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Kevin Peraino,
A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman and the Birth of Modern China, 1949,
Wednesday, May 23, 2018

March 5, 2018 /

Kevin Peraino will discuss the Truman administration’s response to the fall of Nationalist China and the triumph of Mao Zedong’s Communist forces in 1949 – an extraordinary political revolution that continues to shape East Asian politics to this day. Drawing on Chinese and Russian sources, as well as recently declassified CIA documents, he tells the story of this remarkable year through the eyes of key players, including Mao, Truman, Secretary of State Acheson, Congressman Walter Judd and Madame Chiang Kai-shek.

In the opening months of 1949, Truman found himself faced with a looming diplomatic catastrophe. Through the spring and summer, Mao’s Communist armies fanned out across mainland China, annihilating the rival troops of America’s one-time ally Chiang Kai-shek and taking control of Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities. As Truman and his aides scrambled to formulate a response, they were forced to contend not only with Mao but with unrelenting political enemies at home. Over the course of the year, Mao fashioned a new revolutionary government in Beijing that laid the foundation for the China we know today, while Chiang Kai-shek would flee to the island sanctuary of Taiwan.  These events transformed American foreign policy – leading ultimately to decades of friction with Communist China, a long-standing U.S. commitment to Taiwan, and the subsequent wars in Korea and Vietnam.

Kevin is a veteran foreign correspondent who has reported from around the world. A senior writer and bureau chief at Newsweek for a decade, he was a finalist for the Livingston Award for foreign reporting and part of a team that won the National Magazine Award in 2004. He is the author of “Lincoln in the World: The Making of a Statesman and the Dawn of American Power.” His latest book is titled A Force So Swift: Mao, Truman and the Birth of Modern China, 1949.
Arranged by John Schlachtenhaufen

 

Video of his presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO_Qu_gJaVA

Moritz von Stuelpnagel,
What it takes to make a Broadway hit ,
Wednesday, March 14, 2018

March 5, 2018 /

Moritz von Stuelpnagel will discuss how a passion and an idea – against all odds – became a Broadway show and will explain what it takes to make a hit. Along the way, he’ll touch on how the feast or famine economics and the cut-throat politics of the industry work from the inside.

Moritz, a Broadway theatre director, originally hails from Darien and Greenwich. Today, he is an award winning, internationally recognized theatre director based in New York City. His recent Broadway revival of Noel Coward’s “Present Laughter” garnered three Tony Award nominations. He guided Robert Askins’ play “Hand of God” to success, starting Off-Off Broadway to Off-Broadway to the play’s Broadway debut, where it received five Tony nominations. Before arriving on Broadway, the play earned a Lortel Award and a nomination for a Joseph A. Callaway Stage Directors and Choreographers Award. He also directed “Hand of God” in London’s West End, receiving an Olivier nomination for Best New Comedy.

Other recent Off-Broadway productions include “Teenage Dick,” Public Theater; “Important Hats of the Twentieth Century,” Lincoln Center Theatre; “Bike America,” Ma-Yi Theater; “Love Song of the  Albanian Sous Chef,” Ensemble Studio Theater; “Trevor,” Lesser America; “Mel & El: Show & Tell,” Ars Nova; “The Roosevelt Cousins Thoroughly Sauced,” Ensemble Studio Theatre; “Spacebar,” Studio 42; and “My Base and Scurvy Heart,” Studio 42. His work has been seen in other venues such as the Alliance Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Huntington Theatre and many others. As a sometimes producer, he is the former artistic director of Studio 43, New York’s producer of “introducible” plays.

He is a graduate of the Greenwich public schools and holds a B.F.A. in theatre
studies from Boston University and an M.F.A. in direction from Rutgers University.

Arranged by Bert von Stuelpnagel

Video: https://youtu.be/efvfGkUjaDs

Book Club: Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin, June 13, 2018

March 2, 2018 /

Note we’ll meet on summer hours – 9:00 Mather Center.
The magnificent new novel by the gifted, singular #1 New York Times bestselling author of Winter’s Tale and A Soldier of the Great War Mark Helprin’s powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories. Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour?a ma?tre at Paris-Sorbonne, cellist, widower, veteran of the war in Algeria, and child of the Holocaust?must find a balance between his strong obligations to the past and the attractions and beauties of life and love in the present. In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life?days bright with music, family, rowing on the Seine?Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age. Against the backdrop of an exquisite and knowing vision of Paris and the way it can uniquely shape a life, he forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth. In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Mark Helprin’s Paris in the Present Tense is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory

Happy Wanderers Staten Island, March 20, 2018

March 1, 2018 /

Happy Wanderers Staten Island
Joe Spain will lead the Happy Wanderers on their kick off trip this season on Tuesday, March 20 with a trip to Staten Island. Plans are to take the subway from Grand Central Station to the ferry terminal at the tip of Manhattan and then across the
lower harbor to New York’s southernmost borough. The walk will include a tour of several historic districts and a ride on the Islands transit system.

