LIFE Society Newsletter

President: Joy Junkert
Editor: Eleanor Lippman (951) 684-3513

Providing intellectual stimulation for those over 50 years of age interested in lifelong learning.

President's Message

I am very pleased that you elected me to be your President this year. However, I know that it is because of the past hardworking officers and members that we have such a lively organization today.

First of all our gratitude should be expressed to Marion McCarty who has been working at UCR Extension since May 16, 1988. In June of 1991 Marion's father, Dr. Gordon MacDonald, was a member of the steering committee to develop a program for retired persons. Marion and Molly Carpenter were helpful in organizing LIFE Society from the very beginning. Marion always has time to visit with you, answer your questions and make you feel welcome.

Other devoted past officers have been Marjorie Hallsten, Whitey and Agnes Harris, Virginia Schaefer and Jackie Pianalto plus many more — please express your thanks to them for their work on our behalf.

This month I am pleased to introduce a relatively new member to LIFE — Judith Auth. There was much rejoicing in my life when she accepted the job of Curriculum Chairman.

Here is a much abbreviated chronicle of her life and accomplishments — written by Judith Auth:

My family moved to Riverside in 1971. I am married, have two sons and four grandsons.

I was employed by the City of Riverside in the Library Department from 1971 until my retirement in 2006. I began as a children's librarian and ended up as Library Director. In 1996 along with Dr. Michael Reagan, retired Vice Chancellor from UCR, and then president of the Library board, we began the development of the Eastside Cybrary. Dr. Sharon Duffy, now head of UCR Extension, was one of our staunchest supporters.

In 2001 the Committee to Renew the Library was formed, and in 2002, 69% of Riverside's voters approved a $19/per year parcel tax for ten years. The Library opened more hours and conducted more programs for children. The Library opened the new Casa Blanca Library, moved the Eastside Cybrary into a larger facility, hired an architect to design an expansion for Arlington Library, and developed a plan for a new Orange Terrace Library. While employed by the library, I also enjoyed working with community organizations. From 1972-1992 I was secretary to the board of Nosotros Inc., Fine Arts Workshop & Gallery. Under the leadership of artist Leer Larkins, Nosotros provided tools and materials for art exploration primarily, but not exclusively, to children in the disadvantaged neighborhoods on the Eastside. I also worked with the Inland Area Health Services Agency on the program PRO: People Reaching Out for Peace on the Eastside.

Since retiring from the City of Riverside, I have continued to be involved with the Renew the Library Committee. I joined the Riverside Historical Society, the Mission Inn Foundation and the LIFE Society.

Distinctions: Outstanding Librarian Calif. Association of Library Trustees & Commissioners; Outstanding Nonprofit Board Member Agency Executives Association; Woman of Achievement YWCA Riverside County; Leadership Award Riverside Rain cross Club for Measure C: Renew the Library; Woman of Achievement Black Voice Foundation.

Joy Junkert

officers for 2008-2009

OFFICERS:

COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS AND MEMBERS:

UCR EXTENSION ASSOCIATES
Marion McCarty, Eilleen Milam
(951) 827-4102
Room 335, UCR Extension
1200 University Avenue
Riverside, CA 92507-4596

Publishing Policy

All articles for publication should be submitted by e-mail to the editor, Eleanor Lippman at elippman@aol.com. The Life Society Newsletter is published bimonthly.

Reminder: Deadline for the next newsletter (Nov/Dec 2008 issue) will be Oct. 19, 2008.

EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE OVER 60

Begin by standing on a comfortable surface where you have plenty of room at each side. With a 5-lb. potato sack in each hand, extend your arms straight out from your sides, and hold them there as long as you can. Try to reach a full minute, and then relax. Each day you'll find that you can hold this position for just a bit longer. After a couple weeks, move up to 10-lb. potato sacks. Then try 50-lb. potato sacks. Then eventually try to get to where you can lift a 100-lb. potato sack in each hand, and hold your arms straight for more than a full minute. (I'm at this level.) Once you feel confident at that level, put a potato in each sack.

Life Society Endowment Fund

Did you know that the LIFE Society has an endowment fund managed by the UCR Foundation?

Please remember us when making your donations or memorial gifts to UCR and have your gifts designated for the LIFE Society. For information, call Marion McCarty at 951-827-4102.

Thanks to your generous contributions, our endowment fund is growing. Our goal is to ensure that our quality program continues as our expenses continue to increase.

Thank you to Jacquie and Bob Pianalto for their recent gift to our endowment fund.

Thank you to Wilma Printy and Bob and Marion McCarty for their gifts in loving memory of Emily Neblett.

NON-FICTION BOOK STUDY GROUP

Tuesday mornings, 10:30-11:45 am, UCX room 303

China: Fragile Superpower by Susan L. Shirk was the book selected to begin our 2008/09 year.

Reviewed by John Pomfret

A fictional opening frames Shirk's book, dramatizing the possibility that China's leadership could lurch into combat with Taiwan and the United States. She sets out to explain why it is not a fantasy and why we, basically, need to be nice to China to keep the nightmare at bay.

