Category Archives: Building Humanist Community

Calendar Project: December 2015

December BAH Short List

Earthrise is the name given to NASA image AS8-14-2383, taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon. Taken on December 24, 1968.

Earthrise  

On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”.

Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman to win in two fields, and the only person to win in multiple sciences. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris.

Bertrand Russell 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature

Views on religion[edit]

Russell described himself as an agnostic, “speaking to a purely philosophical audience”, but as an atheist “speaking popularly”, on the basis that he could not disprove the Christian God similar to the way that he could not disprove the Olympic Gods either.[138] For most of his adult life Russell maintained that religion is little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects that religion might have, it is largely harmful to people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook serve to impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and are responsible for much of our world’s wars, oppression, and misery. He was a member of the Advisory Council of theBritish Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death.[139] (from wikipedia)

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Full BAH Research

December

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Bertrand Russell 1950 Prize for Literature The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950 was awarded to Bertrand Russell“in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought”.l  Principal publications l  German Social Democracy, 1896 l  Foundations of Geometry, 1897 l  A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, 1900 l  Principles of Mathematics, vol. 1, 1903 l  Philosophical Essays, 1910 l  (with Dr. A. N. Whitehead) Principia mathematica, 3 vols, 1910-13 l  The Problems of Philosophy, 1912 l  Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy, 1944 l  Principles of Social Reconstruction, 1916 l  Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, 1918 l  Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism, 1918 l  Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, 1919 l  The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, 1920 l  The Analysis of Mind, 1921 l  The Problem of China, 1922 l  The ABC of Atoms, 1923 l  (with Dora Russell) The Prospects of Industrial Civilisation, 1923 l  Logical Atomism, 1924 l  The ABC of Relativity, 1925 l  On Education, 1926 l  The Analysis of Matter, 1927 l  An Outline of Philosophy, 1927 l  Sceptical Essays, 1928 l  Marriage and Morals, 1929 l  The Conquest of Happiness, 1930 l  The Freedom and Organisation 1814-1914, 1934 l  In Praise of Idleness, 1935 l  Which Way to Peace?, 1936 l  (with Patricia Russell editor of) The Amberley Papers, 2 vols, 1937 l  Power: a new Social Introduction to its Study, 1938 l  An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, 1941 l  History of Western Philosophy, 1946 l  Human Knowledge, its Scope and Limits, 1948 l  Authority and the Individual, 1949 l  Unpopular Essays, 1950   December 1950
Earthrise and the Apollo project Earthrise is the name given to NASA image AS8-14-2383, taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission, the first manned voyage to orbit the Moon.[1] [2]    Initially, before Anders found a suitable 70 mm color film, mission commander Frank Borman took a black-and-white photograph [3] of the scene, with the Earth’s terminator touching the horizon. The land mass position and cloud patterns in this image are the same as those of the color photograph entitled Earthrise. [4]       December 24, 1968  The photograph was taken from lunar orbit on December 24, 1968, with a highly modified Hasselblad 500 EL with an electric drive. The camera had a simple sighting ring rather than the standard reflex viewfinder and was loaded with a 70 mm film magazine containing custom Ektachrome film developed by Kodak. An audio recording of the event is available [5] with transcription [6] which allows the event to be followed closely – excerpt:[7]   Anders: Oh my God! Look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty. Borman: Hey, don’t take that, it’s not scheduled. (joking) Anders: (laughs) You got a color film, Jim? Hand me that roll of color quick, would you… Lovell: Oh man, that’s great!    
Marie Curie At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: “The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium.” She later would recall how she felt “a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible.”[29] On 14 April 1898 the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realize at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tons of the ore.[29]In July 1898 Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element which they named “polonium”, in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires.[7] On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”.[17][24][30] In the course of their research, they also coined the word “radioactivity”.[7]   At that time, no one else in the world of physics had noticed what Curie recorded in a sentence of her paper, describing how much greater were the activities of pitchblende and chalcolite than uranium itself: “The fact is very remarkable, and leads to the belief that these minerals may contain an element which is much more active than uranium.” She later would recall how she felt “a passionate desire to verify this hypothesis as rapidly as possible.”[29] On 14 April 1898 the Curies optimistically weighed out a 100-gram sample of pitchblende and ground it with a pestle and mortar. They did not realize at the time that what they were searching for was present in such minute quantities that they would eventually have to process tons of the ore.[29] In July 1898 Curie and her husband published a joint paper announcing the existence of an element which they named “polonium”, in honour of her native Poland, which would for another twenty years remain partitioned among three empires.[7] On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named “radium”, from the Latin word for “ray”.[17][24][30] In the course of their research, they also coined the word “radioactivity”.[7] April, July, December  Radium article in December

