AOF News & Views –
Newsletter for October 2016

Upcoming Events ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ² ²

Ø  Freethought Day Festival «
«
Sunday,
October 16, 2016 11AM – 5:30PM

Changes are brewing, and have brewed, for this annual festival of
reason. For one, it had a growth spurt. No longer "Sacramento
Freethought Day," it is now California Freethought
Day, a larger, grander, more freethinky event. And it is
no longer AOF's baby. It left the nest, it has spread its wings. We are so
proud ... excuse us a moment (*sniff*).

Of course AOF continues to support the annual event we began in 2002. So
grab a Sharpie now and mark your calendar for the Fifteenth Annual Freethought Day Festival,
when our bright community joins hands to bring you a menagerie of wonders,
an arabesque of dreams, a fabulous flight of free minds, and so much fun you'll
want to get the t-shirt. (Ohyes,
there'll be a t-shirt.)

California Freethought Day is
a jubilee, a party, a gala, a celebration of secularism, a salute to
independent and rational thought, open to the public, free (that's to say, freeeee), combining the
fun and festivity of a fair with the education and activism of a conference. It
features speakers, entertainers, food, prizes, a "family fun zone,"
vendors, exhibits, panels, art ... and more.

Planners have packed the day with events to entertain you as much as
uplift you, and to nourish you with knowledge. For now, projected
speakers/panellists/entertainers will include podcaster &
AAA President Aaron Ra, activist Nas Ishmael of Ex-Muslims
of North America, Indian rationalist Sanal Edamaruku, author David McAfee, rock-goddess Shelley
Segal, comedian Steve
Hill, poet Victor Harris,
David Silverman
of American Atheists, Tom Manger of the Secular
Coalition for California, Amanda Metskas
from Camp Quest, student whistle-blower Cindy Fisk,
and many more -- a spectrum of noted writers and activists, all
bright candles to light the darkness.

Note, the main event (Sunday) is free
to attend (though CFD accepts donations with blinding smiles),
and advance registration (also free, see http://freethoughtday.org/) will make
you eligible for delightful & toothsome door prizes. Also a fun Supporters
Reception (less free, but worth it) will occur the evening before, with a
leadership seminar for secular leaders, and a Secular Advocacy Day the final
day.

To learn more, visit http://freethoughtday.org/ (or see
contact info below).

If you like to staff a table
at CFD, vend, volunteer, sponsor, help promote, help plan, set up, clean up -
then please do contact the chairman now. Sooner is better. Because hands that
help ... are beautiful hands.

Location:  Capitol Park, North steps of
the State Capitol Bldg, map: http://tinyurl.com/j9c6qob

Contact:  209-610-0651, or email: [email-masked]

Ø
Philosophers’
Table:  Omniscient, omnipotent & ...
mean              Sunday, October 30,
2016, 12-1PM

October's
Philosopher's Table will tackle one of the Great Questions. If a
benign Big Guy exists who knows all, can do all, why do little babies suffer and die of disease or starvation? Why
do millions experience unending misery every year? Why can't I find my car
keys? And most baffling: Why worship a cosmic being who can help, but doesn't? As pain piles on
pain, we might expect the willing suspension of disbelief to collapse ...
or should it?

These
are tough chews, and don't assume either believers or skeptics have the
answers. We don’t, we just like to chew on them.

('toon
Copyright © 2015 HarperCollins Christian Publishing)

The
basic rule at AOF’s Philosophers' Tables: respect each other's opinions and
feelings, listen, think, and no denying your own existence--it makes
our head hurt.

Location: Reason Center, 1824 Tribute Rd, Suite A, Sacramento. Map: https://goo.gl/iVQL8z.

Is it
solipsistic in here, or is it just me?

