Santa Barbara Humanist Society Newsletter for March 2001 |
||
Founded in 1995 by Keith Bailey 2000 - 2001 OFFICERS Chairman: Roger Schlueter 962-6316-rogers@west.net Secretary: Colin Gordon 682-0545-colin3@juno.com Editor: Dick Cousineau 687-2371-rcous1geol@aol.com Treasurer: Russ Boggie 564-6086-rusans@aol.com Programs: James Kimberly 969-9686-drtunes@aol.com Social Director: Anne Rojas 564-6086-rusans@aol.com Membership: Mary Wilk 967-3045-wilk@electromatic.com Archivist: Bob Michael 963-5614 Publicity: Charlotte Carver 964-2773-charm@silcom.com Top of Page MEETINGS We meet on the third Saturday of every month at 3.00 PM at Jefferson Hall, 1525 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara, California (except in June and December when we have our biannual Solstice parties). It is not necessary to be a member to attend our meetings Everyone who is receptive to Humanist ideas and ideals is welcome. The views and opinions expressed in the Bulletin are the writer's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Society. Society Board Meetings are usually held on the Monday prior to each monthly Society meeting. All members are welcome. Locality changes so call the chairman or secretary to find planned meeting site. The monthly Board of Directors Meeting will be held at Anne and Russ's home on Monday March 12 at 4.30 - 1526 Knoll Circle Drive. All members welcome. Top of Page MEMBERSHIP NOTES We are pleased to acknowledge the addition of three new members to our society, namely: UPCOMING MEETINGS At our next regularly scheduled society meeting, March 17, our speaker will be Jay Johnson, a prominent businessman and Planning Commission member of Santa Monica. He is also a member and trustee of Atheists United in Los Angeles. Jay's topic will be "RELIGION IN CUBA TODAY". He is just back from his fifth trip to Cuba. Jay's career is centered on the vice-presidency of Lee Jeans. He has a bachelor's degree in marketing from the University of San Francisco and he was a delegate to the Democratic convention that nominated George McGovern in 1972. Members are encouraged to invite guests. Following the usual pattern we will start the meeting promptly at 3pm. Please arrive early in order to find a good parking place. By James Kimberly
Top of PageTHE UP-COMING SOCIAL SCENE BY ANNE ROJAS The Humanist "get together dinner" at the venerable Biltmore Hotel on the beach in Montecito, is filling up quickly. As of March 1 there are only 6 places left. Dont miss out on this fabulous Thursday evening buffet which offers a sumptuous repast sure to delight every taste. (Loads of shrimp, wonderful salads, planked salmon, 'death by chocolate' desserts and much more). All served in the delightful Patio Dining Room. The cost for all of this (all you care to eat) dinner is a mere $26.00, which includes tax and tip! (Drinks are not included though). Plan to join us, Thursday APRIL12th @ 7pm.
Don't forget our monthly Sunday Brunch (Mar 25) at the Sizzlers on Hollister at 10am. Last month's brunch drew 12 people, including three new members and one visitor.
Our visit to Hola Amigos after last month's meeting was well attended - 16 people - great food and stimulating conversation. This month's Dining Out experience will be at Yen Chings - in the Ralph's Shopping Center on Upper DeLa Vina. $10, all you can eat buffet. Be there!
Future events are: A wine tasting bus trip to Santa Ynez Valley, a Theater Evening, Trip to CFI West. Please let us know other suggestions.
Please sign up for Cookie/Punch refreshment volunteer for the upcoming months. Top of Page WEB SITE OF THE MONTH by Colin Gordon This month we stay close to home with our Humanist neighbor to the East, the Freethinkers of Ventura County. The prime mover at FTVC is Charlotte Poe who spoke to our group recently on "The Sex Lives of the Popes" and runs an e-mail network known as Charlotte's Web - to get on the distribution list mail to FrTh@aol.com
The site itself is full of good and interesting things, with a snazzy banner (plus a place to click if you don't like banners!) and an interesting Free-Thinker logo. There is even a song "Losing my Religion" to greet you, but on my PC it cuts out after a few seconds. Another thing that needs fixing! Much of the value of this site lies in the newsletters which provide a good overview of the activities at FTVC. Good Webbing to you. Top of Page Dr.Art Brody is a man with ideas and he has some for the Humanist Society (more later). In his career as an orthopaedic surgeon he was quick to investigate and adopt scientific advancements he believed would benefit his patients. Art was born in New Jersey. His grandparents were orthodox Jews from Russia, but his parents were secular Jews and Art is just secular. During his undergraduate work at Princeton, his scientific background led him to the Greek Philosophers Aristotle and Socrates who reinforced his reason-based philosophical viewpoint. He spent four more years at the University of Pennsylvania and interned at Belleview Hospital in New York City. After coming to California during his two-year stint in the Navy, he met his future wife Elaine in Los Angeles. He then spent two years in San Francisco training as a surgeon followed by three years in New York specializing in orthopaedics. With degrees in hand, he returned to Torrance, California, to begin his practice.
