05-SEP-B-9
A REQUEST TO CARRY THE EXPLORERS CLUB FLAG
TO THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT KITANGLAD IN MINDANAO,
WITH AN INCIDENTAL INQUIRY INTO MY MEMBERSHIP
STATUS AS AN EC FELLOW VS. MEMBER
September 29, 2005
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: asstmgr@explorers.org
Date: 9/29/2005 1:35:26 PM
Subject: Fwd: RE: Request to carry the EC flag and
permission to photograph itatop Mt Apo and Mt Kitanglad, Mindanoa
Juneth Glasgow
Attn: Flag & Honors Committee
The Explorers Club
46 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
Dear Ms Glasgow:
I understand from Jeff Stolzer that he had forwarded
my inquiry to you for permission to carry the EC flag on a forthcoming
expedition in Central Mindanoa as briefly described to him in my anticipated
Explorers Log report(attached.)
I have filled in the application form and deposit and
forwarded it by fax and post for your
consideration.
Thank you for your help!
Yours truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed
>>> "Jeff Stolzer"
<scribe@explorers.org> 9/27/2005 11:54 AM >>>
Dear Glenn,
Thanks for your email and congratulations on rejoining
the Club.
As far as carrying a flag is concerned, you will have
to fill out a flag
application.
You can find one on our website at this web address:
http://explorers.org/members_only/members_only.php
This is in the members only section of the website, www.explorers.org,
and
you will have to log in. Your user name and password should be on your
Club
i.d. card.
You will be able to download the application, which
has complete
instructions for how to apply for the flag.
I am cc'ing our assistant manager, Juneth Glasgow, who
handles flag
applications here at headquarters.
Best wishes
Jeff
Jeff Stolzer
Communications Director
The Explorers Club
46 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
212‑628‑8383
212‑288‑4449 fax
scribe@explorers.org
www.explorers.org
‑‑‑‑‑Original Message‑‑‑‑‑
From: Glenn Geelhoed [mailto:msdgwg@gwumc.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 7:35 AM
To: scribe@explorers.org
Cc: Mgdexplorer@aol.com
Subject: Request to carry the EC flag and permission
to photograph itatop Mt
Apo and Mt Kitanglad, Mindanoa
Explorer's Log
Editor, Jeff Stolzer
scribe@explorers.org
Dear Jeff:
My name is Glenn W. Geelhoed, and I have had a long‑time
interest in
exploring, the EC and all it stands for, but have only
recently
re‑joined in the ECWG through the courtesy of
Mark Detweiler, as what I
had thought would be a fellow, but just now have
discovered is in the
status of MN05.
I had carried out several prior explorations (see
attached note
regarding a recent sample) which can be reviewed also
within the
"On‑Line Journal" section of my Home
Page at
http://home.gwu.edu/~gwg
I would like to request permission to carry a numbered
EC flag on a
coming expedition to the two highest mountains in
Mindanao, the
southernmost island of the Philippines. I have been working in the
South Cotabato region of Mindanao annually for the
past decade on the
geographic medical problem of endemic goiter and
cretinism, and am
continuing my investigations into its cause and methods
of prevention.
I will be
climbing (1/14‑21/06) to the peak of Mt. Apo, highest
mountain in the Philippines, and to the summit of Mt.
Kitanglad,
(1/21‑28/06), the second highest in the
Philippines. Along the way I
will be collecting samples of soils and potential food
and water sources
for assay of iodine and possilbe goiterogens within
the populations of
remote mountain peoples who live in these mountain
rain forest retreats,
far from civilization as represented by a road. I will also be doing
measures of the indigenous peoples' goiters and
thyroid functions in
the ongoing project of the treatment and prevention of
their endemic
goiter problems, which has led the team I work with to
have performed
well over a thousand thyroidectomies and many more
medical treatments.
This medical relief effort and the investigation are
self‑funded by
participant volunteers.
If I might have an EC flag and permission to carry it
to the summits of
these two tallest peaks in the Philippines, I would be
delighted to
submit a brief original report and photographs to
Explorer's Log upon
my return.
