200th BIRTHDAY: The fact that it's the 200th birthday of Emmanuel Kant this year may not mean much to the rest of us mere mortals, but it's kept Burt Louden hopping. Louden, you see, is an internationally recognized authority on the 18th century German philosopher.
And, as such, he has been giving papers and talks on the philosopher throughout the world. Indeed, Louden is presenting a paper on May 19 entitled "Moral Strength: Virtue as a Duty to One's Self" at the International Symposium on Kant's Moral Philosophy at Peking U. in Beijing.
He's presented other papers this spring at universities in England, Germany and Chicago. Louden is a 1971 grad of Saratoga High and graduated from UCSanta Cruz. His doctorate is from the U. of Chicago and he is a professor of philosophy at the U. of Southern Maine.
Louden has written scores of books and papers about Kant and his contributions to ethics. His two best known books are Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings (Oxford Press 2000) and Morality and Moral Theory: A Reappraisal and Reaffirmation (Oxford Press 1992).
The professor has received dozens of academic awards and fellowships throughout his career, so many that his curriculum vitae runs on for page after page after page. He is the son of Bob and Anne Louden, retired engineer and retired librarian, respectively.
The two other Louden sons are Bruce, a language professor at Texas U. at El Paso, and Jeffrey, who has a law degree but earns his livelihood as a musician—plays with Dr. Loco's group, for one.
PLEDGE LUNCHEON: The Saratoga Senior Center is in dire need of funding since 68 percent of its budget comes from fees and fundraising. And the city can't support it beyond the 15 percent it provides. So the SASCC board came up with a pledge luncheon recently, its first annual.
Five-year pledges were sought by SASCC treasurer Ron Duffin and those attending proved generous. The afternoon netted $9,375 with more pledges expected, reported Genie Dee, executive director. "We're happy. That's three times what we've gotten with other fundraisers."
The goal is $20,000, which may be unrealistic, she added. Marilyn White and Lane Tronson co-chaired the luncheon. Committee leaders were Bonnie Fabrini, Liz Le Mat, Fran Wasserman and Ginger McClure. It was also the premiere showing of a video about the Senior Center.
Saratogan Thierry Doyen filmed the video, with the center's volunteers describing the programs they lead. Doyen earlier filmed a video of Argonaut second graders presenting handmade valentines to the seniors on Valentine's Day. Doyen made copies to be sold at the school.
The results were so enthusiastically received that he next documented the Senior Center. The center serves 1,000 people yearly. In the next four years those 75 and older is expected to increase by 200 in Saratoga.
PROMOTION TO V.P.: Dr. Prabhakar Raghavan has been promoted to senior V.P. and chief technology officer of Verity, a Sunnyvale software company. Raghavan will focus on corporate technical strategy. In addition working at Verity, Raghavan is a consulting professor of computer science at Stanford.
The author of more than 100 papers in various fields, including algorithms, Web search and databases, he has taught at universities around the world. Dr. Raghavan has served on the editorial boards of scientific journals and is editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Association for Computer Machinery.
He is a Fellow of the ACM and of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Before joining Verity, Raghavan worked at IBM, leading research in algorithms and web mining. His doctorate in computer science is from UC-Berkeley and his undergrad degree in electrical engineering is from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras.
MAY DAY MAYPOLE: Betty Peck traditionally stages a maypole dance and this year was no exception: the May Day queen was Mia Michael, a kindergarten teacher at the Monterey Bay Charter School in Monterey and a friend of Peck daughter Anna Rainville.
The drama of Old King Winter unwilling to give up his crown to Lady Spring was performed by Merlin Woodman and Annamaria Prati, eighth graders at the Waldorf School of the Peninsula, classmates of Sarah Rainville. The sword dance was performed by some of Anna Rainville's fourth graders.
Slides of all the May Day Queens over the years were shown and the strawberry shortcake was so abundant there was enough left to send to Jackie Welch and her attendants. Welch is a former Saratogan now at a rehab center in Los Gatos, recovering from a hip operation.
ANOTHER FISH STORY: The garibaldi is the saltwater state fish, Doug Rose reminded us recently, but California has two different honorees. The garibaldi is the state saltwater choice, but the golden trout is the state fresh water fish. And these last are extremely hard to spot, since the species is on the endangered list.
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By Mary Ann Cook