 

Calendar Project: Undated

UN Proclamations for years and decades

2015 Year and Decades

2015
International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies A/RES/68/221 Draft: A/68/440/Add.2
2015
International Year of Soils A/RES/68/232 Draft:  A/68/444
2015–2024
International Decade for People of African Descent A/RES/68/237
2014–2024
United Nations Decade of Sustainable Energy for All A/RES/67/215
2011–2020
Third International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism A/RES/65/119
United Nations Decade on Biodiversity A/RES/65/161
Decade of Action for Road Safety A/RES/64/255
2010–2020
United Nations Decade for Deserts and the Fight against Desertification A/RES/62/195
2008–2017
Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty A/RES/62/205
2006–2016
Decade of Recovery and Sustainable Development of the Affected Regions (third decade after the Chernobyl disaster) A/RES/62/9
2005–2015
International Decade for Action, “Water for Life” A/RES/58/217

Undated BAH recommendations

This just means I was unable to pick a month.

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique) is also the title of a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau on this topic.   “The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754 In moral and political philosophy, the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual.[1] Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of social contract theory. The Social Contract (Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique) is also the title of a 1762 book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau on this topic. Although the antecedents of social contract theory are found in antiquity, in Greek and Stoic philosophy and Roman and Canon Law, as well as in the Biblical idea of the covenant, the heyday of the social contract was the mid-17th to early 19th centuries, when it emerged as the leading doctrine of political legitimacy. The starting point for most social contract theories is a heuristic examination of the human condition absent from any political order that Thomas Hobbes termed the “state of nature”.[2] In this condition, individuals’ actions are bound only by their personal power andconscience. From this shared starting point, social contract theorists seek to demonstrate, in different ways, why a rational individual would voluntarily consent to give up his or her natural freedom to obtain the benefits of political order. Hugo Grotius (1625), Thomas Hobbes (1651), Samuel Pufendorf (1673), John Locke (1689), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762), and Immanuel Kant (1797) are among the most prominent of 17th- and 18th-century theorists of social contract and natural rights. Each solved the problem of political authority in a different way. Grotius posited that individual human beings had natural rights; Hobbes asserted that humans consent to abdicate their rights in favor of the absolute authority of government (whether monarchial or parliamentary); Pufendorf disputed Hobbes’s equation of a state of nature with war.[3] Locke believed that natural rights were inalienable, and that the rule of God therefore superseded government authority; and Rousseau believed that democracy (self-rule) was the best way of ensuring the general welfare while maintaining individual freedom under the rule of law. The Lockean concept of the social contract was invoked in the United States Declaration of Independence. Social contract theories were eclipsed in the 19th century in favor of utilitarianism, Hegelianism, and Marxism, and were revived in the 20th century, notably in the form of a thought experiment byJohn Rawls.[3] Theory of Natural Human[edit]

