FIC MARCH PROGRAMS
March 2, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Innmate Dieter Forster. His topic – Nuclear Fusion, and Some Thoughts on the History of Technology.
On December 5, 2022, the world was startled by an announcement from a California lab that had succeeded in generating a little energy by nuclear fusion. Physicist Dieter Forster will give us his description of that process and his views on why it is so promising, and why so difficult. He will remind us, too, that our age of modern technology, when we depend so much on the next new thing, is possibly an atom in one molecule of a single grain of sand in the hourglass of human history.
Dieter grew up in Germany, earned a PhD in physics at Harvard, and spent five years at Columbia and the University of Chicago before joining the physics (and philosophy) faculty at Temple. After nearly fifty years of teaching, and doing research on the theory of normal and exotic liquids, he retired in 2017. His 1975 boo Hydrodynamic Fluctuations, Broken Symmetry, and Correlation Functions was published in the Advanced Book Program of W.A. Benjamin and is still in print.cVideo: To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation. To see Closed Captions, move your cursor to the lower right corner of the video to see available options, click on the “cc” icon, and then click on the “English (auto-generated) cc” option in the pop-up menu.
March 6, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Palmer Hartl is our Quarterback.
March 9, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speakers are new Innmate Richard Vaughn and Matt Fontana. Their topic – Past, Present, and Future of the Center City Resident’s Association.
Matt Fontana is a board member and Richard Vaughn is director of communications for CCRA. This Delaware Valley native moved to Center City in 2019 after working for many years as a technology consultant in northern New Jersey and finishing his career at Rutgers University. He soon joined the volunteer-led nonprofit CCRA. Formed in 1947, CCRA had the critical mission of saving Rittenhouse Square when it faced destruction due to plans to build an underground parking garage. Now, with its stated mission to preserve, enhance, and celebrate Center City living, the group remains dedicated to preserving the historic character of Center City West while supporting responsible development and neighborhood vitality. The organization makes news in its advocacy on hot-button property development issues, but it has much broader functions. Richard and membership chair Michele Ettinger will discuss CCRA’s focus on zoning, parks, schools, neighborhood safety, tree planting, sidewalk cleaning, recycling, and community events.
Video: To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation. To see Closed Captions, move your cursor to the lower right corner of the video to see available options, click on the “cc” icon, and then click on the “English (auto-generated) cc” option in the pop-up menu.
March 13, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Franklyn (Buck) Rodgers is our Quarterback.
March 17, Friday Club Dinner, starting with cocktails at 5:30 p.m.
Program for the evening: Luke Carlos O’Reilly – award-winning pianist, organist, composer, and educator – in solo performance of classic and contemporary jazz works. Drawn to music at an early age, Luke Carlos O’Reilly found his passion for jazz as a teenager when he discovered pianist Oscar Peterson. He has performed and recorded with late jazz luminaries such as trumpeter Clark Terry, trombonist Slide Hampton, and saxophonist Red Holloway, and with Grammy-winning contemporaries Nicholas Payton and Seal.
Luke made Philadelphia his home after attending Temple University’s Esther Boyer School of Music, where he studied under world-renowned jazz educators such as Terrell Stafford, Mulgrew Miller, and Bruce Barth. He has released four albums – most recently I Too, Sing America: A Black Man’s Diary on Imani Records in 2021, and The Perfect Christmas Album in 2022, available on Amazon Music. In 2017-18, he was Artist in Residence at the Kimmel Cultural Center.
March 20, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Tom Tropp is our Quarterback.
March 23, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Marsha Levick, cofounder of the Juvenile Law Center. Her topic – Reforming Juvenile Injustice.
Marsha Levick is cofounder, deputy director, and chief counsel of the Juvenile Law Center, the oldest public interest law firm for children in the United States. Since the center’s founding in 1975, she has earned recognition as a national leader in juvenile law. Memorably, she led litigation in the Luzerne County “kids for cash” judicial corruption scandal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, winning the decision that expunged and vacated rulings in thousands of children’s cases. And she was cocounsel on the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for retroactive application of its 2012 decision prohibiting mandatory minimum life-without-parole sentences for juveniles. JLC is now pursuing damages for the Luzerne County children and their families in a federal civil rights class action.
In 2013, Marsha was the inaugural recipient of the Arlen Specter Award, established by the Legal Intelligencer to recognize the lawyer or judge making the most significant contribution to law, the legal profession, or justice in Pennsylvania in the previous decade. She has written or coauthored briefs in many state and federal appeals, including Supreme Court cases, and has won numerous awards for her groundbreaking work. Her academic work includes many scholarly articles on children and the law, and adjunct professorships at both Penn and Temple law schools. She serves on boards of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, and on the Dean’s Council of Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Her BA is from Penn, and her JD is from Temple’s Beasley School of Law.
Video: To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation. To see Closed Captions, move your cursor to the lower right corner of the video to see available options, click on the “cc” icon, and then click on the “English (auto-generated) cc” option in the pop-up menu.
March 27, Monday Quarterback Luncheon – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Alan Penziner is our Quarterback.
March 30, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Sharon Bisaha. Her topic – Philadelphia’s Civil War Refreshment Saloons.
When the Civil War started, the federal government did not have adequate means or methods to feed and care for new Union army volunteers. Philadelphia, as a major transportation hub, found regiments passing through the city hungry, dirty, and exhausted even before they reached the battlefields. Soon, volunteers from the Southwark neighborhood took it upon themselves to offer food, water for washing, and beds for the sick. By May 1861, they had established two Refreshment Saloons, the Cooper Shop and the Union. Between them, these two centers fed hundreds of thousands of soldiers and provided medical care for thousands during the war years.
Sharon Bisaha was living in Lambertville, NJ, in 2009 when she retired from her career as a pharmaceutical chemist. She had long nurtured her interest in history at the Lambertville Historical Society, and that’s where she started a project that led to writing a book about the town as recorded in its weekly newspaper from 1860 to 1900. By the time she finished, she had moved to Philadelphia and was keen to dive into another history project. She found it when a friend suggested the Refreshment Saloons. Four years later, she published her book, A Great and Noble Work: The Volunteer Refreshment Saloons of Philadelphia During the Civil War.
Video: To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation. To see Closed Captions, move your cursor to the lower right corner of the video to see available options, click on the “cc” icon, and then click on the “English (auto-generated) cc” option in the pop-up menu.