Jan 5: James Dobson
Bill Jacobsen, executive director, Humanist Community and Humanist chaplain at Stanford, focuses on someone on the religious right who is more influential than Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed combined. He has been a source of assistance to many Evangelicals in their personal lives and uses his positive standing with them to mobilize them for massive mailings and phone calls on social issues. If you do not think it is important to have a voice that articulates a philosophy of tolerance and choice, take another look at the Dobson empire.
Jan 12: Myths of Gender
Sharon Presley is the executive director of Resources for Independent Thinking, Oakland, and editor of Independent Thinking Review. She has studied with Stanley Milgram (Obedience to Authority)and has published research on Mormon feminists, images of women in videos, gender comparisons in moral judgment, feminist freethinkers, and political resisters to civic authority.
Jan 19: Woodman, Spare that Tree!
David Harris, author of The Last Stand, takes us behind the scenes of the effort to preserve the ancient redwood forest, a legacy that is increasingly in jeopardy due to shortsighted policies in government and industry. The recent Salvage Rider is the latest attempt to circumvent environmental legislation.
(David Harris will not be able to attend. Bill Jacobsen will substitute.)
Jan 26: From Genes to Behavior: What we have Learned from Fruit Flies
Lisa Ryner, Stanford research associate, was the lead author of the exciting paper about the sex gene recently published in Cell. The information machine determines courtship and mating patterns in a detail that is surprising. This is on the cutting edge of scientific discovery.
Feb 2: Dare to be 100
Walter Bortz, teaching faculty, Stanford Medical School, editorial board of Runner's World magazine (he runs marathons), past president of American Geriatric Society, spoke to us last year on his We Live Too Short and Die Too Long. Now he speaks about his latest best-seller. It's loaded with 100 practical tips, written with zest and humor.
Feb 9: An Insider's Critique of Humanism
Bill Jacobsen, executive director, Humanist Community and Humanist chaplain at Stanford, begins a two-part series on the roles played by skeptics, free thinkers, and other kinds of Humanists. In today's discussion the focus is on how to assess our behavior, be that in a chapter of the AHA or in a liberal church. At our best we reassure persons who have difficulty accepting the way the world works by exhibiting a calm that is laced with good humor and the zest of living, that patiently goes about the business of making this world a little better for less fortunate contemporaries as well as for generations as yet unborn. At our worst we come across as doctrinaire sectarians.
Feb 16: Why the Nation Needs Skeptics
Institutions tend to become corrupt when members are too trusting or even gullible, as manifested in religious zeal or patrioitic chauvinism. Doubters filled with a briny irreverence are needed to keep the state honest. If true believers are a menace to the body politic, stalwart and fearless disbelievers are the answer.
Feb 23: Can Marijuana Heal?
For 80 years our government has discouraged a sound policy analysis and research on drugs it declared illegal. Recently California's Proposition 215 opened up a new discussion of whether physicians should be allowed to control access to marijuana. David C. Harris, trained in biochemistry and health services administration, will examine whether there currently are medical uses for the drug that was considered a standard medication until 1941- tincture of cannabis.
Mar 2: Environmental Ethics
Bill Jacobsen, executive director, Humanist Community and Humanist chaplain at Stanford, begins a three-part series on ethical decision-making by focusing on how we deal with our global home for the sake of our generation, as well as those not yet born.
Mar 9: Interpersonal Ethics
What is the mode of operation towards others dictated by our temperament, by our upbringing, by the social mores of our class?
Mar 16: Biomedical Ethics
Why is it so difficult to switch gears when situations change? What new criteria are needed?
Mar 23: Atheist Club Forms at Terra Nova High in Pacifica
The story of how the students were provoked into this action will be told by Atheist Club leader Mollie Mindel. Put off by glib Bible answers, she and her classmates want a free atmosphere. Some angry people were horrified and called her club the Burn-In-Hell Club.
Mar 30: An Interview with Van Harvey
Recently retired from the Religion department at Stanford,our speaker hasn't retired from the life of the mind. Send your questions to the office.
Apr 6: Is the Global Economy Bad?
Bill Jacobsen reviews The Case against the Global Economy, edited by Jerry Mander and Erward Goldsmith. Does this book offer a preview of coming financial and environmental crises?
Apr 13: International Humanism
Matt Cherry is the Executive Director of the Secretariat for growth and development of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and of the Council for Secular Humanism which publishes Free Inquiry. Both organizations are headquartered at the Center for Inquiry - International, Amherst, New York. He draws on his experience with Humanism in three nations.
Apr 20: Emotional Intelligence
Bill Jacobsen offers on overview of Daniel Goleman's book. The author covers the behavioral and brain sciences for the The New York Times and his articles are syndicated world-wide. Formerly he taught at Harvard and was senior editor at Psycholgy Today.