 
Hard to pick a month for social contract theoyr   Also hobbes, Grotius, locke, kant and pufendof The statue of Rousseau on the Île Rousseau, Geneva.
David Hume Epistemology   A Treatise of Human Nature is a book by Scottish philosopher David Hume, first published at the end of 1738. The full title of the Treatise is ‘A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to Introduce the Experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects’. It contains the following sections: The is–ought problem in meta-ethics as articulated by Scottish philosopher and historianDavid Hume (1711–76) is that many writers make claims about what ought to be on the basis of statements about what is. However, Hume found that there seems to be a significant difference between descriptive statements (about what is) and prescriptive or normative statements (about what ought to be), and it is not obvious how one can get from making descriptive statements to prescriptive. The is–ought problem is also known as Hume’s law and Hume’s Guillotine.   ?
Epicurus http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/ ?
Percy Bysshe Shelley & Baruch Spinoza The Necessity of Atheism/ the birth of deism Ethics 1811 / 1667  
Da vinci. Gallileo Copernicus Libnitz Newton    
     
     
C S Lewis    
Paul Tillich    
savings and loans, coop banking    
zukov beats hitler    
John muir. bob marshall    
     
Goddard    
     
Ralph waldo emerson.    
Gandi    
Jesus and budda    
hamurabi    
fibbanochi    
Margaret Sanger    
Jonas Salk, Pasteur,    
     
Panama canal Engineering?            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Panama_Canal#Dealing_with_disease  
William Shakespeare Merchant of Venice  
     
     
     
Felix Adler Adler talked about “deed, not creed”; his belief was that good works were the basis of ethical culture. In 1877 the Society founded the District Nursing Department, which organized a team of nurses who visited the homebound sick in poor districts.[4] A year later, in 1878, the Society established a Free Kindergarten for working people’s children. Because it served the working poor, the kindergarten provided basic necessities for the children when needed, such as clothing and hot meals.[6] It evolved over time into the Ethical Culture Fieldston School. Well known as a lecturer and writer, Adler served as rector for the Ethical Culture School until his death in 1933. Throughout his life, he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions, such as schools and government, to promote greater justice in human relations. Cooperation rather than competition was the higher social value. He gave a series of six lectures on “The Ethics of Marriage” for the Lowell Institute‘s 1896–97 season. Adler was the founding chairman of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. Lewis Hine was hired as the committee’s photographer in 1908. In 1917 Adler served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In 1928 he became president of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association. He served on the first Executive Board of the National Urban League.   May deed without creed February EC started   in 1876, Adler at age 26 was invited to give a lecture expanding upon his themes first presented in the sermon at Temple Emanu-El. On May 15, 1876 [5] he reiterated the need for a religion, without the trappings of ritual or creed, that united all of mankind in moral social action. To do away with theology and to unite theists, atheists, agnostics and deists, all in the same religious cause, was a revolutionary idea at the time. A few weeks after the sermon, Adler started a series of weekly Sunday lectures. Aided by Joseph Seligman, president of Temple Emanu-El, in February 1877, Adler incorporated the Society of Ethical Culture.[4]
442 RCT   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)  

 

Calendar Project: March 2015

March 2015

Audrey Hepburn’s work with UNICEF, First field trip to Ethopia, March 1988

“Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You know, it’s really senseless, what you’re doing. There’s always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you’re just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].’ My answer is, ‘Okay, then, let’s start with your grandchild. Don’t buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don’t take it to the hospital if it has an accident.’ It’s against life-against humanity-to think that way.

Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie, March 1944 recording of “This Land is Your Land” is the first known with the private property verse.

As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me.

