Thank God those days are over.

The annual scholarship raffle is coming up soon. The rules are the same: $100 a ticket, each Rotarian is responsible for selling or buying five, and with the fifth comes one free ticket.

Purchases are tax-deductible and all proceeds go to the Foundation to support our world renowned student scholarship program.

First prize again will be valued at $15,000.

 

Angel Riley last week had two tickets left for the May 17 performance of the musical 'Mama Mia' at the Hillbarn Theater in Foster City. Join 16 of your Rotary friends and enjoy the performance, plus special privileges accorded to our group. Check with Angel to see if they're still available.

 

Ross Moilan and Prez Bruze went back and forth about the new headquarters reconstruction project at California Water Company, the upshot being Ross had to turn on the tap for the President's Club. Let the fines flow.

 

Samaritan House, the beneficiary of so much of the club's financial support, needs some sweat equity to assist with its meal home delivery. Rotarians willing to volunteer an hour or so one day a week are needed to make meal deliveries to up to 10 folks who are unable to prepare hot meals for themselves. Samaritan House can be reached at (650) 341-4081 or info@samaritanhouse.org.

 

Lisa Nash and husband Michael visited San Mateo's sister city, Toyonaka, Japan, and returned with many tales of the city. She also offered up to the highest bidder tickets to last week's Peninsula Speaker Series' event. It wasn't a bidding war — more like a skirmish — between Oscar Lopez Guerra and John Root. Root successfully forced Oscar to $200, which was accepted and deposited into Foundation coffers.

 

Mitch Williams' Home Helpers San Mateo has been open seven years. "How's it going?" President Almost-Has-Bean asked. "Not that well," Mitch replied. "Maybe," President Bruce said, "it'll be better if you join my President's Club." If that works, the President's Club will get a lot richer. Doubtful if the president has that kind of sway.

 

Among the birthdays was a landmark: June Lamb is celebrating her 94th. I think I can speak for everyone when I say June's managed to remain unchanged while all those around her show definite signs of the advance of time.
 

 

In honor of the success of the Peninsula Family Service Agency's recent gala fundraiser, Heather Cleary was happy to join the President's Club.

 

 

Mr. Oppus is a San Jose State University graduate who used his degree in radio-television to go to work in media. He left the field after a stint animating characters for PDI/Dreamworks Animation bored him to death and jumped at the chance to join the foreign service. At first he helped State's Bureau of Public Affairs Office of Broadcast Services in Washington, D.C., but subsequently earned appointments as a consular officer. He served at the U.S. Embassy in Manila, the Phillipines, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Guadalajara, Mexico.

When his one-year assignment to the Hoover Institute ends, he will return to State in Washington, D.C. to head its Department of Children's Affairs.

State employs 75,000 people — most of them, 50,000, foreign nationals who are employed by State in their home countries. There are 8,000 diplomats in 191 countries at 70 embassies and 89 consulates. There is only one embassy per country. Consulates are like satellite offices of embassies; for example, India has one embassy and five consulates.

He got right to immigration: In India the embassy reviewed between 1,400 and 1,500 visa applicants every day, meeting each one face-to-face and each staffer tasked with handling applicant files and making judgments.

"It's pretty tough," he said. "It's also pretty easy 70 to 80 percent of the time. Sometimes you need what we call the 'spidey sense,' but it's not easy. I like to think we get it right more often than not, but it's still a judgment call."

The job is "to keep out the bad guys and let the good guys in and spend money in our country," he said. He made it clear there's a lot of personal judgment behind every decision.

Embassy and consular staff are there for every visiting American in an emergency, "cradle to grave," he called it, and everything that implies.

They can't get you out of jail, but they do visit American prisoners and work to make sure they are well treated.

The most astonishing remark he made concerned China.

It's at the center of huge controversy about its dominance of the cell market globally and its push to become the world's biggest provider of 5G internet.

America has accused China of building in flaws in its internet devices which it alone can exploit to spy or even manipulate the web.

He confirmed it in so many words.

"If you go to China, do not bring your cell phone or your laptop. If you bring a cell phone, do not turn it on. If you bring a laptop, do not turn it on, because (China) is a surveillance state the likes of which we have not seen in history."