At a time when much writing about China presumes the rise of a global titan, it is refreshing that an academic and former government official (Shirk was the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia during the Clinton administration) questions the notion that China is going to run the world. "China may be an emerging superpower," she writes, "but it is a fragile one."

China, she argues, is hemmed in by threats to its stability: an aging population, the rise of the Internet, privatization, a gap between urban rich and rural poor, a restive population fed up with corruption, pollution that sickens and kills, mounting unemployment in an economy that needs to grow 7% annually to provide jobs. Moreover, Shirk describes a regime -- half Mafia, half corporate board -- so obsessed with staying in power that it is ill-equipped to deal with these challenges.

Shirk's book shines when she shows how nationalism has hurt China's relations with Japan and the United States. She depicts ties with Washington as prone to troubles, partly because the government lacks a crisis-management system. She contends that the Ministry of Propaganda and the People's Liberation Army jumped to blame the United States for two recent crises where the US presented unrealistic demands that made it difficult for the Chinese government to back down.

One Chinese person is a dragon, a Chinese saying goes, but three of us are just an insect.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

SOCIETY VIDEO STUDY GROUP

Tuesday mornings, 10:45-11:45 am, UCX room 304

The African Experience from "Lucy" to Mandela

The story of Africa is the oldest and most event-filled chronicle of human activity on the planet. These 36 half-hour lectures cover this great historical drama, tracing the story of the sub-Saharan region of the continent from the earliest evidence of human habitation to the latest challenges facing African nations in the 21st century.

For many, Africa is a confusing fog of names, words, and places: Mandela, Biko, Mobutu, Lumumba, Lucy, Selassie, Rhodes, Livingstone, Swahili, Bantu, Boer, Zulu, Mau Mau, Tutsi/Hutu, Lesotho, and Timbuktu, to name just a few.

These lectures are designed to lift the fog and sharpen your understanding of these terms, revealing Africa in all its complexity, grandeur, tragedy, and resilience. As the chronological narrative of this course unfolds, Africa's people, places, languages, and customs will come vividly to life, and you will be able to follow events in present-day Africa in their deep historical context.

Sneak Preview:

September 9, Judge John Gabbert's
"Riverside, My Riverside"

Curriculum Support Opportunity

LIFE's Curriculum Committee's crowning glory this year will be the presentation of a professionally produced DVD titled, "Riverside, My Riverside," a trip through historic Riverside between the years 1915 and 1925. Ninety-nine year old LIFE member Judge John Gabbert tells stories from his youth in Riverside, illustrated by rare historical photos of Riverside at that time.

The LIFE Society has agreed to provide seed money for this project. However, if any LIFE members want to contribute money for the production, they should send a check payable to LIFE Society to University Extension, c/o Marion McCarty, University Extension, Dean's Office, 1200 University Avenue, Riverside CA 92507.

Those who have participated at a level of $50 or more will be acknowledged in the DVD's credits and they will also receive a copy of the completed DVD.

The DVD premiere of Part One was presented at the LIFE Society meeting on June 3, 2008, and the completely edited and updated version will open our season of speakers on September 9, 2008, at 1:30 PM in UCX Conference Room E.

Download and complete the DVD Order form.

Looking back...

The LIFE Society held its first meeting 19 years ago at the Newman Center. Thirty-six people joined Dean Jim Hartley, Molly Carpenter and Marion McCarty to hear Frances Meyers from UCLA's Plato Society (a very successful and prestigious learning in retirement group) talk to us about starting a learning in retirement organization at UCR. At that meeting, we formed a steering committee and were on our way. This committee included John Nurre, Marjorie Goodman, Esther and John Prichard, Gordon MacDonald, Leonard Farwell, Bette Fauth, Herman Stone, Gerry Bowden, and Bette Radwald.

We met at the Newman Center until UCR Extension moved to its current location in 1994. The move was timely because in three short years we had outgrown the Newman Center. The new facility provided space to expand our membership and programs. Study groups and field trips were added to our curriculum.

We owe our tremendous success to our hardworking Board of Directors and the Curriculum committee. We are all grateful to all these wonderful volunteers who make LIFE Society what it is today.

On a personal note, I am grateful to my father, Gordon MacDonald who encouraged me to get the LIFE Society started. He wanted an academic program, held at the University, available for the community. I know that he would be proud of our success.

Marion McCarty

in memoriam

Former LIFE President, Parker Pratt

Helping Everybody Hear

The Auditory Assistance devices are here. A generous donation made it possible to replace our outdated, worn-out hearing helpers. This state-of-the-art system is now available at our general meetings.

Lost or Misplaced Name Tags

Give Wilma or Toshi your name and we'll have a new one for you at the next meeting. Or call me (Eleanor at 951-684-3513) and I will see that you get a new one.

LIFE Society Budget 2007—2008

DVD delivered on time and exceeding expectations!

Molly Carpenter, Judge John G. Gabbert, and Jerry Gordon's collaboration a smashing success.

