The Humanist Community Blog

dinnersl.jpg

gearl.jpg

thoughtl.jpg

Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Michael McOmber, biodiesel activist from Carmel, CA, will coordinate this program on biodiesel, supporting AHA’s efforts to increase involvement in getting the documentary film Fields of Fuel into theaters this fall as part of the Humanist environmental concern. We will examine why AHA became a partner and fiscal sponsor of this film, produced by AHA member Josh Tickell. In 2006 Tickell wrote Biodiesel America, which provides the facts and ideas for how to achieve energy security, to free America from Middle-East oil dependence, significantly to reduce environmental impacts of transportation, and to improve the U. S. Economy..

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Sunday Forum, Uncategorized | No Comments »

We are most aware of the act that we are thinking when we are doing objective thinking, when the principles of mathematics are most important. In addition, cognitive psychology has been able to identify some other thinking that occurs at a much less conscious level within the human mind. Peter Bishop, Ph.D., H.C., H.A., has been discovering more about the nature of this kind of thinking, which he is starting to call “subjective thinking”, as he has been teaching Humanist Philosophy to the older class in our Children’s Program. Peter will explain what he has discovered, its basis in cognitive psychology, and its relevance to life and to humanist philosophy.

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

We have completed the funding required for the Access Northern Ghana Computer School! As soon as all the supplies are in place and working, the school will open its doors in the city of Tamale. The purpose of the school is to bring computer literacy in a part of Tamale where it has not been available. There will be after-school classes for youngsters, and daytime and evening classes to help adults attain skills that they need to get good jobs in this new century. We are looking forward to receiving pictures of the first students at the school.

Our next project will take us back to the village of Larabanga, where the desks that we supplied have been in constant use. We have received a request to fund the completion of a permanent structure to house the school. In addition, we have been asked to help supply uniforms for the students who are too poor to provide their own, and to pay the teachers for a year’s work, during which they have received no pay. The total for all this is estimated to be under $4,700.  A copy of the proposal, with a detailed breakdown, can be found in the “Larabanga” binder that is on the table at the back of our Sunday Forum room.

If you would like to donate to this project, please send a check payable to the Humanist Community, and indicate that it is for the Ghana Assistance Project. All funds donated for this purpose go directly to the Project.

Filed under: Social Action, humanism | No Comments »

Les Kaye will explore the basis of human suffering from the Buddhist perspective and the experience of suffering in our daily lives. We will discuss how Buddhism and Zen practice enables individuals to respond creatively and with equanimity in a world of anxiety, disappointment, and loss. Mr. Kaye started Zen practice in 1966, was ordained as a Zen priest in 1971, and was acknowledged as a Zen teacher in 1985. He has taught meditation in Silicon Valley corporations for ten years and has taught classes in Zen in the Continuing Studies pat Stanford. He is currently the abbot at the Kannon Do Zen Meditation Center in Mountain View.

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Sunday Forum | No Comments »

Mark Schlosberg has served for the last six years as Police Practices Policy Director for the ACLU of Northern California. In this capacity he has worked on a variety of policing issues, including racial profiling, accountability systems, surveillance, crowd management, and use of force. He managed the successful 2003 ballot campaign to strengthen San Francisco’s civilian oversight system and has worked extensively on state and local legislative efforts to provide greater public access to police records.

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Sunday Forum | No Comments »

Humanist Community member Melvin Bers will talk about what he views as being some of the paths that a person could follow in order to become a believer in Secular Humanism.

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Sunday Forum | No Comments »

On Sunday, July 6, Paul Gilbert spoke to the Humanist Forum on the subject of racism. The forum was eloquently presented, challenging, and thought-provoking. One small anecdote that Paul told was particularly meaningful to me as I think about what we are accomplishing in Ghana, through the Ghana Assistance Project of the Humanist Community. Paul told about the educational challenges facing the black children who lived in his small town in Tennessee early in the 1950s. As a white child, he could not know what their school supply situation might have been, but young Paul was shocked to discover that their school went only to the 8th grade, and no transportation was provided for them to attend the high school in the town where they would have to go to continue their education.