Apr 27: Lies My Teacher Told Me
Russell Brand shares the breadth and depth of his ignorance about American and world history, plus his empirical study which reveals a similar lacking in friends and family. You too may experience embarrassment and horror after contemplating this exposé.
May 4: Charles Darwin's Cultural Adaptation
Philip Appleman will share his poetry and his Darwinian philosophy with us.
May 11: Life Planning / Getting Organized
Bruce Lerro is the presenter. Is it necessary or even possible to attempt to plan your life? There are many reasons why most folks think it is out of the question. Some reasons are rational but many are irrational. Irrational reasons include fear of success and failure; poor boundary management; negative self-talk and excessive attention to detail. Techniques are suggested which make life planning both possible and necessary psychological skills for the 21st Century.
May 18: Russia after Communism
Take a sit-down cruise to Moscow and St. Petersburg with Burt and Margie Liebert. Hear how people are coping with freedom and surviving capitalism. Visit magnificent old palaces, the Kremlin and Red Square, the Moscow Art Theater, and the Bolshoi. Tour the treasures of the Hermitage, one of the world's great art museums and share the Mystery of the Missing Masterpieces.
May 25: Robert Browning's Revealing Monologues
As a dramatist Browning puts the reader into the middle of things, but the reader quickly catches on: the drama comes to life and is read again with an appreciation of new levels of meaning. Any poem not worth reading twice isn't worth reading once. Bill Jacobsen speaks.
Jun 1: Deprogramming Cults
Rudy V. Busto, Religion, Stanford, specializes in American religions and how they change under conquest, colonialism, and crisis. He will examine how we go about understanding "cults" -- a topic that he recently shared with SAM (Stanford Associated Ministries).
Jun 8: A View from the Mountain
Paula Rochelle, national board member, American Humanist Association, chairs the panel made up of persons in our membership who attended the recent national conference of the American Humanist Association in Denver. This includes Jan Keilig, Alex and Sena Havasy, Lou Harrison, Bill Covig, Jean Martin, and Hank Giarretto. Hank received a Social Concerns award, while Lou received an Arts award.
Jun 15: Graph Not Graft
Why the NASA engineers couldn't explain that the Challenger would blow up. Often falsehoods are convincing and truth unintelligible. Learn how this disaster could have been avoided had even a single engineer known what you will soon know about presenting numerical data. Scientific public policy and everyday decisions often suffer from our inability to organize and present data in an understandable way. Russell Brand presents Edward Tufte's take on the shuttle launch decision and other decisions that could have been made easily and correctly but weren't. Only third grade arithmetic is required.
Jun 22: On Shifting Gears
Some motivational speakers claim that it's important to plan out the future in a responsible manner, delaying gratification for the sake of significant long-term goals. (Bruce Lerro's recent talk and seminar exemplify this pattern at its best.) Other speakers point to the here and now and suggest that this is the only time we'll ever have. Deny the spontaneity of the moment and we miss out on what life is really about. As is his custom, Bill Jacobsen will seek the middle ground associated with the Buddha and Aristotle.
Jun 29: Styles of Humor
Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot) has written an insightful essay on humor that Bill Jacobsen will draw upon.
Jul 6: How Astronomical!
Bill Jacobsen, drawing on cutting-edge cosmology, shares his amazement at what's been going on. Words like "fast" and "big" take on new meaning in this era of the big bang. How does this impact your world view?
Jul 13: Logical Fallacies
Joe Peel, Humanist Community President, has hit a gold mine. In attempting to find concrete examples of the wide variety of fallacies that speakers can fall into, he has struck a rich vein of ore over at the Rush Limbaugh ranch.
Jul 20: Town Meeting
We are going to shake loose any fruit that has grown since the last town meeting. This is your chance to brainstorm with your colleagues, make your views known, suggest program ideas, volunteer for projects.
Jul 27: What's the Secret of the Positive, Energetic, Up-Beat Personality?
By observing the styles of some of the great leaders we have in the community, Bill Jacobsen has come up with some of the practical techniques they use -- perhaps unconsciously -- that make this such a fun and productive environment.
Aug 3: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
There's good reason why Covey's book became a best seller. Abel Santiago Valls is trained to communicate these principles in a practical workshop that will be offered on Saturday, Aug 30 at the Humanist Center.
Aug 10: On Alan Dershowitz' The Vanishing American Jew
Most Americans think of Dershowitz as a brilliant trial lawyer, but he is also concerned about the decline of Jewish numbers. As a secularist, he doesn't think religious affiliation is the answer.