 

Report on Happy Wandering to
Staten Island

Following is a report by Joe Spain about the Happy Wanderers’ trip to Staten Island this past Tuesday that he had planned to deliver at our Wednesday meeting.

This account also may be of interest to any member who has never been on a wandering.

Tuesday, we boarded the 8:36 a.m. train from Darien. David Mace and Sunil Saksena jumped on at Norton Heights a few minutes later.

At Grand Central, we checked at the Information Booth for others who might have been on other cars of our train or who had come to Grand Central to rendezvous with us.

No one else appeared so we took the Lexington Avenue Express downtown to Bowling Green and walked a block to the ferry terminal.

We boarded the 10:30 a.m. ferry, the Samuel I. Newhouse, and were strolling out of the St. George Terminal on Staten Island at about 11 a.m.

We walked south toward the Government Center District, noting that several statues were there, including one of General Barrett in the Barrett Triangle. We passed by Borough Hall and the Richmond County Court House.

We took our libation break at Steiny’s Pub on Hyatt Street. From there, we walked the historic St. George’s, St. John’s Avenue and Stapleton districts.

Our walk was punctuated by the arrival of spring at 12:15 p.m. and ended at the Stapleton station of the Staten Island Railway, where, given the blustery weather, we decided to choose a restaurant close to that rail line for our luncheon stop. We proceeded by rail to the southern tip of the Island, along the Arthur Kill Channel that runs between Staten Island and New Jersey. We had a fine Italian meal at Angelina’s.

After lunch, we observed the local vistas, including the Outerbridge Crossing over the channel. We then boarded the railway for our trip back north and right into the St. George Terminal.

We took the next ferry and were graced with the photography services of a most pleasant European acupuncturist, who took our photo along the starboard side of the Andrew J. Barbieri, with, we hoped, Lady Liberty in the background.

Back in Manhattan, we boarded the Lexington Avenue subway for Grand Central and were able to make the 5:34 p.m. train for Noroton Heights and Darien.

As a side point, I should mention that the two ferries we took, while not close to being full, are the two largest in the city’s fleet.

Moreover, these two ferries, of 1981 vintage, are the two largest passenger-capacity vessels in the world, each capable of carrying 6,000 people.

Current Affairs: End of Life Care – Issues and Policies, May 17, 2018

February 15, 2018 /

Discussion leader: Jim Phillips
Just because we can extend life, should we? The U.S. is expected to spend $2.8 trillion on health care in 2012. Medicare alone will cost taxpayers $590 billion, with over 25% going toward patients in their last year of life. If health care is a scarce resource, limited by its availability and our ability to pay for it, should government step in to ration care, deciding whose life is worth saving? In other words, how much is an extra month of life worth?

For The Motion
The U.S. spends more on health care than any other industrial nation—in 2012 we are expected to spend $2.8 trillion. We cannot afford our health care system and expensive end-of-life care costs are a major contributor to this problem.
Rationing means getting better value for the trillions we spend every year.
Rationing already happens. Medicare decides what it will reimburse, private insurance decides what they will cover, and individuals go without care and medicine every day when they can’t afford it.
We must ration based on cost-effectiveness, not on an individual’s ability to pay.
If we spent less on those who, with or without treatment, have only a few months left to live, we would be better able to help those who may have decades.
Against The Motion
The government should not have the power to determine who lives, who dies, and who gets treatment based on calculations of quality and quantity of life.
Health care costs can be reined in without rationing care.
Targeting “end-of-life” care specifically would result in very little cost savings.
Rationing care will lead us down a moral slippery slope. How many years of life is enough? Who is productive and worthy, and who is not?

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/ration-end-life-care

In 1994, Oregon voters passed the Death with Dignity Act, which legalized physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Since then, it has become legal in 4 more states, including New Mexico, where the state court ruling that it is constitutional is under appeal. Is it, in the words of the American Medical Association’s code of ethics, “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer”? Will these laws lead to a slippery slope, where the vulnerable are pressured to choose death and human life is devalued? Or do we need to recognize everyone’s basic right to autonomy, the right to end pain and suffering, and the right to choose to die with dignity?