Other Calendars

Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 03 March Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 03 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 03 March

Full BAH Listing Research for March 2015

 

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Audrey Hepburn’s UNICEF Field Missions   http://www.audrey1.org/biography/22/audrey-hepburns-unicef-field-missions   “Somebody said to me the other day, ‘You know, it’s really senseless, what you’re doing. There’s always been suffering, there will always be suffering, and you’re just prolonging the suffering of these children [by rescuing them].’ My answer is, ‘Okay, then, let’s start with your grandchild. Don’t buy antibiotics if it gets pneumonia. Don’t take it to the hospital if it has an accident.’ It’s against life-against humanity-to think that way. March   Ethiopia: March 1988 First trip for UNICEF
Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.” But on the other side it didn’t say nothing, That side was made for you and me.   Woodrow Wilson “Woody” Guthrie (July 14, 1912 – October 3, 1967) was an American singer-songwriter and folk musician whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children’s songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his guitar. His best-known song is “This Land Is Your Land.” Many of his recorded songs are archived in the Library of Congress.[1] Such songwriters as Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Andy Irvine, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jay Farrar, Jeff Tweedy, Bob Childers and Tom Paxton have acknowledged Guthrie as a major influence. Many of his songs are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great Depression when Guthrie traveled with migrant workers from Oklahoma to California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning him the nickname the “Dust Bowl Troubadour.”[2] Throughout his life Guthrie was associated with United States Communist groups, though he was seemingly not a member of any.[3] Guthrie was married three times and fathered eight children, including American folk musician Arlo Guthrie. Guthrie died from complications of Huntington’s disease, a progressive genetic neurological disorder. During his later years, in spite of his illness, Guthrie served as a figurehead in the folk movement, providing inspiration to a generation of new folk musicians, including mentor relationships with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Bob Dylan.   March   A March 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the “private property” verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian who were interviewed as part of the History Channel program Save Our History – Save our Sounds. The 1944 recording with this fourth verse can be found on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.

Calendar Project April 2015

April 2015

Short list for April

Publication of the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award[2] and Pulitzer Prize[3] for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in 1962.[4] Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other “Okies”, they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future. (From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grapes_of_Wrath )

Katharine Hepburn – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (awarded 2nd of 4 academy awards), received the American Humanist Association’s Arts Award in 1985.

“I’m an Atheist and that’s it,” said Katharine to Ladies Home Journal in 1991. “I believe there’s nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other, and do what we can for other people.”

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Full BAH Listing and Research on April 2015

April

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
John Steinbeck and The Grapes of Wrath    The Grapes of Wrath   First edition cover Author  John Steinbeck Cover artist       Elmer Hader Country            United States Language          English Genre   Novel Publisher           The Viking Press-James Lloyd Publication dateApril 14, 1939[1] Media type        Print (hardcover andpaperback) Pages    619 OCLC 289946 Publishes in April

Calendar Project: May 2015

May Short List

Kenneth and Mamie Clark & Thurgood Marshall, Publication of Brown versus the Board of Education, The doll experiments

Kenneth and Mamie Clark did the research that lead to Thurgood Marshall winning the Brown versus Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that ended separate but equal segregation.

May 1847, Ignaz Simmelwiz institutes hand washing with cloronated lime at Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic.

Early advocate for empiricism in medicine.

Other Calendars

Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 May Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar May 2015 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 05 May