Art was one of fourteen doctors who started the Hawthorne Community Medical Group, which at its zenith grew to include 120 doctors and 700 employees, and with branches all over the Los Angeles area. The group formed the first HMO called Maxicare which serviced over two hundred thousand patients.
He also served on the board of directors of the medical frouup from its inception until it was sold some years later. His main function was to head the retirement committee which established 401k plans for the employees and defined benefit plans for the doctors. In the 1980s, during a time of malpractice crisis, the Medical Group was forced to form its own insurance company, requiring each doctor to put up the equivalent of one year's premium (in the case of orthopaedics $40,000). As a member of the board of directors of the insurance company, Art was head of the risk management committee whose role it was to investigate all allegations of malpractice by its members.
Art was quite happy with his choice of careers, and as it is said "Orthopaedic patients are broken not sick". The ability to repair bone injuries with sophisticated instruments and advanced training was very gratifying. He liked the social aspects of medicine as well as the ever evolving technology associated with it. He was one of the first orthopaedists in his area to incorporate arthroscopic surgery in his practice. The operation is now the number one orthopaedic procedure in the world but in those days it was quite primitive. The video cameras initially weighed close to five pounds and had to be suspended form the ceiling. Today they weigh about four ounces and are hand held. A routine arthroscopy that originally required two to three hours now requires about 30 minutes. Many world famous orthopaedists downplayed the procedure when it was first introduced, call it a tinker's toy. That opinion has radically changed.
In the early 1960s, Elaine and Art grew dissatisfied with the quality of elementary schooling in Los Angeles, and with like minded individuals participated in the opening of the first Montessori School there. They were exuberant over this new rational philosophy of education, and they helped settle teachers from Holland (where Montessori is the State system) in the Los Angeles area. The first headmasters were Mr and Mrs Lavin (Mrs Lavin trained in the classroom where Ann Frank was a student) and the school was owned and managed by the actor Tom Laughlin. Tom was later to become the cult hero of the western film "Billy Jack". Art was forced into retirement when an infection set in after knee replacement and put him out of commission for three years, too long to get back into the field.
Because one of their daughters lived in Santa Barbara, Elaine and Art moved here about three years ago. While in Los Angeles the Brodys belonged to a Humanist group and when they saw our ad in the News-Press they came and joined, and the rest is history, as they say.
Art sees ways we can improve our meeting as well as spread the Humanist philosophy. He is working on getting the Santa Barbara Community College Adult Education to initiate a class on Humanism, hopefully to start in the fall of this year. "There are capable teachers in this group" he states and when a course has been approved by Adult Ed. he is confident fine teachers from our society will volunteer to lead. He also believes that attracting students to such a class will be easy. Its another case of "Build it and they will come". Art's enthusiasm is catching. Top of Page |
THE SATURDAY SABBATH This Month, I want to take a break from all the serious matters usually covered here and have some fun by engaging in some historical speculation. Well, its not just speculation because there is a reasonable basis for the ideas here, but its not rocket science either. With due caution then, lets investigate the question "Why is Saturday the Jewish Sabbath?"
According to the Bible, the Jews have a right. God worked his/her buns off to create the universe in six days. After all that work (s)he was pooped and took the seventh day off. The seventh day is Saturday so logically the Jews celebrate the Sabbath properly according to our current reckoning of the calendar.
But whiy did God take six days to gin this whole thing up and why did (s)he have to rest for a day? Given an omnipotent God it would sem that the creation of a universe would be a mere trifle, a deed that could be completed in the mere twinkling of an eye. No doubt I would be tired if I had just created a universe, but I am not omnipotent (hard as it is to admit!). Makes you wonder why an "all powerful" god has to rest, but lets leave that for another discussion.
Clearly something is amiss here and what follows is one rationale. Most of my ideas are based on the book "Time: Its Origins, Its Enigma, Its History" by Alexander Waugh (Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 2000) and my recollections of an interview of the author shown on C-SPAN.
We must begin our investigation of the Saturday Sabbath in ancient times when the Babylonians were the dominant culture in the area we now know as the Middle East. They were an advanced civilization that used pottery, metalworking, and writing. They created a base 60 (sexagesimal) numbering system to support their form of commerce.