For The Motion
The right to die as one chooses—and to decide when life is no longer worth living—is integral to human freedom, liberty, and personal autonomy. Neither the government, nor religious institutions, should impose their own conceptions of morality upon individuals who are not harming others.
As an option in end-of-life care, aid in dying would allow terminally ill, mentally competent individuals to retain dignity and bodily integrity in the face of insurmountable pain and suffering.
In places where assisted suicide is legal—namely, Oregon and the Netherlands—there is no evidence that the law is being abused, that vulnerable populations are being targeted, or that patients are being coerced by doctors and/or their families to choose death.
If physician-assisted suicide remains illegal, lesser and more dangerous alternatives—shooting oneself, enlisting doctors or family to break the law, DIY suicide—will spread in its place.
Against The Motion
If assisted suicide is legalized, we will be led down a slippery slope towards pervasive medical killing, endangering vulnerable populations—disabled, elderly, minority, or poor—whose lives are seen as a burden on society.
If pain is treated effectively, there is no need to treat the patient as if the patient were the “problem to be eliminated.”
Starting with the Hippocratic Oath, medical professional codes prohibit killing, holding the intrinsic value of human life and dignity above all other ethical principles. Assisted suicide erodes the doctor-patient relationship and has grave potential for misuse and abuse.
Many physicians do not want to have God-like power over others, and they should not be pressured, against their own convictions, to assist in a patient’s suicide.
https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/legalize-assisted-suicide

 

As people approach the end of their lives, they and their families commonly face tasks and decisions that include a broad array of choices ranging from simple to extremely complex. They may be practical, psychosocial, spiritual, legal, existential, or medical in nature.

http://www.apa.org/topics/death/end-of-life.aspx

End-Of-Life Policy Solutions: A Cautionary Note
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20170710.060992/full/

Ethical Issues Surrounding End-of-Life Care: A Narrative Review
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4934577/

How to Curb the High Cost of Caregiving
https://www.barrons.com/articles/how-to-curb-the-high-cost-of-caregiving-1521253021

HOW TO ENROLL IN VETERANS HEALTH INSURANCE (TRICARE)
http://www.dummies.com/personal-finance/veterans-benefits/how-to-enroll-in-veterans-health-insurance-tricare/

How to grow old in your own home
https://www.fidelity.com/insights/retirement/aging-in-place

Paying for Care
https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/paying-care

Problems and Solutions in End-of-Life Healthcare
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/leadership/problems-and-solutions-end-life-healthcare#

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-talk-with-your-dying-loved-one-1523891127

“Long May She Wave” at the Darien Historical Society, Thursday, February 8 at 7:30PM

January 31, 2018 /

The Darien Historical Society’s current exhibit is called “Long May She Wave” — the chronological evolution of our Flag. It features a number of genuine historic flags, plus many more replica flags from the pre-Revolutionary War era to modern times.

The Society has invited the DMA for a free Curator’s Tour for Thursday, February 8 at 7:30 p.m. It includes the major flag exhibit and two smaller exhibits (flag photos and Historic War-Time Darien Love Letters). The tour is open to members of the Darien Men’s Association and their significant others.

The “stars” of the show are the Society’s antique flags, but there is also a timeline presentation included that highlights the key historical events in Darien as the Flag evolved.

There is also have a mini-exhibit of a local man’s collection of flag art photographs. After 9-11, this became his passion and he has exhibited and traveled all over the country in search of people celebrating the red, white and blue.

In the house museum, we have in addition a collection of Revolutionary War-era love letters written to a woman who lived in Middlesex Parish.

See more info at the Society’s WEB Site: darienhistorical.org

Joe Spain

Current Affairs: Refugees, April 19, 2018

January 19, 2018 /

Discussion leader: David Mace

 

Here is a good overview piece from the Pew Research Center on refugees

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/30/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/

IQ2  Debate:

Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, more than 4 million Syrians have fled the country, creating the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. Most have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, but many have risked death to reach Europe and the possibility of a better life. Unlike Europe and Syria’s neighbors, the United States has had the advantage of picking and choosing from afar, taking in just over 2,000 Syrian refugees since the war’s start. The Obama administration has pledged to take another 10,000 in 2016, but there are some who suggest that we are falling well below the number that we can and should accept. What are our moral obligations, and what are the cultural, economic, and security issues that must be taken into account? Should the U.S. let in 100,000 Syrian refugees?

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/us-should-let-100000-syrian-refugees

Fact sheet supporting the debate:

https://dariendma.org//wp-content/uploads/Refugee-Facts-Oct-2015-FINAL.pdf

And a rebuttal to the fact sheet:

https://cis.org/Report/FactChecking-Fact-Sheet-Refugee-Resettlement

 

 

“Beautiful” The Carole King Musical March 9, 2018

January 17, 2018 /

“Beautiful, The Carole King Musical,” tells the inspiring true story of King’s remarkable rise to stardom, from being part of a hit songwriting team with her husband Gerry Goffin to becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history. Along the way, she made more than beautiful music — she wrote the soundtrack to a generation.