May

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
John Dewey “What Humanism means to me is an expansion, not a contraction, of human life, an expansion in which nature and the science of nature are made the willing servants of human good.” — John Dewey, “What Humanism Means to Me”[36]   A Humanist Manifesto, also known as Humanist Manifesto I to distinguish it from later Humanist Manifestos in the series, was written in 1933 primarily by Raymond Bragg and published with 34 signers. Unlike the later manifestos, this first talks of a new religion and refers to humanism as a religious movement meant to transcend and replace previous, deity-based systems. Nevertheless, it is careful not to express a creed or dogma. The document outlines fifteen affirmations on cosmology, biological and cultural evolution, human nature, epistemology, ethics, religion, self-fulfillment, and the quest for freedom and social justice. This latter, stated in article fourteen, proved to be the most controversial, even among humanists, in its opposition to “acquisitive and profit-motivated society” and its demand for an egalitarian world community based on voluntary mutual cooperation. The document’s release was reported by the mainstream media on May 1, simultaneous with its publication in the May/June 1933 issue of the New Humanist. May 1 1933 Publication of the humanists manifesto
Kenneth and Mamie Clark & Thurgood Marshall   Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S.483 (1954), was a landmarkUnited States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which allowed state-sponsored segregation, insofar as it applied to public education. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court‘s unanimous (9–0) decision stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” As a result, de jureracial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement.[1] May 17, 1954 Publication of Brown v Board of Education  
Ignaz Semmelweis   Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis[Note 1] (July 1, 1818 – August 13, 1865) (born Ignác Fülöp Semmelweis) was a Hungarian physician of German extraction[1][2] now known as an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the “savior of mothers”, Semmelweis discovered that the incidenceof puerperal fever could be drastically cut by the use of hand disinfection in obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal, with mortality at 10%–35%. Semmelweis proposed the practice of washing with chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in Vienna General Hospital‘s First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors’ wards had three times the mortality of midwives’ wards.[3] He published a book of his findings in Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever. Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced mortality to below 1%, Semmelweis’s observations conflicted with the established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis’s practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the Frenchmicrobiologist‘s research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed.     Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever is a medical book by Ignaz Semmelweis. It includes studies in hospitals conducted in Vienna in 1847, dealing largely with the field of obstretics. It was translated into English by Kay Codell Carter in 1983.   http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/the%20etiology,%20concept%20and%20prophylaxis%20of%20childbed%20fever.pdf May 1847, Simmelwiz institutes hand washing with cloronated lime

Calendar Project: June 2015

Short List for June 2015

On June 3,1895, Auguste Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais, on a high pedestal and enclosed by an iron fence, was unveiled in the Richelieu Garden in Calais.

Auguste Rodin’s sculptures are noted for his realism, especially with his focus on emotion and character. The sculpture The Burghers of Calais is a memorial to the heroism and costs of sacrifice by ordinary people and the often forgotten costs of war.

  •  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burghers_of_Calais
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auguste_Rodin

June, 1966: Project Washoe Begins at the University of Reno, in Reno, Nevada

Allen and Beatrix Gardner begin raising the chimp Washoe as they would a human child and communicate with Washoe using American Sign Language.  Washoe successfully learned to communicate and express herself with humans. Work with Washoe lead to the bioethical position that the great apes are the moral equivalent to humans.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_(chimpanzee)

Other Calendars

Anti-Defamation League ADL 2015 06 June Freedom from Religion Foundation FFRF Calendar 06 United Nations Observations UN Proclomations & Observances 2015 06 June

June BAH Details

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Washoe and Allen and Beatrix Gardner Self-awareness and emotion[edit] One of Washoe’s caretakers was pregnant and missed work for many weeks after she miscarried. Roger Fouts recounts the following situation: “People who should be there for her and aren’t are often given the cold shoulder–her way of informing them that she’s miffed at them. Washoe greeted Kat [the caretaker] in just this way when she finally returned to work with the chimps. Kat made her apologies to Washoe, then decided to tell her the truth, signing “MY BABY DIED.” Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into Kat’s eyes again and carefully signed “CRY”, touching her cheek and drawing her finger down the path a tear would make on a human (Chimpanzees don’t shed tears). Kat later remarked that one sign told her more about Washoe and her mental capabilities than all her longer, grammatically perfect sentences.” [23] Washoe herself lost two children; one baby died shortly after birth of a heart defect, the other baby, Sequoyah, died of a staph infection at two months of age. When Washoe was shown an image of herself in the mirror, and asked what she was seeing, she replied: “Me, Washoe.”[24][25] Primate expert Jane Goodall, who has studied and lived with chimpanzees for decades, believes that this might indicate some level of self awareness.[25][26] Washoe appeared to experience an identity crisis when she was first introduced to other chimpanzees, seeming shocked to learn that she was not human. She gradually came to enjoy associating with other chimps.[27] Washoe also enjoyed playing pretend with her dolls, which she would bathe and talk to and would act out imaginary scenarios.[28][29] When new students came to work with Washoe, she would slow down her rate of signing for novice speakers of sign language, which had a humbling effect on many of them.[30] Impact on bioethics[edit] Some believe that the fact that Washoe not only communicated, but also formed close and personal relationships with humans indicates that she is emotionally sensitive and is deserving of moral status.[31] Work with Washoe and other signing primates motivated the foundation of the Great Ape Project, which hopes to “include the non-human great apes [chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas] within the community of equals by granting them the basic moral and legal protections that only humans currently enjoy”, in order to place them in the moral category of “persons” rather than private property.[32]   June, 1966: Project Washoe Begins at the University of Reno, in Reno, Nevada  
Aguste Rodin & The Burghers of Calais England’s Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais, while Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.     Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers joined with him.[2] Saint Pierre led this envoy of volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.   Although the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England’s queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child.   http://bit.ly/RPNFhX   On June 3,1895, Rodin’s The Burghers of Calais, on a high pedestal and enclosed by an iron fence, was unveiled in the Richelieu Garden in Calais

