We wish you a wonderful holiday!
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Senator Richard Blumenthal
Richard Blumenthal, United States Senator for Connecticut, serving his first term, will talk about the key issues facing the state and the country.
Previously, he served five terms as Connecticut’s attorney general where his law enforcement for consumer protection, environmental stewardship, labor rights and personal privacy helped reshape the role of state attorney general’s nationwide. As attorney general he advocated for reforms in health insurance and worked to eradicate corruption in state government. He fought unfair utility rate charges and air pollution causing acid rain.
From 1977 to 1981, he served as a U.S. attorney for Connecticut. He also served in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1984 to 1987 and the Connecticut State Senate from 1987 to 1990.
Senator Blumenthal graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he was editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal. He served in the United States Marine Corps Reserves from 1970 to 1976 and was honorably discharged with the rank of sergeant.
Arranged by Bob Fiske
If the Darien schools are closed because of weather conditions, there will be no DMA meeting on that day.
If the Darien schools either open on a delayed schedule, or close on an early schedule, the DMA meeting will be held at the usual time on that day.
School closings are announced text crawls on Optimum News12 television, and on Optimum Channel 6, they are also announced on local radio stations WSTC(1400AM) and WLNK(1350AM).
Board of Finance Chairman Jon Zagrodzky (image from Darien TV79 video)
Jon Zagrodzky, chairman of the Town of Darien Board of Finance, will summarize his comments to the December 12, 2016, State of the Town meeting. That meeting covers key town financial issues, including the outlook for the 2018-2019 budget process, which starts in January, and the possible impact of Hartford’s difficult financial situation on the Town of Darien.
The elected seven-member Board of Finance is responsible for the town’s $130 million annual budget. Jon also serves as a member of the Darien Town and Police Pension boards and was president of the Darien Historical Society from 2011-2015. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Forman School, a Litchfield (Connecticut) high school that specializes in children with learning differences.
Jon is a managing director of Oak Hill Capital Partners and serves as chief administrative officer and chief compliance officer. He is responsible for finance, operations, human resources, administration, information technology and business planning.
Prior to joining Oak Hill, he was an associate principal and director of financial planning and analysis at McKinsey & Company.
He earned a B.A. degree in economics and romance languages from Washington & Lee University and an M.B.A. degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Arranged by Tom Lom
Sylvia Reiss will talk about “Our Amazing Stone Walls: What They Are and Where They Are.”
A local resident, stone wall enthusiast and historian, Sylvia will present a fascinating, educational and amusing look at these historical structures. Stone walls are the signature archaeological legacy of Darien and New England itself. They can be seen along roadsides, far into the woods, across back yards and between houses. The stone walls delineate and define northeastern America as surely as the Appian Way says Italy or the Great Wall says China.
Darien is fortunate to have within its 23.4 square-miles many miles of these walls that have for centuries characterized our town’s agrarian heritage. It is the story of millions of fieldstones, tossed, stacked and laid; of single walls, double walls capped or coped; of rare walls and mysteries that will be revealed during Sylvia’s presentation.
Sylvia Reiss is a former teacher, retired antiques dealer, past president of the Antiques Council, and tag-along historian with her husband Ken Reiss, who is the Darien Historical Society’s historian.
Arranged by Tom Haacke
Art Gottlieb
Art Gottlieb, a local historian on political and military history, will talk on whether the use of the atomic bomb was justified in order to bring the war in the Pacific to a speedier conclusion.
Art is a professional curator of naval history and Technical Director of Exhibits at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York City. He has worked with veterans of all services creating exhibits accurately, illustrating the history of 20th-century warfare and has helped recover scores of artifacts from warships slated for demolition.
He coordinates with all branches of the armed services to preserve historic ships, aircraft and armor from around the world. Art also serves as a counselor and certified senior advisor in Norwalk, Conn.
He uses his professional talents to address the needs of aging veterans and their families and offers pro bono counseling services to soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
He served as an auxiliary officer of the United States Coast Guard for 17 years and, for four years, was commander of Flotilla 7-2, 1st District (Southern Region), Sector Long Island Sound North.
Arranged by Tom Lom.
The 2016 Silvermine Challenge DMA vs. Senior Men’s Club of New Canaan (SMCNC) was held at the Silvermine Golf Club on June 24th. This was the fifth consecutive year that this friendly yet spirited competition has been held. This year’s competition ended up in a 15 – 15 tie. DMA leads the series 3 – 1 with 1 tie.