Featuring a stunning array of beloved songs, including “I Feel The Earth Move,” “One Fine Day,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” “You’ve Got A Friend” and the title song, “Beautiful.”

Friday, March 9, 2018

11:45 a.m.

Lunch at the Union League Cafe.
Three-course meal in a private room.

2-4 p.m.

New Haven Schubert Theater, one block from lunch.

$110 per person

Includes lunch and show tickets. Drinks extra.

Tickets very limited and are on a first-come, first-paid basis.

Transportation to New Haven is by car and ridesharing. Parking is available at the theater, 247 College Street, New Haven.

For information, contact:

Tom Brayton, tfbraryton@gmail.com
Chris Snyder, csnydereco@gmail.com

William Frederick McClelland, Jr., died on January 7, 2018

January 12, 2018 /

William Frederick McClelland, Jr., a Darien resident since 1958, died on January 7, 2018, at home. He was 92.

Born December 16, 1925, in Bronxville, New York, he was the son of William Frederick McClelland and Mary Louise Mickel McClelland. His sister, Marjorie, and his wife of 54 years, Katherine “Kay” Hickman McClelland, predeceased him.

Bill graduated from Scarsdale High School, won a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and went on to become a pioneer in the computer industry.

He joined IBM in New York City, where they were developing a digital computer called the SSEC, which covered the street floor of IBM’s Madison Avenue building. This was just prior to the birth of the stored program computer that became the basis of the computer revolution.

He was one of the developers of IBM’s first stored program computer, the 701, and wrote some of its first computer programs.

During his career he assisted other technology pioneers at Oak Ridge, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Rand Corporation in the use of the computer.

After retiring from IBM, he joined his wife’s company, the Darien Travel Center, and traveled extensively.

Bill was an advocate for MIT and its initiatives in Artificial Intelligence and Brain and Cognitive Sciences in support of graduate students in the School of Science, and was a founding member of MIT’s Champions of the Brain Fellows.

He served on the Planning and Zoning Committee, the RTM, the Darien Information Technology Committee, and was a strong supporter of the Darien Library.

He was a member of the Tokeneke Club and the Darien Men’s Association. He was known for his quick wit and intellectual curiosity, and led the weekly Contemporary Issues discussion group at the Darien Senior Center until just a few weeks before his
death.

Bill is survived by his three children, William McClelland III, Frances McClelland Brady, and James McClelland, and his long-time companion, Lynne Lippincott.

A private family remembrance was held at his home.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Darien Library.

Rocco A. Evola June 29, 1919 – January 7, 2018

January 9, 2018 /

Rocco A. Evola, a resident of Darien, CT, passed away on Sunday, January 7, 2018 at home in Darien. Born on June 29, 1919 in Flushing, NY, he was the son of the late Rocco Gaetano and Maria Smania Evola. He was 98.

Before serving with the U. S. Army Corp during World War II, Rocco attended Pratt Institute. He received a B.S. degree in drafting and architecture from New York University. He taught drafting and other subjects at Thomas Edison High School in Jamaica, NY for over 30 years. After retirement, he opened and operated RAE’s Antiques and Clocks in Flushing, NY for many years. He enjoyed helping with the Darien Boy Scouts annual tag sale.

His hobbies were clock repairing and wood working. He was a member of Watch and Clock Associations, a past member of the Darien Senior Center, the Darien Senior Men’s Association and ROMEO’s (Retired Old Men Eating Out).

Rocco is survived by his two children, Kevin F. Evola of Melbourne Beach, FL and Maura J. Evola and her husband, Ed Jonker, of Darien. He is survived by two grandchildren, Scott Jonker, a student at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, John Jonker, a student at Union College and his girlfriend Abi Marin, also a student at Union College. He was predeceased by his beloved wife Frances Evola.

Rocco is also survived by his siblings Julia Leskinen of Flushing, NY; Phillip Evola of Tryon, NC; Terry Catalano also of Tryon, NC; and Lawrence Evola of Buffalo, NY. He was predeceased by siblings Katie Stonehill, Louis Evola, Connie Evola, Tony Evola, John Evola, Rose Murphy, Helen Fetzer and Anna Evola.

He loved the family’s two dogs Lily and Vincent, both Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. He really liked spending time with the family, especially his grandsons, a glass of red wine with dinner and still approving Maura’s clock and collectable purchases.

The family will receive friends at the Edward Lawrence Funeral Home, 2119 Post Road, Darien on Friday, January 12, 2018 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. John R.C. Church, 1986 Post Road, Darien on Saturday, January 13, 2018 at 9:30 AM.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, 1663 Bristol Pike, Bensalem, PA 19020.
To send flowers or a remembrance gift to the family of Rocco Evola, please visit our Tribute Store.

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