Calendar Project: July 2015

July 2015 BAH Short List

The Delcaration of Sentiments, The Seneca Falls Convention, July 19–20, 1848 and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

While an abolitionist, Elizabeth Cady Stanton  was an outspoken advocate for women’s rights.  Beyond the right to vote, she advocated for a broad range of issues which included women’s parental and custody rights, property rights, employment and income rights, divorce, the economic health of the family, and birth control. Stanton was the primary author of The Declaration of Rights and Sentiments.  Modelled after the Declaration of Independence, it challenged the normative cultural treatment of women as property.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Falls_Convention
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Sentiments
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Cady_Stanton

Other calendars

Full BAH Research

July

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
-Seneca Falls Convention and Elizabeth Cady Stanton The Seneca Falls Convention, which advertised itself as a “Womens Right Convention”.—A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman”,[1] was the first women’s rights convention.[2] Held in Seneca Falls,New York, it spanned two days over July 19–20, 1848. Attracting widespread attention, it was soon followed by other women’s rights conventions, including one in Rochester, New York two weeks later. In 1850 the first in a series of annualNational Women’s Rights Conventions met in Worcester, Massachusetts. Female Quakers local to the area organized the meeting along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was not a Quaker. They planned the event during a visit to the area by Philadelphia-based Lucretia Mott. Mott, a Quaker, was famous for her oratorical ability, which was rare during an era which women were often not allowed to speak in public.   July 19–20, 1848

Calendar Project: August 2015

August 2015 BAH Short List

US Cavalry takes charge of Yellowstone Park protecting it for two generations from commercialization.

In August 1886, after the downfall of Superintendent Carpenter from his criminal attempt to profit off of park lands, Sheridan ordered a company of the First Cavalry to take charge of the park.  They had the means to enforce the rules and regulations of the park, and they ably administered Yellowstone for the next thirty-two years.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963.

I Have a Dream” is a public speech delivered by American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. on August 28, 1963, in which he calls for an end to racism in the United States. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, the speech was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement.[1] (from wikipedia)

