Palo Verde Generating Station
Monday Morning Lectures Free on Zoom
Pat Ingalls, Lorna Bray, and Jill Burnham
LifeLong Learning’s fall season continues with more free lectures, to be held Mondays at 10 a.m., using Zoom. Guest experts will inform registered Zoom audiences on these topics:
Palo Verde Operations (Oct. 5) The largest nuclear energy facility in the U.S., Palo Verde Generating Station, sits only 33 miles west of Goodyear. It provides electricity to portions of four states: Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. As the world’s only nuclear power plant with no nearby, aboveground body of water, Palo Verde reclaims and uses wastewater from local cities for condenser cooling water. It uses demineralized, de-ionized well water for reactor coolant and steam.
Instructor: Michael McLaughlin, vice president of site services for the plant. The U.S. Naval Academy graduate’s 30-year military career, in the submarine force, focused on naval nuclear power. After retiring as a rear admiral, he joined Palo Verde in 2011.
Voting, the Pandemic and Election 2020 (Oct. 19) By mid-August, more than 160 lawsuits had been filed nationwide in attempts to shape the rules of the November 2020 election—to be held in the midst of a pandemic. Not only will this election determine who will occupy the White House and the makeup of Congress, but also, at the state level, how redistricting, required after each census, will proceed. This lecture will discuss both major parties’ viewpoints.
Instructor: Joshua Sellers, an associate professor of law at Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. Sellers specializes in constitutional and election law.
Native American/American Native (Nov. 2) Indigenous people occupied the land now known as Arizona for thousands of years before the first European explorers arrived in the 16th century, bringing new ideas, customs, religion, and disease. Today, more than a quarter of Arizona is Native American country. With 21 federally recognized tribes, Arizona has the second-largest Native American population of any state.
This lecture will focus on how “nativeness” has been portrayed in the past and how that framing can be problematic. It will explain how indigenous people see themselves in relation to the land, how to honor them better for their contributions to U.S. society and history, and how to understand Native American thinking.
Instructor: Rowdy Duncan, a member of the Cherokee and Pueblo First Nations People (and not raised in his tribal culture) is director of Paradise Valley Community College’s Diversity, Incorporated. He is an active member of the Healing Racism Public Dialogue Series; he produces a bi-weekly “Inclusive Activism” podcast and is on the faculty of Phoenix College’s communications program. He has worked in the field of diversity and inclusion for more than a decade.
For all lectures, visit the LLL website at www.lifelonglearningatpc.org for more details and to register. Lecture capacity is capped at 100 and each lecture maintains a waitlist. Registration for each begins 30 days prior to the lecture. You must have a LLL online account to register. If you do not have one, go to the LLL website and click sign up on the right side of any webpage.
From Goodyear’s early days.
November Classes Have No Fees
Pat Ingalls and Carole Korzilius
November’s variety of free Zoom classes includes popular repeats from previous years, as well as new offerings. Making its debut is a head-y, in-person class called Brewing Beer at Home, also offered for free.
The free, 90-minute Zoom classes, which all begin at 1 p.m., are:
* Social Security Planning (Wednesday, Nov. 4) Update your knowledge about maximizing various benefits, how they’re calculated, when to begin collecting and more. Instructor: Jack Burns, a public affairs specialist with Social Security Administration.
* Developing Technologies Greening Our World (Thursday, Nov. 5) Enlighten yourself on the current and future impacts of disruptive technologies for energy storage, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. Instructor: PebbleCreek resident Dru Bacon, a chemical engineer devoted to sustainable energy and fair utility rates.
* How to Plan and Control Your End of Life (Tuesday, Nov. 10) Learn how conversations, decisions and advance-planning discussions can give you more control over the process of dying, when your time approaches, as well as more support for your survivors. Instructor: Cathy Lindstrom, retired clinical psychologist, PebbleCreek resident and LLL president.
* Goodyear at 75 (Thursday, Nov. 19) Explore how your home, the City of Goodyear, developed from its 1946 beginnings to its current status as a growth-oriented community. Instructor: PebbleCreek resident and history buff Mark Pelletier, who is active with Three Rivers Historical Society.
*Brewing Beer at Home (Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1 p.m.) Discover the craft of brewing your own beer. Retired Marine Mike Anderson invites you to peek into his PebbleCreek casita, which he has outfitted to support his home-brewing hobby. For this in-person class, to be held on his large, outdoor patio, he can accommodate a maximum of ten people, safely masked.
Visit the LLL website at www.lifelonglearningatpc.org for more details and to register. Class capacity varies, and each class maintains a waitlist. Registration for each class begins 30 days prior to the class. You must have a LLL online account to register. If you do not have one, go to the LLL website and click sign up on the right side of any webpage.
LLL Contact Information
Pat Ingalls
Please visit our website at www.lifelonglearningatpc.org or contact us at [email protected].
LLL Center hours: We are closed until further notice.
Reinventing LLL Using Zoom
Paul Polk
Zoom. Zoom. No, it’s not that old Mazda commercial. It’s a technology most of us hadn’t heard of at the beginning of the year. Now it’s at the forefront of how we are communicating with our families and friends, and how we’re going to be learning new information and skills over the next few months, at least.
While some of our community facilities have reopened, many are still closed for the foreseeable future. As other LifeLong Learning articles on this page indicate, we have embraced Zoom as a way to continue our mission of bringing lectures, classes, TED talks, and PC Reads to the PebbleCreek community in these most unusual times. For example, in early September, 100 residents took an LLL class led by PebbleCreek resident John Fox on how to use Zoom.
On LLL’s website under the virtual learning tab, we’ve posted videos for you to watch at your own pace to learn about Arizona, arts, classes, lectures, and more.
Zoom. Zoom.
TED Talk: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.
Bill Nee
When I was young, I moved to Colorado to experience nature and the beauty of the Colorado mountains. I loved photography, but I could never express the beauty or cultivate the gift of life like this TED program is able to convey.
This TED video is ten minutes of a beautiful art exhibit and discourse. Do you want to be inspired today? Go to TED.com on your favorite electronic device. Use the search symbol (it resembles a magnifying glass) located in the upper, far-right corner, and enter the title: “Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.” Then press your enter/return key.
You will be captivated by how Louie Schwartzberg uses his stunning time-lapse photography and powerful narration, through multi-generational eyes, to take you on a journey of visual and emotional life experiences. He inspires us to see and be thankful for the beauty all around us.
Time is precious. Each day is a gift. You will be grateful you experienced this TED program.