Welcome to Our Sunday Morning Programs in May

Every Sunday morning from 10:30 a.m. to noon.
These programs are free and open to the public.

Download this newsletter as a pdf.

• CHRIS MOONEY, senior correspondent for The American Prospect and host of Center for Inquiry’s podcast, “Point of Inquiry,” speaks Sunday, May 6th, on “The Republican Brain: Denial of Science—and Reality.” Mooney will review research suggesting that liberals and conservatives generally have different personalities, psychological needs, and even brain structures. He contends that understanding why Republicans tend to reject mainstream science is essential to building a civil society grounded in reality and reason.

• ROBERT SLIWINSKI, wildlife biologist and environmental resources specialist, speaks Sunday, May 13th, on “Managing Wildlife Hazards to Aircraft.” Sliwinski will discuss the frightening history of bird-aircraft collisions and review the assessment and mitigation techniques being used to reduce the number of these threats to safe air travel.

• Our annual MEMBERSHIP RECOGNITION and Sunday School graduation program is on Sunday, May 20th. We’ll again salute our hard-working staff and many volunteers, honor our Sunday School children, parents, and teachers, and warmly welcome our new members. Our Sunday School graduates will present the results of their final social service projects.

Note: There is no regular Sunday morning program at the Greiner Center on May 27th, when we’ll be at our Memorial Day weekend at the George Williams Conference Center.

Coming Society Events

• Our Memorial Day Weekend, May 26–28, has been moved to the beautiful grounds of George Williams Conference Center at Williams Bay on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. If you haven’t already made a reservation, check with our office to see if there is any last-minute availability.

• Our Sunday Morning Colloquy topics this month are Reason on May 6th, Questions on May 13th, Dreams on May 20th, and Happiness on May 27th. Led by Ken Novak in a warm, cordial setting, we examine how we feel about our lives. Except for May 27th, when we’ll be at Lake Geneva, we meet in the library just before the platform, at 9:30 a.m.

•  Our Second Saturday Coffeehouse, hosted by Vicki Elberfeld, is on May 12th, at 8 p.m. We’ll welcome back one of our favorites, versatile songwriter and folksinger Kristin Lems with her usual lively performance. The $8 minimum donation includes beverages and pastries. Due to the longer program, there will be no open mic.

• Our bimonthly Fiction Circle is on Sunday, May 13th, at 12:15 p.m. We’ll discuss Wit, Margaret Edson’s literate, quick-moving play about a literature professor inflicted with the final stage of ovarian cancer. Copies are available at libraries or one can be ordered from Ken by May 2nd for $10.

• Our Ethnic Dinner Out is on Saturday, May 19th, at Spoon Thai restaurant, 4608 N. Western Ave., in Chicago. Join us at what many reviewers consider the best Thai restaurant in town. If you wish, ask for the private special menu. We’ll order at 5:30 p.m. There is local street parking. Members and non-members are welcome. Please RSVP to Richard Curren at a Sunday platform, or at richard_curren@yahoo.com.

• Our Creative Writers group, led by John Taylor, meets on May 20th, the third Sunday of this month, at 12:15 p.m. Newcomers are welcome to share their short original works with us.

• Our Film Discussion Group, led by John Ungashick, meets Monday, May 21st, at 7:15 p.m. We’ve again chosen two current movies. The Lady is a fictionalized look at the life of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Ky. It was directed by Luc Besson and stars Michelle Yeoh and David Thewlis. Footnote is a comedic study of human nature that revolves around father-son Talmudic scholars. It is in Hebrew, with English subtitles, and was directed by Joseph Ceder, with Shlomo Bar Aba and Lior Ashkenazi.

• A special potluck picnic for those who won’t be coming to our Memorial Day Weekend retreat on Lake Geneva is planned at the Society on Sunday, May 27th, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. We’ll eat and have some pleasant conversation. Children are welcome. Contact Scott Walton at sns@swwalton.com by Saturday for what to bring. Later some of us are going to the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. Please join us.

Recent Sunday Programs

• Neal Blair, professor of civil engineering at Northwestern University, spoke March 18th on “Lessons from the Deep-Water Gulf Oil Spill.” Abe Dolgoff was the moderator.