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

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August

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Sheridan protecting Yellowstone. Yellowstone[edit] The protection of the Yellowstone area was Sheridan’s personal crusade. He authorized Lieutenant Gustavus Doane to escort the Washburn Expedition in 1870 and for Captain John W. Barlow to escort the Hayden Expedition in 1871. Barlow named Mount Sheridan, a peak overlooking Heart Lake in Yellowstone, for the general in 1871.[50] As early as 1875, Sheridan promoted military control of the area to prevent the destruction of natural formations and wildlife.[51]   In 1882, the Department of the Interior granted rights to the Yellowstone Park Improvement Company to develop 4,000 acres (1620 hectares) in the park. Their plan was to build a railroad into the park and sell the land to developers. Sheridan personally organized opposition to the plan and lobbied Congress for protection of the park; including expansion, military control, reducing the development to 10 acres (4 hectares), and prohibiting leases near park attractions. In addition, he arranged an expedition to the park for President Chester A. Arthur and other influential men.[52] His lobbying soon paid off. A rider was added to the Sundry Civil Bill of 1883, giving Sheridan and his supporters almost everything for which they had asked. In 1886, after a string of ineffectual and sometimes criminal superintendents, Sheridan ordered the 1st U.S. Cavalry into the park. The military operated the park until the National Park Service took it over in 1916.[51]   President Ulysses S. Grant, on March 1, 1872, signed into law a bill making an area mostly in the Northwest corner of Wyoming Territory larger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined into this nation’s first national park.   Sheridan is mentioned favorably in The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, Episode I, for his work saving Yellowstone National Park:[53]   Grinnell’s fight against the railroad interests was soon joined by an unlikely ally—General Philip Sheridan, a cavalry hero of the Civil War and celebrated Indian fighter, who was now commander of the U.S. Army for much of the West. Sheridan even suggested that Yellowstone should be expanded to provide greater protection for the elk and buffalo. The idea was immediately opposed by Western politicians who believed that Yellowstone was already too big.   In Washington, Grinnell, Sheridan and Missouri Senator George Vest took on the railroad lobby directly, calling for an investigation into the park contracts, proposing the expansion of Yellowstone, and trying to write park regulations concerning hunting into law. While the bill to expand Yellowstone failed, Congress did appropriate $40,000 for its maintenance; however, funds to maintain the park were stripped away in August 1886. It seemed Yellowstone would have to fend for itself.   Sheridan’s headstone at Arlington National Cemetery. The inscription faces Washington, D.C. Coming to the rescue, Sheridan dispatched Troop M of the First United States Cavalry to take control of Yellowstone. —Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea August, Cavalry take over park management   Sheridan’s plan generally succeeded, and Yellowstone became a national park in fact.  After one failed attempt to pass Sheridan’s plan, Vest pushed the bill through as a rider on the Sundry Civil Appropriations Bill signed March 3, 1883 64 (see  Sundry Civil Bill for 1883 ).  The final version of the act added no more land to Yellowstone, but it called for everything else that Sheridan wanted.  Furthermore, Chester A. Arthur became the first President to visit the park in the summer of 1883.  Arthur and his party of dignitaries–cabinet members, senators, governors, and others–left Yellowstone impressed enough that they did not stand in the way of the execution of the law. 65 In August 1886, after the downfall of Superintendent Carpenter from his criminal attempt to profit off of park lands, Sheridan ordered a company of the First Cavalry to take charge of the park.  They had the means to enforce the rules and regulations of the park, and they ably administered Yellowstone for the next thirty-two years. 66 Sheridan’s ironic mission to save Yellowstone’s wildlife and protect it from the dominating interests of private enterprise succeeded.
Coast Guard Day Coast Guard Day (Established in 1790) August 4, 1790
  Thomas Edison received a patent for the mimeograph machine in 1876. August 8, 1876
  Transcontinental Railroad completed, 1869. August 15, 1869
Mosquito Day   August 20
  National Park Service Established 1916. 25 August 1916
American Civil Rights Movement Dream DayMartin Luther King Jr. gave the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech in 1963. 28 August, 1963
  Thurgood Marshall took a seat on the Supreme Court, 1967. 30 August 1967

Calendar Project: September 2015

September BAH Short List

September, 26, 1900, Jesse Lazear dies of yellow fever after allowing himself to be bite by a mosquito.

