EWCA Discussion Board

By Peter Nunan (ISI ‘66-’68)

Brisbane Chapter members celebrating East-West Center Day at the Nepalese Pavilion in South Bank, Brisbane, Australia

On Sunday 18 May, the Brisbane chapter celebrated EWC Day with a picnic next to the Nepalese pavilion in South Bank, which was built for the EXPO 88. The place was chosen because we were inaugurating our sister chapter relationship with the Kathmandu Chapter in Nepal. We chose that chapter for this initiative because we have a local member who was born there, Bhishna Bajracharya.

At the picnic and chapter meeting were Bhishna Bajracharya and his wife Edilyn; Karen and Peter Nunan; Iraphne and Ralph Childs; and Pat Byrne, Aline and Jeremy Webb, chapter President.

We plan to exchange brief biographical details with the Nepalese (Kathmandu) chapter, to help us decide what we will do next in this relationship. A meeting in a Nepalese restaurant is planned for late June to discuss our options.

By Jeramy Webb (ISI ‘66-’68)
EWCA Brisbane Chapter

Petrol prices are reaching around $1.60 per litre in Australia and in New Zealand, when I was there, they had reached $2 a litre.

Now a lot of politicians around the world want to increase the production of ethanol to reduce dependence on oil and reduce the tax on petrol. But policies are badly misguided. The reasons are pretty clear. Firstly, given the world is inexorably running out of oil there is no better way to push people into substitutes than to let the price push them. Continue Reading »

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The Southern California Chapter decided to hold an event on May 3rd in honor of 2008 being the International Year of the Reef. IYOR involves over 60 countries and hundreds of non-profit, academic and other organizations working to alert the world to the importance of reefs and the threats facing them. We met early in the afternoon in a conference room at the Administrative offices of the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Sixteen Alumni attended altogether including two folds from the Arizona Chapter who drove all the way to California to join us. Continue Reading »

Dr. Anees A. Sheikh (ISI ‘61, OG ‘84) is professor and former chair of the Department of Psychology at Marquette University and clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the University of Wisconsin.

Dr. Sheikh will be giving a free lecture “Healing Images: Connecting with Inner Wisdom,” on Wednesday, May 28 at the University of Hawaii Manoa Campus, Krauss Hall 012 at 7 pm. A full-day workshop will also be offered on Friday, May 30 from 10 am to 5 pm at the University of Hawaii at Manoa for $150 for the general public and $114 for students. For more information click here.

By Beryl Yang

EWCA Hawaii Chapter 2008 Travel Grant Recipients (from left to right): Carl Polley, Thuy La, Maria Chelo Manlagnit, and Turro Wongkaren. Not shown: Stuart Candy

On Saturday, May 10, the EWCA Hawaii Chapter sponsored a celebration of East-West Center Day at Hale Halawai. Following opening remarks by special guest speaker Raymond Burghardt, the Hawaii Chapter announced five student recipients of the EWCA 2008 Summer Travel Grant: Thuy La (Vietnam), Maria Chelo Manlagnit (Philippines), Carl Polley (USA), Turro Wongkaren (Indonesia) and Stuart Candy (Australia). Continue Reading »

Our deepest sympathy goes out to all of those affected by the recent tragedies in both Myanmar and China. Our thoughts are with the EWCA alumni and their families, along with everyone in the region and hope for a speedy recovery.

For those who would like to contribute to the relief effort in these areas there are several organizations accepting donations including, but not limited to: Mercy Corps, World Vision, Direct Relief International, and Operation USA. Please see their websites for more information.

Mr. Junichi Kaneko, Ambassador Ray Burghardt, and Dr. Tomohide Ashida at Chishaku-in Temple in Kyoto

On April 21, a beautiful spring day, Ambassador Ray Burghardt, Director of East-West Seminars, met with EWC alumni in Kyoto at a lunch organized by the EWCA Kansai Chapter at the Hotel Granvia. Ray brought the alumni up-to-date on developments at the Center and heard from them about how important the EWC experience had been for their lives. After the luncheon meeting, alumni chapter president, Tomohide Ashida, gave Ray and Susan Burghardt a tour of some of Kyoto’s most famous sights.

The East-West Views site has a blog post on the current art gallery exhibition featuring EWC alumnus and President of the Islamabad Chapter, Arjumand Faisel. Featured in the post are links to other media reviews of the exhibition. Click here to read the post.