When we visited Ghana, just one year ago, one of the things that struck me most forcefully is the way that these people are living in ways that remind me of my own earliest memories and my mother’s stories about America in the earlier part of the 20th century. Many roads are not paved. Electric power is intermittent. Running water is sometimes available in the largest cities, but hot running water is available nowhere.
And yet they are simultaneously catapulting themselves into the 21st century. In the cities there is television whenever the power is on, bringing images of the whole world. I first learned about the fire that was burning west of Gilroy, CA, from my friend in Ghana who heard about it on the Internet and sent me an email to find out if I was OK. Everyone in Ghana who can afford it has a cell phone. If one is traveling by bus, there are signs along the road telling where there is a cell phone signal, and when the bus passes those signs, most of the passengers are instantly on their phones, chatting away with their friends or business associates. Our Ghana Assistance Project would not be possible except that the people whose dreams we are turning to reality have access to email, and can send us regular reports and pictures to show that they are using our funds as intended. Even in the village of Larabanga, where our first project was centered, there are cell phones, and Internet access is available in a village that is less than 2 hours away.

************

The second project funded by the Ghana Assistance Project of the Humanist Community is tantalizingly near to completion. The new computers have been purchased and are in place. There are fans overhead in the classroom at the Access Northern Ghana (AcNoG) Computer School in Tamale. Rain damage has been repaired; the roof is fixed and the room has been repainted (twice, I think). But the school cannot open yet. For example, because electric power fluctuates a lot in Tamale, the computers cannot be turned on very much, until Uninterruptible Power Sources (UPS) have been installed. This and more will be completed when they receive the next installment of funding from us. The photos below show the change in the computer classroom to this point. In the first there are monitors and a few other necessities, but only 2 computers (which turned out to be obsolete). In the second there are monitors, new computers, “mice”, and some new chairs. There are other changes like overhead fans that you cannot see in the pictures, but we have other pictures of the fans. This is a school designed to meet the needs of people in Tamale who cannot find jobs, because they have no computer skills and until now they have no way to acquire them. The school will run several classes daily. It will be open to all: men, women, and children. Students will pay a small tuition fee to cover power expenses and teacher salary. The project had languished for about a year, as in the first photo, before we took it on.

The contrast between what is needed in the city of Tamale, and what is needed in the village of Larabanga is very striking. We have structured the Ghana Assistance Project so that we are helping nonprofit organizations in northern Ghana to do the projects that they perceive to be needed in their community, and to do them in the way that they think is best, without having us dictate to them what they must do to improve their lives. I have found that when I ask them to explain why a particular project is being done in a particular way, their reasons are sound, and sometimes surprising.

Although a computer school in Tamale will improve the lives of people there by helping folks to qualify for employment, the needs in a village are much more basic. In the village of Larabanga, there are two schools that children might attend. There is a public school. The parents of children who attend the public school pay for the children’s uniforms and books. If these are not supplied, then the children cannot attend the public school. That is why we are helping the Larabanga Kids Development Project. The purpose of the LKPD is to provide a school for the “street children” who do not have access to the public school. The LKDP serves over 100 children now, in this village of 2,000.
When we finish with the ACNOG Computer School Project, we will immediately start raising funds for the LKDP school, once again. We have received a request from them that I will tell you about when we start raising funds for it, but let me just mention now that a part of this effort will be to pay the teachers for the year that they have worked without pay.

The LKDP school is not for teenagers. A street child from Larabanga who wants to continue education, must find a way to go to boarding school in Tamale. Does this sound like Paul’s story?

If you would like to donate to the Ghana Assistance Project of the Humanist Community, you can send a check to The Humanist Community, PO Box 60069, Palo Alto, CA 94306. Do indicate clearly that the check is for the Ghana Assistance Project (though it should be payable to The Humanist Community). Checks or cash can also be put in the “basket” at the Humanist Sunday Forum. If you are going to do that, do pick up an envelope from the table at the back of the forum room or use your own envelope marked “Ghana Assistance Project”. Donations are tax deductible if you itemize.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Filed under: Social Action, humanism | No Comments »

Jane Huang is a Stanford student hired as NorCal Campus Organizing Intern in April by Secular Student Alliance to organize atheist/agnostic/humanist/skeptic/freethought campus groups in northern California. This grant was put together as a result of Humanist Community efforts. She will bring us up to date on what’s been accomplished so far and hopes and plans for the future.

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Sunday Forum | No Comments »

Are you prejudiced? This presentation by Paul Gilbert, Executive Director of the Humanist Community, will attempt to show that you are. And, if we are prejudiced, what are we to do about it? Come join the discussion.

The Humanist Community Forum will meet at 11am at Mitchell Park Community Center. The Mitchell Park Community Center is located at 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, Just north of Charleston Road.

Filed under: Sunday Forum | No Comments »