September, Hull House started in Chicago, Jane Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889

The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community. Its main object was the establishment of “settlement houses” in poor urban areas, in which volunteer middle-class “settlement workers” would live, hoping to share knowledge and culture with, and alleviate the poverty of their low-income neighbors. The “settlement houses” provided services such as daycare, education, and healthcare to improve the lives of the poor in these areas.[1] In the US, by 1913 there were 413 settlements in 32 states.[2]  (From wikipedia)

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September

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
Racheal Carson Silent Spring is an environmental science book written by Rachel Carson and published by Houghton Mifflin on September 27, 1962
Jane Addams Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 – May 21, 1935) was a pioneer settlement social worker, public philosopher, sociologist, author, and leader inwomen’s suffrage and world peace. In an era when presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson identified themselves as reformers and social activists, Addams was one of the most prominent[1] reformers of the Progressive Era. She helped turn the US to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health, and world peace. She said that if women were to be responsible for cleaning up their communities and making them better places to live, they needed the vote to be effective in doing so. Addams became a role model for middle-class women who volunteered to uplift their communities. She is increasingly being recognized as a member of the American pragmatist school of philosophy.[2] In 1931 she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is recognized as the founder of the social work profession in the United States   Addams followed the example of Toynbee Hall, which was founded in 1885 in the East End of London as a center for social reform. She described Toynbee Hall as “a community of university men” who, while living there, held their recreational clubs and social gatherings at the settlement house…among the poor people and in the same style they would in their own circle.[10] September, Hull House started in Chicago Addams and Starr established Hull House as a settlement house on September 18, 1889.[11]   Nobel Peace Prize 1931; December  
Yellow fever and mosquitos Walter Reed, Jesse Lazear, Carlos Finlay   After a few months in Quemados, Lazear, together with Walter Reed (1851–1902), James Carroll (1854–1907) and Aristides Agramonte (1869–1931), participated in a commission studying the transmission of yellow fever, the Yellow Fever Board. During his research at Camp Colombia, he confirmed the 1881 hypothesis of Carlos Finlay that mosquitos transmitted this disease. A portion of his study, though, had been conducted on himself: without telling his colleagues, he had allowed himself to be bitten by yellow fever-infected mosquitoes, and died of the disease at age 34. A dormitory at Johns Hopkins University was named after him in honor of his sacrifice, as was a former chemistry building at Washington & Jefferson College, Lazear’s alma mater. September, 26, 1900, Lazear dies of yellow fever after allowing himself to be bite by a mosquito.

Calendar Project: October 2015

October 2015 BAH Short List

George Carlin And Saturday Night Live, First host on October 11, 1975

Saturday Night Live first show aired on October 11, 1975 with George Carlin as its host.

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October

Name & Event Reason important to Secular Humanism Calendar Month
George Carlin And Saturday Night Live When the first show aired on October 11, 1975 with George Carlin as its host, it was called NBC’s Saturday Night because ABC featured a program at the same time titled Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. The first season of Saturday Night Live, the weekly late-night 90-minute American sketch comedy/variety show on NBC, aired during the 1975–1976 television season. Saturday Night Live premiered on October 11, 1975 First host on October 11, 1975
John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry, the under ground railroad Raid Main article: John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry Harper’s Weekly illustration of U.S. Marines attacking John Brown’s “Fort” Brown arrived in Harpers Ferry on July 3, 1859. A few days later, under the name Isaac Smith, he rented a farmhouse in nearby Maryland. He awaited the arrival of his recruits. They never materialized in the numbers he expected. In late August he met with Douglass in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where he revealed the Harpers Ferry plan. Douglass expressed severe reservations, rebuffing Brown’s pleas to join the mission. Douglass had actually known about Brown’s plans from early in 1859 and had made a number of efforts to discourage blacks from enlisting. In late September, the 950 pikes arrived from Charles Blair. Kagi’s draft plan called for a brigade of 4,500 men, but Brown had only 21 men (16 white and 5 black: three free blacks, one freed slave, and a fugitive slave). They ranged in age from 21 to 49. Twelve of them had been with Brown in Kansas raids. On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 18 men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory. He had received 200Beecher’s Bibles—breechloading .52 (13.2 mm) caliber Sharps rifles—and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Frederick Douglass and Brown’s family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, essentially wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states. From the Southern point of view, of course, any effort to arm the enslaved was perceived as a definitive threat.   October, 16, 1859