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Palm-Mensa
Palm Beach County Mensa Newsletter
November, 2003
Contents
From History's Trickiest Questions
In New Amsterdam, the Dutch referred to one of the localities as "Krom Moerasje," which in English, means "little crooked swamp." What is the place known as today? Hint: New Amsterdam was the Dutch name for New York City before the English arrived and the Dutchmen scrambled across the Hudson River to New Jersey and the rest of New York state. Email Elissa elissa12@bellsouth.net with your guess. Another hint: this place was home to Edith Wharton, Herman Melville, Stephen Crane & many others.
Notes From The Underground
By: Barry Karas
DINNER. There was a dinner the other evening in Delray. It appeared that everybody had a very good time. We're having a First Friday on November 7, and I hope that all attendees will enjoy themselves…as they usually do.
Some of you criticize PBC Mensa for sponsoring only dinners and parties. If you feel this way you are ENCOURAGED TO sponsor another kind of event. It takes no special talent to sponsor an event, and the Executive Committee (those members listed on the back cover) is willing to help and give you advice if you want it. Please give us a call with your event ideas for PBC Mensa.
WELCOME BACK. Many of our members go up north for the summer. Then they return here. I'd like to think that they cannot stay away from PBC Mensa, but I suspect that they want to escape the cold winter temperatures. Whatever your reasons, welcome back!
WRITING. Our new Editor, Kathy Hickok, and I could use your help.
This is YOUR newsletter and we need reasonable contributions from
you, the members. By "contributions," I mean the written, not
monetary, kind. (If you want to send the monetary kind, call me
so you can get my address. You can rest assured that I will try
to establish the Tahitian chapter.
Barry Karas, LocSec
bkaras@mindspring.com
Region 10 November
By Elissa Rudolph
Yo, all of you loyal members of Mensa out there-our organization needs our coordinated, dedicated help. You may have already heard about Mensa's Certificate of Incorporation (American Mensa is incorporated in New York state) being out of sync with what we actually do and how we do it. It's true-we need to fix our CoI by amending it as quickly as we can. The fix is in two parts: specifying a quorum for our annual meeting (ABM) and specifying the ways in which members can vote. To do this we need to have a majority of our members vote to amend the CoI. The most efficient way to vote is by proxy at the next ABM in July in Las Vegas. If you will not be there in person, you can vote by proxy. Between Nov. 1 and the July 2004 ABM, Mensa will conduct a campaign to gather proxies authorizing an attendee at the ABM to vote in favor of the amendment. A vote approving the amendment of the CoI will resolve the inconsistency. For more details on how this happened and the solution proposed go to: http://www.us.mensa.org/ and click on "proxy information." Or you can call or email me and I can help you understand the challenge. The November/December Bulletin will have a postage paid proxy postcard insert with instructions. Shouldn't be too much of a stretch to make this happen. We can do it-think of it as an opportunity to show how we can work together to resolve a glitch from long ago.
Other than that little item, everything seems to be run- ning smoothly. See you soon at a Florida gathering?
Coming Soon… great Mensa Gathering events!!
January 30, 31, February 1, Smarti Gras 2004, hosted by Central Florida Mensa, at the Holiday Inn Select, Orlando; registration fee: $60 til 10/31/2003, includes meals except Sat. night; 24- hour hospitality; King cake, hurricanes & touffee, Olympic-sized hot tub, armchair treasure hunt, & more. Registrar: Eddie Truelove (407-855-9078), etruelove@cfl.rr.com .
February 13-15, ValenTime, hosted by Northwest Florida Mensa at the Holiday Inn of Destin; registration fee $35 til Jan. 31; white sand beaches, lavish hospitality overlooking those Gulf of Mexico beaches, chocolate, games, speakers, & more. Registrar: John Mochan (850-863-3599), jmochan@cox.net.
Elissa Rudolph
RVC10@us.mensa.org
5054 Lakefront Blvd., Apt. D
Delray Beach, FL 33484
561-496-0124
Notes & Numbers
As of the end of September Palm Beach County Mensa had 333 members- 5 entered the group as new, reinstated or moving in members and 21 members moved out. Welcome or welcome back to Craig Evan Behrman, Boca Raton; Michelle Cates, Boynton Beach; Mark Hunt Dorfman, Royal Palm Beach; James Garcia-Bengochea, Boynton Beach; and Theresa Morgan, Boynton Beach. Come out to an event and let us meet you or organize one in your area and meet other Mensans!
