THE COWTOWN HUMANIST
A chapter of the American Humanist Association and
The Alliance of Secular Humanist Societies.
June 2001 Volume 3, No. 3
This month's meeting
. . .Will be 7 p.m.
Wednesday, June 13, at the Westside UU Church (on South McCart).
The speaker will be Dr.
Ron Flowers, talking about "Charitable Choice." See below
for more details.
Last month
We had an excellent turout
to hear our fellow Humanist Laura Blessing gave a talk on
public libraries,
pornography, and freedom of
access. Her talk was timely and fascinating, and allowed for a great
discussion.
Special thanks to Laura for
her team spirit and hard work.
Talkin' trash
As we've all noticed, it's getting
pretty darn hot outside -- and that means it's just about time
for another trash pickup
along our adopt-a-street. The tentative date for the pickup is Saturday --
EARLY Saturday -- June 23.
However, we will confirm a date at Wednesday's meeting.
Watch this space for another
announcement in the future. And speaking of watching this space . . . .
Technology marches
on
Beginning next month, these
newsletters will be e-mailed to you through a different route. T
hat's because the Humanists
of Fort Worth will soon be broadcast on "Yahoo Groups."
This new arrangement will
make it easier to maintain our email roster. In addition, any member
of the mailing list will be
able to 'post' a message to the whole group. All you have to do is send
an e-mail to humanists_of_fort_worth@yahoogroups.com.
It's just that easy! Special thanks to
Bruce Berggren for getting this set up; this is just another
example of how technology
continually works to improve
our lives.
On the other hand .
. .
Last month, the hard drive
on my computer crashed, taking with it a whole bunch of
Humanist e-mails and e-mail
addresses. I believe I have tracked down all of the information I lost,
but I can't guarantee it. So
if you think I've overlooked you -- or something you wrote to me about --
please don't hesitate to let
me know, and I will take care of it immediately. And thanks for your
patience; this is just
another example of how technology continually manages to mess up our lives.
In the news, part 1
One of the nice benefits of
our organization is that it allows is to exchange information about
interesting news relevant to
our organization. For example, the current issue of Newsweek
magazine has two articles of
note to our group. The first is an essay written by a teenager in
Virginia. Her school has
instituted the "moment of silence" practice at the start of each day,
but the girl refuses to
participate, believing it is a not-too-subtle attempt to put prayer in the
schools. So instead of
bowing her head, she stands out in the hall -- usually, by herself.
Then, a few pages later in
the same issue, there is a short profile of Country-Blues singer
Lucinda Williams. Turns out that when Lucinda was in high
school, SHE refused to
participate in school's
"moment of silence," too. She gives credit to her Daddy, who she
says,
always taught her to think
for herself. Gee, what a concept . . .
Anyway, no matter how old
someone is, doing something like this is not easy. These
ladies deserve a pat on the
back for having the courage to act on their convictions.
In the news, part 2
Did you come across
something interesting in your readings or TV viewing? Why not share
it with the rest of the
organization? Now you can use our yahoo group to pass the tip along to
all your fellow Humanists.
This is just another example of how technology -- aw, skip it. . .
In the news, part 3
In the
"Viewpoints" section of Sunday's Star-Telegram is a guest column by Fort
Worth
resident Greg Hughes.
It's a good piece, and of even more interest to Humanists because
Greg is tentatively
scheduled to speak at our July meeting. As you'll see, Greg has some
interesting things to say
about what's going on in our community -- check it out if you can.
Charity begins at .
. . church?
Since taking the office,
President Bush has been touting his "faith-based initiative"
plan, which
would provide federal
funding to religious organizations for the delivery of government benefits
and social services. Is this
a violation of church and state, or a harmless way to give more
assistance to the needy?
This is the question we will be addressing this month.
Dr. Ron Flowers is a professor at TCU, and head of the local chapter
of the Americans
United for the Separation of
Church and State. Dr. Flowers is a wonderful speaker who has
addressed our group before,
and we also have a particularly compelling topic this month.
You won't want to miss it!
Just for fun (cotton
gin edition)
Once upon a time, there were
two boll weevil brothers growing up in South Carolina.
The first brother was
hard-working, kind, honest and ambitious. Eventually, this boll weevil
went to Hollywood, where he
appeared in many commercials and became famous.
Needless to say, his family
was very proud of him.
But the other boll weevil
was a lazy sort. He liked to spend his days in the cotton fields, just
hanging out.
He had no plans, no
ambition, and he never did amount to much. As you might expect, the family
did not look as kindly upon
this boll weevil. They constantly compared him to his more successful brother,
and no one knew quite what
to do about him.
But over time, the second
brother took on a special identity in the family: He became known as . . .
the lesser of two weevils.
See you Wednesday,
Jeff
How to reach us
Jeff Rodriguez, Chairman
817-732-4235
Mike Haney, Vice Chairman
mhaneyinfw@hotmail.com
Bruce Berggren, Treasurer