Thank you for your consideration. Yours truly,
Glenn W. Geelhoed, MD
ADDENDA FOR EXPLORER'S CLUB APPLICATION
YUTAJE AND YAVI TEPUIS, LA GRAN SABANA,
DEPARTMIENTO BOLIVAR, VENEZUELAN AMAZONAS,
December 18, 1997
I was a
member of the exploration party to make the first
ascents, exploration and biologic collecting on two
tepuis of Amazonas
in the Venezuelan rainforest, December, 1997. The expedition was under
the auspices of Terramar, Venezuela, with Venezuelan
government support
and sponsorship by the American Museum of Natural
History, NIH, and the
Audubon Society, Venezuela, We collected a wide variety of birds,
mammals, carnivorous plants and mycology to check for
genetic drift in
the isolated "life islands" of the Amazonian
tepui remnants of the
Guinea plate.
[See reports "Lost Worlds Found" and the later
"Flashes of Color in the Flooded Forest"]
FIRST EXPLORATION OF THE "RIVER OF MYSTERY"‑
THE ASSA RIVER, IN THE ITURI FOREST
OF THE CONGO (EX‑ZAIRE),
July 17, 1998
In my
repeated travels to a remote Congolese village named
"Assa" in the heart of the Zandeland region
of the sub‑prefecture
ruled by Chief Sassa (Sassaland), I had become
intrigued by reports by
the trackers of a river which flowed in a direction
opposite the
drainage basin toward the Ituri River and hence to the
Congo. It was
found to go underground near Assa, and was navigable
only in the dry
season by hippos and crocodiles, joining into the major
tributary to the
Congo River underground. To the extent allowed by the armed guerilla
conflict of the Hutu/Tutsi war spilled over into this
region, I had
mapped the area with GPS and attempted to label
migratory animals that
might thread the underground passage mapping its
course to the
confluence at 4* 34.04N, 25* 49.21E. [See report in "River Of
Mystery," chapter 25, pp 173‑180, Geelhoed,
Glenn W. Out of Assa:
Heart of the Congo
Three Hawks Publishing, LC, Alexandria, Va, 2000]
FIRST ASCENT AND MAPPING OF "MOUNT GEELHOED"
IN THE NORTH
SLOPE OF THE BROOKS RANGE, ALASKA,
August 24,
2000
In exploring
the vast tundra of the Brooks Range above the
Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, I had asked my big‑game
sheep hunting
guide Christian Elwell the name, elevation and
particulars of a
prominent mountain overlooking a tundra lake called
"Old Woman Lake"
by the indigenous Gwitchyaa Zhee Indians. To the knowledge of the
locals and on a search of the USGS records, the
mountain had been
un‑named, unscouted and unclimbed, mapped only
from aerial survey. In
honor of the birth of my granddaughter, Kacie
Elizabeth Geelhoed on
August 6, 2004, I solo climbed the mountain and with
photographic and
topographic mapping, registered it with the USGS as
"Mount Geelhoed"
6.212 feet, at 68* 42.11N, 144* 24.04W. [Reported in
on‑Line Journal as
00‑AUG‑B‑15]
ANTARCTIC RESEARCH AT DECEPCION ISLAND,
DERELICT NORSE WHALING STATION IN CALDERA
OF EXTINCT VOLCANO WITH THERMAL SPRINGS,
February 8, 2001
The interior
of a volcanic crater's caldera had flooded and
allowed a protected harbor for a turn of the century
Norse whaling
station in Antarctic waters, now falling into
ruin. The steel rendering
vats and storage tanks have weathered the fierce cold
of Antarctica, but
have rusted and collapsed faster than might be
expected from the
geothermal activity mixed with the salt water influx
into the caldera
62* 52.34S, 60* 34.16W A measure of this decay rate was taken by
sampling and photography to compare with the Byrd
Station Antarctic
Research Center with the difference imputed to these
ambient factors
missing from the Central Antarctic ice shield. [Reported in 01‑Feb‑A‑8
On‑Line Journal].
MICRONESIA NAVAL BATTLEGROUND GRAVEYARDS
OF TRUK (CHUUK) LAGOON,
March 18, 1995
I had explored the islands of the Federated States of
Micronesia and
the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, examining
the relics of the
Pacific War at the fiftieth anniversary of the
conclusion of that war.
In observing relics on land and in the jungles of the
island states, the
decay of these artifacts so exposed is much more rapid
than that
observed underwater in Truk Lagoon, where the majority
of the Japanese
transport fleet lies entombed in coral reef of its own
making. In
diving each of several sunken wrecks, I recorded their
status at a point
in time a half century after their going down, many
still leaking engine
oil, toxins,
and other products of their wartime use. [Reported in
video, photojournalism and "Micronesia
Exploration."]