Aug 17: Program Brainstorming
Come to the Humanist Center and influence coming programs, be that Forums, Discussable Proverbs, or weekday activities.
Aug 24: Women Without Superstition
We discuss Annie Laurie Gaylor's anthology of freethinkers in 19th, 20th centuries.
Aug 31: Synanon: Kookie Cult or Alternative Lifestyle? An Insider's View
Paul Abramson tells of his experiences in an organization that turned around lives in a dramatic fashion and how he assesses it now.
Sep 7: One of These Days . . .
Ned Buratowich raises the issue of how many days you have and how to map them out to fit your heart's desire. You won't defer your dreams after this funny, yet thought-provoking presentation.
Sep 14: The Other Side of the Coin
Bill Jacobsen explains the rationale for the Wednesday evening series that were held during the last two months. Half-truths offer vital insights -- just so we don't forget that there are many circumstances that require the antithetical half-truth. They're dogmatists who forget this humble truism, while the people of wisdom never let it out of their consciousness.
Sep 21: Managing Change
Elizabet de Clifford, of Louis Allen Associates, trains middle-managers on ways to embrace rather than resist change. Changes are continual in our business and personal lives. Since we can't escape it, we must learn how to handle it well. From the Speaker's Bureau.
Sep 28: Torah and Dharma
In recent years many young Jews, frustrated by their experience of denominational Judaism, took up the practice of the Eastern religions. In many zendos a third of the participants have a Jewish background. Some remain with a Buddhist affiliation (without abandoning their Jewish identity), while others return to invigorate the Jewish renewal movement. Judith Linzer investigated 30 people in depth, basing her doctoral thesis in clinical psychology on this phenomenon. She now sees herself as a post-denominational Jew. Bill Jacobsen speaks.
Oct 5: Ways We Classify Ourselves
Meg Bowman offers a summary of a workshop she presented to the national AHA convention. She asks, "Do you know your sex? nationality? national origins? race? the origins of language? how dictionaries are created? how the term 'PC' arose out of the right wing and why? how Korzybski's abstract ladder works?" When our speaker isn't writing eight books or travelling around the world, she works as a professor of Sociology at San Jose State University.
Oct 12: Understanding the World Around Us
Being on the web doesn't lead to instant understanding of what is happening in the world. Knowing about events may be the first step to understanding, but simply knowing about events has the same relationship to understanding them, as knowing the names of colors has to the appreciation of Picasso. We get closer to understanding by asking questions. Along that road understanding begins to dawn. Ely Brandes has preached his gospel of understanding to 200 seniors for a decade since his retirement as an economist.
Oct 19: Do You Want Your Librarian to Censor?
Susan Fuller, head librarian of Santa Clara County, and Lani Yoshimura, head librarian of Gilroy, recently appreared on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer to defend a policy that underscores information disemination as their primary objective and resists the censorship role. When you enter the library, you enter a place that encourages unfettered inquiry. Parents, galvanized by a local minister, see things differently.
Oct 26: What the Chinese Students Said
Mickie Anderson taught conversational English at Sichuan University last year.
Nov 2: Communication Skills
Shelley J. Horwitz, consultant for software development and business communication, offers seminars in interpersonal communications. A professional speaker, he will show us how to persuade, motivate, and inspire. These are tools that we neglect at our peril.
Nov 9: Programs that Move People off Welfare and into the Productive Work Force
Because of her involvement in the North County Employment Center, Kitty Lynd draws on a lot of practical experience as she outlines the pitfalls and opportunities that arise as people make changes in their lives that alter their attitudes and behaviors in a powerful manner.
Nov 16: Emotional Roots of Promise Keepers
Bill Jacobsen offers a series on the Promise Keepers (PK). Today he discusses congregations that circumvent the rational to tap into the emotional, a model for PK.
Nov 23: Political Potential of Promise Keepers
Aside from the personal benefit that flows from the rallies, PK is a force that endangers our cherished values and freedoms. It bears watching.
Nov 30: Buy into our Intentional Community
Carl Angotti conducts a participatory session so you can have your needs and desires reflected in the Community's programs.
Dec 7: Fo's Blasphemies
Bill Jacobsen celebrates the dramatist.
Dec 14: Current Status of the Repressed Memory Syndrome
Joe Peel reviews original situations, the backlash, and current informed opinion.
Dec 21: Pretending Time
Bill Jacobsen presents a novel way of approaching the season when people sing about things they don't believe. Should we enter into the game or not?
Dec 28: Protect Curious Children from Moralistic Do-Gooders
Bill Jacobsen reports on the recent public hearing about access to the internet in libraries. Should it be monitored or not? Civil libertarians worry about censorship.