If you have seen Molly Carpenter poring over photos in the basement of the library or you have heard about Jerry Gordon searching for funds or for postcards and photos of early Riverside, you probably know what has consumed their time for the past nine months. These co-producers of the video "Riverside, My Riverside", a high quality DVD project that contains Judge John G. Gabbert's memories of living in Riverside between 1915 and 1925, have spent hundreds of hours converting the curriculum committee's idea into a recording of Gabbert's reminiscences for all to enjoy.

On September 9th the complete video will be shown to LIFE Society members and guests at the first meeting of the 2008-2009 year. In the accompanying photo Molly and Jerry appear with John after one of several sessions where they watched a draft of the DVD for sequence, sound, pacing, and the need for improvements. By the end of the project, photos that had been gathered from many collections were matched with Judge Gabbert's script to produce a LIFE Society product that is a first for our organization.

The rendition of John's memories was a project that grew out of a curriculum committee request for him to speak to our group.  One inspiration followed another as the committee contributed ideas. It then fell upon John, Molly, and Jerry to work with the videographer, Ignatius Fischer of Hemet, to complete the program. They needed to secure funding, write and revise the script, find photos and music to illustrate the narration, design a cover, and prepare the list of credits.

Following the viewing of the draft of the first half of the video to the LIFE Society in June, several of those in attendance offered images from their private collections which resulted in a better production. As an example, a photo from Miriam Bobb now illustrates a story about cars coasting down the Box Springs grade, and the cowboy aviator Roman Arren's granddaughter, Lisa Warren, provided moving picture footage of his flight under the Mission Bridge.

Now the final version is ready for unveiling.

Those DVDs that have been ordered will be distributed following the September 9th showing when it will be seen in its entirety.

As Jerry Gordon has commented, this project has been particularly notable for the level of excitement and enthusiasm everyone has exhibited throughout. It was and is a truly memorable experience.

OSHER LIFELONG LEARNING INSTITUTE
fall 2008

UCR Extension is proud to be a member of the Osher Lifelong Learning Network and continues to provide stimulating learning experiences that enrich the intellectual, social and cultural lives of adults over the age of 50. Learning takes place in a peer environment with learners whose common bonds are intellectual curiosity and the experience of their generation.

Full membership is $125 per session and entitles participants to choose up to five classes in a session. Classes are held in Riverside at UCR Extension Center and in the Coachella Valley at UCR Palm Desert Graduate Center (computer classes only) and the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences.

Also of interest this fall are two Special Field Trips: Behind the Curtain: New York City Theatre and the Spirit of Washington, D.C. See the Osher brochure for more information and how to register.

SPECIAL FALL PRICING FOR LIFE Society members: Take Osher classes at $25 per class with a special per class Parking Rate of $18.

For more information, please call 951-827-7139 or visit us at: www.extension.ucr.edu/olli

Understanding People and Views of Human Nature
Lee Gladden, Ph.D.
Mon. 10 a.m. – noon, Sept, 29 – Nov. 3 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S41

Understanding Shakespeare's Dramas
Kandie St. Germain, M.F.A.
Mon. 1- 3 p.m., Sept. 29- Nov. 3 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S42

Music of Latin America
Roberto Catalano, Ph.D.
Tues. 3-5p.m., Sept. 30 – Nov. 4 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S45

Origins of Christianity
Beth Skinner, M.A.
Wed. 9:30 -11:30 a.m., Oct. 1 – Nov. 19 (8 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S46

Grace Under Pressure: "Profiles in Courage" and Other American Heroes
Robert Kline, B.A.
Wed. 1- 3 p.m. Oct 1- Nov. 5 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S44

India: An In-Depth Look
Santosh Tandon, Ph.D.
Thurs. 10 a.m. – noon, Oct 2 – Nov. 6 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S47

Opera for Everyone
Reynir Gudmundsson, Ed.D.
Thurs. 1- 3 p.m., Oct. 2 – Nov. 6 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S48

"Remember the Ladies": Women in United States History
Kimberly Earhart, Ph.D.
Fri. 10 a.m. – noon, Oct. 3-Nov. 7 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S49

Conquering the Computer
Brenda Kooiman
Fri. 1-3 p.m., Oct. 3 – Oct.31 (5 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S52

Conquering the Computer: Using Software Applications
Brenda Kooiman
Fri. 3:30 – 5:30 p.m. Oct. 3 – Oct. 31 (5 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S51

Working with Digital Photographs
Brenda Kooiman
Fri. 1-3 p.m., Nov. 7- Dec. 12 ( no meeting Nov. 28) (5 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S53

Fairy Tales, Film and Real Life
Donna Kennedy, Ph.D. & William J. Linehan, Ph.D.
Mon. 1-3 p.m., Nov. 10- Dec. 15 (6 meetings)
Reg #082-AHS-S43

LIFE SPEAKER SCHEDULe

LIFE meetings are on Tuesdays at 1:30 pm, in Conference Room E (or nearby) at University Extension.

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