RELICS OF THE BON RELIGION IN THE BUDDHIST
FESTIVAL
CEREMONIES AT SHACHUKUL
IN "THE
KINGDOM IN THE CLOUDS"
LADAKH, KASHMIR, HIMALAYAN INDIA,
July 19, 2003
Once a year,
the inhabitants of the high alpine interior of
Ladakh‑the "highest, driest, coldest, most
isolated place of
year‑round human habitation"‑come
together in a festival in
celebration of their cosmology and original Buddhist
belief systems.
Along roads and with access to commercial civilization
of India to the
south, an admixture of Hindu mythology is found
intermixed with the
Mahabharata textual symbols. In the isolated area of Shachukul at 33*
59.24 N, 78* 06.27 E at 14,152 feet, I observed the
traditional Buddhist
ceremonies of epic struggles in the peoples' own
concepts of their
origins and found them to contain the Pali language
and the belief
systems of the religion that antedated Buddhism.
[Reported in
03‑Jul‑B‑11 On‑Line Journal]
LINGUISTIC TERMS AND PERCEPTION DISCRIMINATION
IN HOME AND
MARKET LANGUAGES COMPARED
BETWEEN PYGMIES AND BANTU TRIBES IN CENTRAL AFRICA
February 1996
Adapting the
color chip perception and naming system proven in
prior Central and South American research, I mapped
the discrimination
abilities of members of two pygmy and four Bantu
tribes in Central and
Southern Africa.
The adaptive advantages of higher discriminations
abilities are presumed to be important in the survival
in the
environments in which these languages evolved. [Reported to the
American Association of Anthropology, "Linguistic
Relativity among
Pazanda‑Bangala Bilinguals: Language as Context
for Cognition,"
October 1999, and in 96‑Mar‑A‑10 On‑Line
Journal, and in, Geelhoed,
Glenn W. Out of Assa: Heart of the Congo Three Hawks Publishing, LC,
Alexandria, Va, 2000]
Glenn W. Geelhoed
AB, BS, MD, DTMH, MA, MPH, MA, MPhil, FACS
Professor of Surgery
Professor of International Medical Education
Professor of Microbiology and Tropical Medicine
Office of the Dean, Ross Hall 741
George Washington University Medical Center
2300 I Street NW
Washington, DC 20037 USA
Phone: 202/994‑4428
Fax: 202/994‑0926
Cell: 240/401‑0247
Home:
Emails:
Office: msdgwg@gwumc.edu
University: gwg@gwu.edu
Web Sites:
Home page: http://home.gwu.edu/~gwg
International Medical Education: http://www.gwu.edu.edu/~intmeded
Panetics: www.panetics.org
Hi Glenn,
I forwarded your email to our membership
coordinator, Michael Doyle, who
should be able to fix the password problem.
As far as your designation is concerned, the
membership committee considers
the recommendations of your sponsors but it is
autonomous and renders its
own decision, based on the criteria for the
different membership categories.
I hope you still consider your membership valuable,
because we value your
membership!
Best wishes
Jeff
Jeff Stolzer
Communications Director
The Explorers Club
46 East 70th Street
New York, NY 10021
212-628-8383
212-288-4449 fax
scribe@explorers.org
www.explorers.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn Geelhoed [mailto:msdgwg@gwumc.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 1:52 PM
To: scribe@explorers.org
Subject: Fwd: Membership in The Explorers Club
Thanks!
I tried to get into the "Members" web
section but could not get my
password acknowledged. I will try again after a written postal
message
to the webmaster.
Apparently my re-newed "membership" in the
Explorer's Club had also
surprised my chief sponsor and disappointed him as
well. Whom should we
contact about this?
Thanks!
GWG
>>> <Mgdexplorer@aol.com>
9/27/2005 4:52 PM >>>
Glenn,
I was disbelieving and disappointed with the
notification that you
were admitted to The Explorers Club as a member
rather than a fellow.
However, when taking the ECWG Membership Committee
responsibility
I was given counsel that the Membership Committee in
New York holds
firmly to its authority regardless of the
recommendations by those of
us who endorse proposals for membership.
Your proposed flag expedition should serve well in
reopening the
issue. I look forward to hearing more and being of
assistance if
appropriate.
Thanks for keeping me informed.
Warm regards,
Mark
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