This is the weekly summary of the Humanist Network News (HNN). The Humanist Network News (HNN) is published every Wednesday via e-mail and on the Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS) Web site. This diary is a slightly reformatted copy of the weekly email they send me, which I post here every Thursday. (CP @ DKos, MLW, BT)
September 7, 2005
Humanist Network News
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
- New Orleans humanists worry for safety of members after hurricane Katrina
- Atheists, humanists to send relief to hurricane Katrina victims
- IHS honors the advancement of women
- Secular Coalition for America doubles staff
- Two vacancies on the High Court
- Of God and Secularism
- Letters to the Editor
- Sweet Reason, religious mothers won’t let sons date me
- Film Review: Grizzly Man
- Media Roundup
- Cathartic Comics
- Poll of the Week
Summaries and links across the jump. As always, if one of these stories captures your interest, feel free to write a more in-depth diary.
1. New Orleans humanists worry for safety of members after hurricane Katrina
Humanist Network News contacted the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association (NOSHA) to ask whether members are safe:MORE
2. Atheists, humanists to send relief to hurricane Katrina victims
Organizations that promote secular values in the U.S. are offering ways for non-religious Americans to provide financial help to the victims of hurricane Katrina:MORE
3. IHS honors the advancement of women
IHS staff are attending the Center for the Advancement of Women’s tenth anniversary gala in New York City today:MORE
4. Secular Coalition for America doubles staff
Just one week after hiring the nation’s first congressional lobbyist for the nonreligious, the Secular Coalition for America has hired a second: MORE
5. Two vacancies on the High Court
The death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on Saturday leaves two vacancies on the U.S. Supreme Court — a situation offering President George W. Bush the opportunity to shape the ideology of the Court for decades to come: MORE
6. Of God and Secularism
IHS public policy expert Tim Gordinier deconstructs the word “secular”: is it about neutrality, or atheism?”: MORE
7. Letters to the Editor
HNN heard from readers on Katrina, atheism as a religion, Klingons, and Joel Pelletier’s “American Fundamentalists”: MORE
8. Sweet Reason, religious mothers won’t let sons date me
Your significant other’s parent hates atheists. Now what? MORE
9. Film Review: Grizzly Man
Carolyn Braunius reviews a “stark reminder that nature sometimes bites back” : MORE
10. Media Roundup
Media links on hurricane Katrina, religion and science:MORE
11. Cathartic Comics
An assortment of cartoons and comic strips about humanism, atheism, religion, science and freethought LINK
12. Poll of the Week
How should humanists donate to hurricane relief efforts? VOTE
______________
About the IHS:
The IHS promotes nonreligious perspectives on social, political, and ethical issues and serves as a resource for and about the humanist community. Questions, comments, concerns, got a better joke or a story? Send a letter to the editor.
If anything here interests you, you may also be interested in my diary on what it is like to be a secular humanist in today’s political climate: I Am The Boogeyman.
Hi mrb. All good articles-as always. Good links also about donating to hurricane relief through secular/atheist or humanist organizations. That might make a good diary, to make more people aware of those organizations.
Thanks mrb. Always look forward to your HNN diaries.
I’ve been in such a funk lately… I’m exhausted by my anger at this whole Katrina debacle. I’ve been busying myself with non-politics stuff. Fantasy football has been a great distraction, but even then the hurricane keeps coming up because of the Saints and the Superdome.
I don’t understand how anyone could defend the administration at this point. It has got to be more than cognitive dissonance. It can only be pure, unadulterated, evil – people filled with so much bile that they are unfazed by the deaths of thousands of fellow Americans. It makes me sick.
hey mrb. I think most of us here are going through the same feelings you describe. The only hope I had to sustain me while watching the pure evilness of what has and is happening in NO(like keeping Red Cross out)and other parts of states hit by Katrina also was that spark of hope that somehow people were going to rise up and demand impeachment or something…anything.
That hope has been crushed pretty much except for people on the net and a more vocal but small part of America who are speaking up but ….
The day before yesterday I was so depressed I just felt crazy or maybe crazed by much of the indifference to what this administration is doing to this country.
And every day I get up, turn on the computer, come here and read of some new screw-up or atrocity bushco is committing..like today reading he’s signed executive order to say federal contractors for clean up or whatever don’t have pay workers hired the going rate …and that’s sickening beyond words.
Sorry to make this post so long but it’s hard to know where for all of us to take our anger as it seems we can’t do anything or what we do won’t make any difference. Yes I’m feeling defeatist today but hopefully that won’t last too long.