WAKE UP! Don't let your eyes glaze over. Numbering systems can be really interesting. In the USA today today we routinely use numbering systems with bases 1,4,8,10 (The undisputed champion) and 12. For example, computers use a binary system (consisting of 0s and 1s) and bakers create products by the dozen (base 12). Why did the Babylonians adopt a sexagesimal system? Because they engaged in commerce. And commerce requires counting. And the most convenient device for counting in ancient days was the human hand. The hand consists of a thumb and four fingers, each of which has three phalanges. Hold your right hand up, palm face-forward. Use your thumb as the counting device and use the three phalanges of each finger as a "place holder." Starting with the right index finger, you can count to 3 on the first finger, to 6 on the middle finger, and so forth. When you've used up all your fingers, you will be up to twelve.
What's next? The only convenient counting device remaining to the ancients was the left hand. It has five digits. So, for each pass through the left hand, the right hand could count up to five. But five times twelve is 60. Voilá! The result is a sexagesimal numbering system. At least this part of the story is not speculation. This counting system is still in use in parts of the Middle East even today. The Chinese abacus works on the very same principle, but does not use a sexagesimal system.
For the next part of our investigation, we need to recognize the importance of integer division. If a Babylonian had three offspring and his "estate" consisted of, say, six goats, it was easy to leave two goats to each child when he died. But woe unto him if he had seven goats. How could he possibly divide his estate in an equitable manner without doing great harm to goat seven?
Numbers that could not be divided into integers were thus viewed as somehow inherently evil. So, what is the first number that won't "go into" 60 evenly? The answer is seven! Thus, the Babylonians viewed seven as an evil number. (You can see where its going, right?)
The last bit of relevant information to our investigation is that, according to the Bible, the Babylonians enslaved the Jews for centuries. Understandably and rightfully so, the Jews hated them. So everything the Babylonians reviled, the Jews embraced. Since the seventh day was considered "evil" by the Babylonians for the reason cited above, the Babylonians enforced especially harsh conditions on their slaves on this day. They were required to perform the most menial of services on the seventh day. Of course, then, the Jews adopted this day as especially "good" and as soon as they could do so, they made the seventh day, the day when they were so demeaned, a day of rest. The net result: Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath.
In summary, Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath because: 1. Homo Sapiens have an opposable thumb and four fingers with three phalanges each. 2. Seven is the first number that will not go into 60 evenly. 3. The Jews hated the Babylonians. I'll bet you now regret sleeping through your history classes! Top of Page OF OUR FRIEND AND FELLOW HUMANIST Horst was a long time member of our society and he would often travel from his home in Lompoc to our meetings in Santa Barbara. He was admired for his insightful wit, his rational thought and his warm smile. He will be missed! We send our condolences to his wife, Jill and his family. Top of Page Dear Friends and Fellow Humanists; Over the past 5 years or so our little group has grown from 5 to nearly 50 members and we are continuing to attract new and interesting members of high quality. Assuming this vigorous growth continues, I think we are at a point where we should begin to expand our horizons beyond our own survival. I think the time has arrived to reach out to our local community in a manner consistent with our principle: "We are committed to the application of reason and science to the understanding of the universe and to the solving of human problems". To this end I propose that we institute a program to assist a local elementary school with their efforts to teach science and critical thinking. During the next week I will meet with school officials to find out how we can help: New Science Books, A Science Lab, A Critical Thinking Library, Or? Judy and I will look into the feasibility and cost of such an effort and will keep you informed of our discussions, but how does the idea appeal to you? Can we find enthusiastic support for such a program from our members? Please let us know your thoughts and feelings about this proposal. --- Dick Cousineau and/or Judy Freeman -- 687-2371 Top of Page QUOTES OF THE MONTH Auntie Em: Hate you, Hate Kansas, Taking Dog --- Dorothy
The person who doesn't read good books has no advantage over those who can't read them. Egotist: One who is more interested in himself than me. Atheism: A non-prophet organization. I am an agnostic pagan -- I doubt the existence of many gods. Televangelists -- The Pro Wrestlers of Religion. Truth is said to be stranger than fiction: it is to most folks. Top of PageAs noted in the article about Keith's memorial service, he had quite an extensive library of philosophical books regarding various religions of the world and works by various significant thinkers, especially Robert Ingersol. Thes books have been donated to our Society. Since we do not have a physical location to shelve these books and make them available to the membership, we have decided to sell them at a mini book sale to be held during our February and March meetings.
Proceeds from the sale of Keith's books will go toward the purchase of a plaque for Keith that will be set at the foot of an appropriate tree in one of Santa Barbara's beautiful parks. The Society challenges you to purchase books by promising to match all income up to the purchase price of the plaque.
Plan to attend our March meeting and take advantage of this opportunity to extend your own library. Bring a friend who reads. Bring two!
Top of Page This Nobel Prize winning philosopher explores the experience of believing in nothing beyond one's individual freedom and actions, and the moral implications of that way of thinking. His life's work is embodied in the saying: Top of Page |
|