Blair began by “setting the stage” for the 2011 oil spill disaster with the geological history of the Gulf of Mexico, describing the undersea sedimentary deposits into which oil companies were granted drilling rights. He pointed to both the “amazing technology” and the hazards of deep-water oil wells. Noting the failure of the well’s seal, blow-out preventer, and containment dome, he condemned the shortcuts that had been taken, calling it “a failure of imagination.”

Blair recounted the successful, 100-day, headline-grabbing effort to cap the blowout. He noted the continuing cleanup, but said only 25 percent of the spilled oil has been recovered. He said we still don’t know the full impact of the oil spill on tourism, fisheries, and wildlife nor of the long-term costs. He also questioned the wisdom of renewing deep-water drilling and whether the same government agency should both regulate and promote oil production.

• Barry Siegel, talented poet and founder of HeARTwords, presented a program, “HeARTwords Workshop: Self-Expression by Adults with Special Needs,” on March 25th. Ed Drower was the moderator.

In an opening demonstration of his workshop, Siegel called on two of the young workshop participants to write and, minutes later, read to us short poems on the impromptu topic of “If I were 70 years old.” He described the workshop’s 2-hour sessions as “a forum for sharing our views on both personal and political issues.” We give participants “a safe place to stress their abilities, not their disabilities,” and “encourage them to live independent lives,” he said.

Siegel cited other open-ended writing and speaking topics he has used to stimulate creativity, such as: “If you were…,” or “Define…,” or “Have a conversation with….” As a further example, he asked each of us to come up with “one word to describe yourself.” He also recounted his own personal history and read several love poems from his just-published work Yellow Sun, Blue Moon.

• Jerry Markbreit continued our World of Work series on April 1st, speaking on “My Career as an NFL Referee.” John Ungashick was the moderator.

Markbreit talked about his 23 years as a referee for the National Football League, including four Super Bowls. He showed a DVD with highlights from his career. “I get chills when I see it,” he said. “I had become a minor celebrity.” He recounted his rise from refereeing high school games in his 20s to becoming a head NFL referee at age 47. He went on with amusing stories of his “risky decisions and embarrassing mistakes.” But, like in our everyday lives, “taking risks is how you find out how good you are,” he said.

Markbreit said that a referee needs to be“tough” and “completely honest.” He added, “there are no make-up calls” and “instant replay is here to stay.” Like acting, football “is not real life,” he said, but refereeing “made me feel so powerful,” he joked. Conceding that “football is a violent game,” he condemned the recently exposed bounty system and its career-ending threat to targeted players.

• David Kolata, Executive Director of the Citizens Utility Board (CUB), spoke April 8th on “Meeting Our Future Energy Needs.” David Wokosin was the moderator.

Kolata said that as a consumer advocate, CUB “has saved consumers tons of money in their utility bills.” He stressed the recently passed “smart electric grid” law in Illinois as a “key part in future cost savings.” He noted the increasing use of cheap natural gas to supplement coal as a major fuel for electric power generation. He also discussed other power sources, such as nuclear, wind, and solar. “It is incredibly expensive to build new power plants,” he said. “The biggest issue is how we are going to pay for them.”

Kolata noted efforts to reduce peak power demands and increase efficiency. He called for “holding the power companies accountable” for better communication with consumers and for passing on their savings. He hoped for more cooperation between CUB and the rate-setting Illinois Commerce Commission. To help us cut our power needs he pointed to the Energy Saver link on the CUB website. “The cheapest electricity is what we don’t use,” he concluded.

Activities and Announcements

Our People

From the President. . .

One party in the presidential race has publicly staked its claim to the notion that our rights are God-given, and that this was a bedrock principal of our nation’s founding fathers. This proposition is worth examining.

Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the group-edited Declaration of Independence, spoke of “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and that “all men . . . are endowed by their Creator with inalienable Rights.” Most, but not all, of the founders were Christian or Deist. Jefferson himself did believe in God, although not a supernatural Jesus or organized religion, and he made clear that he considered the French atheist philosophers to be moral without a god.

But the Declaration was not law. When it came time some years later to write the Constitution, God is pointedly nowhere to be found. This fundamental document is clear that “We the People . . . do ordain and establish this Constitution.” The Enlightenment, not the Ten Commandments, presaged the Bill of Rights.


—Steve Julstrom

Sunday School Scoop. . .

—Sharon Appelquist, Director
sundayschool@ethicalhuman.org