Dusty Reviews
by Miss Dustinea Jacquette,
retired, spinsterish librarian
Although I spend a lot of time reading, this retired librarian also listens to an eclectic variety of music. When a certain kind of music and a book about that music coalesce, it's time to write about it. Since Yanni, the Greek composer whose music defies categorization, came on the scene in the early 1990s, I have enjoyed his creations. Now he has collaborated with co-author David Rensin on "Yanni in Words." At last, those who feel transported by Yanni's music can gain insight into his creative process, how he incorporates his Greek heritage, and pays homage to his family along the way. "I believe music represents humanity's soul," Yanni writes. "When I compose I blend a rainbow of styles and ethnicities and witness the souls of many cultures come together . . . The result is more color, beauty, and strength. A seamless mesh. Unity."
It's no wonder that Yanni's 1994 video, Live at the Acropolis, is the third best selling video in the world, going more than 10 times platinum. The soundtrack album has sold more than 8 million units. Incorporating ancient Greek heritage and modern global music this monumental effort brought Yanni's name and his art to millions of people. This book will show you the hard work it took to produce the Acropolis piece, which then led to concerts at the Taj Mahal and in the Forbidden City in China. Truly this artist makes and takes his music to where people are most in need of coming together in harmony. This is how Yanni describes a piece of music he wrote for the Taj Mahal performance. It's called "Love is All," and dedicated to Shah Jahan and the white marble he built for his love. "Twenty-five hundred years ago, Socrates said that the perfect human being is all human beings put together. It is a collective; it is a we. . . . The next piece of music is about that . . . (and) about sending a very powerful and much needed message around the world, a message of love, unity, acceptance, and tolerance." The piece begins with a haunting sound from an Armenian instrument called a doodook. It is an incredibly gorgeous melody, that eventually breaks into a love poem. You can listen to it on the Tribute CD.
EVENT NEWS
North County Area met on October 11 for a great Thai dinner in Port St Lucie - in addition to our regular group of Bobbie Kadlecz, Donna Bognar, Alan Posner, Janice Johnson, and Laura Bulawski, we had 3 guests with us - Robert and Karen Rieffel (Mensa members from Okeechobee) and their friend, 18-year-old James - a Latin student who is getting ready to take his Mensa admission exam.Next month we will be meeting on Sunday, November 23, at 5:30 pm at R J Gator's in Port St Lucie (on US 1).We'd love to have some of our Central and South County members join us - please give Donna Bognar (772-878-6418) or Bobbie Kadlecz (772- 878-7660) a call so we can get an idea of how many will be there. In South County, dinner at 8 at Applebee's in West Delray was full of great food and even better conversation. Ann Kasper, Barry Karas, Dan Tobias, Joan Zieff, John Zwick, Kathy Hickok, Steven Mayer, were there. We'll do it again, same place, November 14th at 8.
Take Note...
This is very important for everybody who uses a PC to connect to the Internet.
"Computer security specialist Erik Laykin, president of Online Security Inc., sees the criminal underworld of Eastern Europe and Russia as a prime source for the worm onslaught. 'There you will find a large stable of very bright hackers, scientists and criminal underground,' Laykin told TechNewsWorld. 'Those are smart, effective bad guys.'"
I agree. Plus since many computer technical people both there and here are out of work some of them add to the problem.
Therefore it is very important to have a good anti-virus program running on your machine.
What is a good AV program? I cannot recommend a specific program, but there are good ones out there to choose from. (I happen to use Norton AntiVirus 2003, but there are other good ones out there.)
Barry
Note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and DO NOT reflect opinions of Palm Beach County Mensa, its officers, or of American Mensa, Ltd., which holds NO opinions.
© 2000-2007 Palm Beach County Mensa. The Mensa logo is a registered trademark of Mensa International Limited and American Mensa Limited, all rights reserved. Mensa does not hold any opinion or have, or express, any political or religious views.