July 30, 2007 Spokesman
The July 20, 2007 Kirkland Rotary meeting was called to order at 6:30 PM by acting President, former President and Assistant District Governor Bill Taylor. Pat Dye led us to honor our flag by a generous salute and Gary Bruner provided the inspirational moment from a poem by J V. Coulter reflecting on the precious nature of the moments of time we are given. In them we can find happiness, love, a smile, rewards and deeply personal events if we would but make them so.
Rich Bergdahl was the greeter and it was a pleasure to be so greeted by such a warm and personable fellow among us.
Our guests included visiting Rotarians Pammi Oberoi from Bombay, India, whose classification is a marine engineer and visiting Governor Elect for 2008 and 2009, Jesse Tam, who arrived a little late. Other guests were Becca Honcoop the new bride of Brandon Honcoop accompanying her beloved and new husband the day after their honeymoon. That shows devotion to the cause. Diane Lanspa was visiting as the guest of Joanne Primavera who was not able to make it. Ken Hollingsworth was back following his surgery and looked tall and thin but grateful with many thanks for the card and well wishes of members during his recovery.
Patti Smith introduced our speaker Dr. Gary Stobbe, MD who presented alarming information on the explosion, demographically speaking, of Autism from one in ten thousand in the mid 80's to one in one hundred fifty thousand last year. The condition presents in a "spectrum" from severely retarded to highly intelligent victims who have in common the inability to communicate or comprehend their feelings or understand the feelings of others. Early diagnosis and a costly treatment regime based significantly on education is the best help. The medical profession and the insurance industry have been slow to adjust to the magnitude of the problem. The increase is partly due to better awareness of symptoms but largely unknown in etiology. The latest thinking is that it may have a genetic component. For example, one study showed a high incidence of grandfathers of autistic victims who were engineers. Not that it skipped a generation (thank you Bill Taylor) but that people with similar brain patterns may pass on the malady to their offspring by a combination of gene interactions little understood so far. The symptoms predominate in boys and begin to show up at 18-24 months of age. There is often a severe repetition of some behaviors on the low end of the spectrum and a kind of repetitive concentration in a single subject on the higher end called Asperger Autism. The highest demographic concentration in Puget Sound is in the Lake Washington School District which may reflect the higher intelligence of the population, not something in the water. There may be multiple causes including side effects of vaccinations, mercury or other toxins or genetic effects. The cause is largely unknown. The theory of the mind recognizes that in early development stages of the brain an individual becomes aware that he is separate from others but like them. Empathy arises out of this connection in the normal development but autistic children for some unknown reason fail to get it. A thought provoking program was greeted by a broad "spectrum" of questions for which Dr. Stobbe had answers or honest admissions that he, nor his fellow specialists in the field did not know. All of us left more aware of this problem.
Alice Volpe announced cards going around for Sinclair Jones (farewell) and Sharon Chambers (well wishes for successful surgery). Gary Schuster won the right to draw the correct numbered ducky and correctly picked number 4. However, the money that was his reward for good luck was missing but to be supplied later by president Rachel on her return from vacation. The Salmon bake is next week at the Normans, cost to be determined later depending on the amount of wine to be consumed..
President in substitution, Bill Taylor ended the meeting at 7:44 PM and we went home.
John Woodbery, Scribe