 he received the Defenders of Wildlife Legacy Award for lifetime contributions to wildlife conservation.

In 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2011 Leshy was a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1969, after earning an A.B. at Harvard College. His publications include books on the Mining Law of 1872 (1987) and the Arizona Constitution (2d edition published in 2013), and a co-author of textbooks on water law (6th edition published in 2018) and federal land and resources law (7th edition published in 2014).

Members are welcome to attend by Zoom. Link is the same as for a regular meeting.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.  At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years.  He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. His research focuses on democratic trends and conditions around the world and on policies and reforms to defend and advance democracy. His latest edited book (with Orville Schell), China's Influence and American Interests (Hoover Press, 2019), urges a posture of constructive vigilance toward China’s global projection of “sharp power,” which it sees as a rising threat to democratic norms and institutions. He offers a massive open online course (MOOC) on Comparative Democratic Development through the edX platform and is now writing a textbook to accompany it. 

Monthly meeting of WCS via Zoom. Same Zoom link as Club meetings.

Contact Chair Mike Reynolds for further information.

Social Co-Chair Matt Dolan invites us to join with members for a social gathering at his home.  Let's get together at the end of August, as we look to Labor Day around the corner. The event details and location will be announced soon.

The Bayside Cannery..the Story of Thomas Foon Chew

              Businessman, Innovator, Community Builder
 

              Presented by his granddaughter, Dr. Gloria Hom

Thomas Foon (as he liked to be called) came to California as a 10-year-old in 1899 during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Acts and was a multimillionaire when he died of pneumonia in San Jose in 1931 at the age of 42.  His BaySide facility in Alviso canned pears, peaches, apricots, plums, tomatoes, spinach, asparagus, and vegetables for salads under seven different brand names, including Bohemian, Cal Taste, Gondolier, Calico, and Snow Peak. 

At the time, the Alviso cannery was the third largest cannery in the United States. Mr. Chew was known for hiring workers from different ethnicities, providing housing and hot lunches for his Chinese laborers, and for his processing innovations; he was known as the “Asparagus King” for perfecting the commercial canning of green asparagus. His BaySide Cannery corrugated metal facility in Mayfield/Palo Alto is known to locals as the “Fry’s” building. 

Twenty-five thousand people turned out to honor Mr. Chew in a memorial parade in San Fran- cisco’s Chinatown in 1931: a worthy tribute to an American entrepreneur.

• The Program Committee meets the 1^st Thursday of alternating months from noon to 1:30 pm.  
• Contact Sally Tomlinson, Program Committee Chair, for details.

Have you ever wondered what is going on at Paly High?  How long has it been since you’ve been on campus?  An arranged tour by Palo Alto High School retired math teacher, Arne Lim, will show us the Performing Arts Center (PAC), aka theater, Media Art Center (MAC), aka journalism and all things digital, and the new Perry Athletic Center (aka gyms) besides many new and innovative recent changes.

Contact Rebecca Geraldi, Membership Chair for details.

Meet three of our new members as they tell us a bit more about themselves. Not to be missed!

Members are welcome to attend by Zoom. Link is the same as for a regular meeting.

Tom Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. 

He was the inaugural Oksenberg-Rohlen Distinguished Fellow from 2010 through 2015 and the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford in 2009.

From 2005 through 2008, he served as the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis and, concurrently, as chairman of the National Intelligence Council. Fingar served previously as assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2000-01 and 2004-05), principal deputy assistant secretary (2001-03), deputy assistant secretary for analysis (1994-2000), director of the Office of Analysis for East Asia and the Pacific (1989-94), and chief of the China Division (1986-89). Between 1975 and 1986 he held a number of positions at Stanford University, including senior research associate in the Center for International Security and Arms Control.