The DMA Golf Team comprised the following members:
- Dave McCollum
- Tom Haack
- Jim Crane
- Jim Kelly
- Woody Woodworth
- Bud Bain
- Tom Reifenheiser
- Fred Conze
- Michael Poler
- Gunnar Edelstein
- Kevin Davidson
- Kevin Monahan
- Mike Brennan
- Austin Schraff
- Spike Reed
- Joe Holmes
- Alex Garnett
- George Gilliam
- David Mace
- Peter Carnes
Dave McCollum won the Closest to the Pin Award.
Denny Devere (Captain)
We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving!
Frederic Chiu
Frederic Chiu will talk about his life as a pianist. His intriguing piano-playing and teaching springs from a diverse set of experiences and interests that include his Asian/American/European background and his musical training that he has combined with an early and ongoing exploration of artificial intelligences and human psychology, especially the body-mind-hearts connection.
With over 25 CDs, his repertoire includes the complete works of Prokofiev and popular classics of Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn and Rossini. His work has been recognized by Stereo Review, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.
Chiu has toured Europe and the United States appearing with world renowned orchestras in prestigious halls such as the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Koi and Suntory Halls in Tokyo.
His most recent releases are entitled “Distant Voices” and “Hymns & Dervishes.” On his 50th birthday he hopes to have completed performances in 50 of the United States.
Arranged by Tom Lom
A brief video of Chiu playing the piano can be seen by clicking on the image below.
Dr. Arash Salardini
Dr. Arash Salardini, Assistant Professor Of Neurology, Yale Medical School and co-director, Yale Memory Clinic, will talk about dementia, the degree to which it is preventable or reversible, and the results of the latest Alzheimer’s research, including the use of brain imaging to study the disease.
He is currently the associate leader of the clinical core of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center at Yale where he sees patients who have problems with thinking, understanding, learning and remembering due to neurodegenerative and other neurological causes. His work has been widely published both in the United States and internationally. He is editor of the text book The Hospital Neurology Book to be published this year by McGraw-Hill.
Dr. Salardini received his medical degree in 1999 from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia where he developed his interest in neurology. In 2007, he began a two year fellowship in movement disorder at Yale, and then completed a residency at the University of Florida under the noted neurologist Dr. Kenneth Heilman. He returned to Yale to complete a two year fellowship in behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry under the nationally prominent research neurologist Dr. Stephen Strittmatter.
I recently celebrated a personal milestone which I feel compelled to share … September 23, 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of my arrival in the United States. It was cause not only for celebration but also for reflection and thanks.
Fifty years ago, in September 1966, a young man from India boarded a Pan Am flight from New Delhi, India bound for San Francisco, Cal. I was coming to the University of California at Berkeley to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. My plan was to obtain the degree, work for two or three years and then head back home. Little did I know…
Within weeks of my arrival in Berkeley, I had inhaled the fresh air of freedom and, this being Berkeley in the sixties, it wasn’t just freedom, it was freedom plus. At that time India wasn’t the rollicking democracy it is today. It was run on socialist lines where the government controlled all major sectors of the economy, and personal freedoms, while enshrined in the country’s constitution, were, in practice, hugely circumscribed. So for me to taste this freedom in Berkeley, was a heady experience: it was intoxicating, it was liberating and it became addictive. It felt like a new birth, in fact, “a new birth of freedom,” to quote that immortal phrase from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Once having tasted this freedom, it was hard to untaste it; once the mind has been unshackled, it is hard to allow it to be shackled again. I decided to abandon my plan to return to India and to make America my new home.
Now, 50 years later, the fact that I am a resident of the prosperous town of Darien is not so much a testament to anything special that I accomplished. Rather, it is a testament to this country that it can take a young man of perhaps modest ability and intelligence, and mold and motivate him to be the best that he can be. This is the true genius of America and that’s what makes this country great.
As I reflected, I realized that I, an immigrant, have lived in this country longer than three-quarters of native born Americans living today, because they are less than 50 years old. Just think about that. It is truly astonishing and could happen in no other country. And that, too, is what makes America great.
And so I say to America: Thank you for a great 50 years!
Sunil Saksena