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Rota-Letter January 5

ROTA-LETTER for Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Bloomington Rotary Club ( www.bloomingtonrotary.org ) –Founded 1918

Rotary 2009-2010: “The Future of Rotary is in Your Hands”

NEXT MEETING:

PLACE: Frangipani Room, January 12

SUBJECT: Club Assembly & Youth Exchange
Natasha Vaubel, I.U. Comparative Literature Instructor,
who was a Rotary Exchange student in 1984.

January 5 Meeting
GREETER: Steve Moberly

PLEDGE & REFLECTION: Sara Laughlin

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: Jean Emery introduced the following guests : Charlotte Griffin, wife of Jim Griffin; Chris Cinkoske, guest of Bob Gutmann; Ken Pimple, guest of Glenda Murray; Perry Metz, guest of Christina Kuzmych; Vanessa Schwegman and Ned Baugh, guests of Sara Laughlin; and
Claude Cookman, guest of Jim Bright.

EULOGY: Kent Owen gave a moving Reflection about our recently deceased Rotarian, Tom Meglemre. Tom was our oldest member, having been a Rotarian since 1951 and had also been President of this Club. Tom was from Lawrence County and had been a pilot and a jeweler and then became Director of Telephone Service for I.U. He was a modest man who worked at bringing people together.
At I.U. he helped numerous International students and then stayed in touch with them throughout their careers.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
• Phil Meyer will be nominating one member each month to help recruit volunteers for Teachers Warehouse.

PROGRAM:

David Albright introduced Fred Cate, Director of the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at I.U. Mr. Cate is also a Professor of Law and has served on various UN committees regarding Cybersecurity and is an advisor to Microsoft.

He initially commented on the difficulty of ensuring airline safety since there are some 739 million airline customers per year, unless we choose a system like Israel, that can result in a 6 hour boarding cycle. Basically, we will probably not achieve “perfect” security, but we can move closer to an Israeli system, by concentrating on the most serious risks. For example, we should use an evidence based approach and not automatically treat everyone the same. The current system wastes scarce resources by not focusing on the real problems. However, the new approach of concentrating mainly on passengers from 14 countries should be an improvement.

The broader area of Information Security is the single greatest threat to our country. Most of our basic industrial and governmental functions are operating over the Internet, such as Air Traffic Control and electric power systems. All of these systems are vulnerable and susceptible to sabotage.

However, we are not doing enough to protect all of our systems. The dollars spent on Cybersecurity in the U.S. per year are less than the money spent in one day in Iraq.

We need a better approach and I.U. is a leader in this area.

FUTURE MEETINGS:

January 19 – Scott Kennedy, Political Science and East Asian Languages and
Culture Department: “China’s Domestic and International Response to the Global Economic Crisis.” Location: Frangipani Room
January 26 – Roy Gardner, Economics & West European Studies: “ Ukraine –
Today and Tomorrow.” Location: Frangipani Room
February 2 - Randy White, Cardinal Stage Company. Location: Frangipani Room
February 9 - Elinor “Lin” Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Location: Frangipani Room

Today’s Reporter: Lee Caulfield