Fingar is a graduate of Cornell University (A.B. in Government and History, 1968), and Stanford University (M.A., 1969 and Ph.D., 1977 both in political science). His most recent books are From Mandate to Blueprint: Lessons from Intelligence Reform (Stanford University Press, 2021), Reducing Uncertainty: Intelligence Analysis and National Security (Stanford University Press, 2011), The New Great Game: China and South and Central Asia in the Era of Reform, editor (Stanford University Press, 2016), Uneasy Partnerships: China and Japan, the Koreas, and Russia in the Era of Reform (Stanford, 2017), and Fateful Decisions: Choices that will Shape China’s Future, co-edited with Jean Oi (Stanford, 2020). His most recent article is, "The Role of Intelligence in Countering Illicit Nuclear-Related Procurement,” in Matthew Bunn, Martin B. Malin, William C. Potter, and Leonard S Spector, eds., Preventing Black Market Trade in Nuclear Technology (Cambridge, 2018)."

(Copied from https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/thomas_fingar ) 

Join with members and partners for our monthly social gathering at this wonderful and newly remade Palo Alto landmark.  The event details will be announced soon.

Link to sign up for October 5: https://forms.gle/sVCoq9HLppdhwRWY8

On the 1st Wednesday of each month, our Palo Alto Rotary Club helps Nuestra Casa distribute food to food insecure families at the Rise City Church, 1305 Middlefield Road, Redwood City. Up to 5 of us will volunteer from 2:00-4:00 and/or 4:00-6:00 on Wednesday, October 5. Please wear a face mask and your Palo Alto Rotary Club t-shirt if you have one. This activity is outdoors, under canopy tents. Neighborhood parking has a 2-hour limit, so if you volunteer for both shifts, you may park in the church parking lot.

Nuestra Casa is a past Palo Alto Rotary grant recipient. Their food distribution program serves 6,000 people per month in East Palo Alto and Redwood City. They recover healthy, high-quality food from distributors around the Bay Area. This reduces peoples’ grocery bills so they can use that money for rent, utilities, or transportation. It reduces the stigma and transportation barriers people face when using local food pantries. By reducing food waste, we're also reducing greenhouse gases. Learn more at https://nuestracasa.org

Annual visit of new District 5170 Governor Savita Vaidhyanathan

Members are welcome to attend by Zoom. Link is the same as for a regular meeting.

Link to sign up for November 2: https://forms.gle/v1KXCFdCnwnqFYeYA

On the 1st Wednesday of each month, our Palo Alto Rotary Club helps Nuestra Casa distribute food to food insecure families at the Rise City Church, 1305 Middlefield Road, Redwood City. Up to 5 of us will volunteer from 2:00-4:00 and/or 4:00-6:00 on Wednesday, November 2. Please wear a face mask and your Palo Alto Rotary Club t-shirt if you have one. This activity is outdoors, under canopy tents. Neighborhood parking has a 2-hour limit, so if you volunteer for both shifts, you may park in the church parking lot.

Nuestra Casa is a past Palo Alto Rotary grant recipient. Their food distribution program serves 6,000 people per month in East Palo Alto and Redwood City. They recover healthy, high-quality food from distributors around the Bay Area. This reduces peoples’ grocery bills so they can use that money for rent, utilities, or transportation. It reduces the stigma and transportation barriers people face when using local food pantries. By reducing food waste, we're also reducing greenhouse gases. Learn more at https://nuestracasa.org

Members are welcome to attend by Zoom. Link is the same as for a regular meeting.

Link to sign up for December 7: https://forms.gle/cTAHYQkXYLHCQiw29

On the 1st Wednesday of each month, our Palo Alto Rotary Club helps Nuestra Casa distribute food to food insecure families at the Rise City Church, 1305 Middlefield Road, Redwood City. Up to 5 of us will volunteer from 2:00-4:00 and/or 4:00-6:00 on Wednesday, December 7. Please wear a face mask and your Palo Alto Rotary Club t-shirt if you have one. This activity is outdoors, under canopy tents. Neighborhood parking has a 2-hour limit, so if you volunteer for both shifts, you may park in the church parking lot.

Nuestra Casa is a past Palo Alto Rotary grant recipient. Their food distribution program serves 6,000 people per month in East Palo Alto and Redwood City. They recover healthy, high-quality food from distributors around the Bay Area. This reduces peoples’ grocery bills so they can use that money for rent, utilities, or transportation. It reduces the stigma and transportation barriers people face when using local food pantries. By reducing food waste, we're also reducing greenhouse gases. Learn more at https://nuestracasa.org

Members are welcome to attend by Zoom. Link is the same as for a regular meeting.