Ø  Halloween Wild Food Day:  A Haunted Potluck                                 Sunday,
October 30, 2016, 1-3PM

… hullo, my name is ... I don't have a name,
they took it. i live here, at reason center, in the walls ... deep in the walls
with the whispers, with the spiders. sometimes i come out at night. i rearrange
the chairs and ... do things. i used to work here, but they said people who
talk to spiders and do not wash just weren't right for rc. i tried to answer
that, but then i vomited blood. so they said, go. and so here i am ... in the
cool, deep walls ...

but now the spiders tell me rc will
have a party, a halloween party. what fun! i like that. because halloween
food tastes like -the hearts of children- candy corn and fluffy clowns.
i mean nice clowns, not the evil ones. so i want to help. i have ideas for you.
aren't I nice? he-he-he-heh

like dried pears, slice them up just right and
they become ears ... hard-boil some eggs to make the scaffolding for little
skulls or eyeballs ... use hot dogs wrapped with biscuit dough to make mummies,
see the picture, so cute! ... or cut a banana in half, dot with raisens, and
suddenly, ohmy, two ghosts! ... join string cheese to pretzel sticks
to make witchy brooms ... or, or, olives are eyes ... even a
watermelon, sculpt it just right, it can be just about
anything nice-awful ... guacamole, well, you can imagine how pretty ...
and gelatin? add some milk and food-coloring, find the right mold (not fungus
mold, a container mold), and it's a masterpiece!

it will be a halloween potluck feast for you and
your freethinking friends, so come costumed or not, be as daring as you
care, and create & bring your favorite autumnal dish or beverage
... hot food? it's OK if you have a hotplate or electric crockpot or something
like that ...

oh, shh, i have to go, but do look at Google Images for
"halloween food" for more ideas, and don't be scared ...

we will nosh, enjoy haunted music, and tell
halloweeny tales ... the hook, the hook! ... maybe I'll even come out and join
you. he-he-he-heh ...

Location: Reason Center, 1824 Tribute Rd, Suite A, Sacramento. Map: https://goo.gl/iVQL8z.

Bring a haunted dish, and your favorite ‘ween story to tell!

Ø
Board
of Directors Meeting                                                               Monday,
November 14, 2016, 7-9PM

Another AOF planning meeting for AOF Directors and Officers,
but open to all interested friends and members. Especially those with ideas!

You are welcome to join us, meet the board, and share your
wisdom with AOF.

Location: Reason
Center, 1824 Tribute Rd, Suite A, Sacramento. Map: https://goo.gl/iVQL8z.

Book
Review: The Great Mortality : An
Intimate History of the Black Death

By John Kelley (Harper Perennial, 2006,
400 pgs)

Take a guess at
humankind’s worst disaster. Was it World War II, Maoism, Stalinism, the fall of
Rome, the Dark Ages, the Church? Nope. In terms of proportional economic loss,
cultural chaos and body count, it was likely the Black Death, which stormed
across Europe from 1347 to 1352, erasing up to 60% of the population. In The
Great Mortality, John Kelly chronicled the Death’s grim surge and ebb: how it
began, the scars it left, and what it must have been like to live while the
world was ending.

The
plague had three forms: Bubonic, Pneumonic and Septicemic. The worst was the
last, often killing within hours. It rose first in Mongolia, or perhaps northern
China, around CE 1300. A climate shift had encouraged a population boom of
marmots, and new trade routes invited the bacteria (Yersinia pestis) to make a
leap to humans. A tendril of it drifted to Crimea, jumped to Constantinople,
then darted to Sicily, Italy and Spain. From there it metastasized madly across
Europe, raging as far as Iceland and Norway, everywhere killing, killing,
killing, fading back a bit, then rising to kill again, before it sauntered off
at last, sated, into the Russian steppes (but revisiting well until the
1600’s).

For
us resting in our soft chairs, armed with some knowledge of sanitation,
vaccines and antibiotics, it may be difficult to imagine, but envision villages
and cities depopulated, carts piled with stinking bodies, mass graves, “death
ships” crewed by corpses careening into ports; and imagine black waves of
diseased rats boiling off those ships, drooling bloody froth, a death warrant
for the city. Think of panics, purges and pogroms, anti-Semitic riots kindled
by rumors of poisoned wells. The worst of it was the fear of helping the
sick—even touching a victim’s clothing could be fatal. So families deserted
their own fathers, mothers, children. Those who stayed with loved ones were
often sealed within their houses, healthy and sick alike, a communal death
sentence.

Here
is horror in zero gauge, sprawled larger than life, full of petty gestures and
heroism, cowardice and courage, all etched in lapidary detail. Most fascinating
for freethinkers are the fractures left in religious devotion, as people
realized, eventually, that prayer and supplication were useless, and the clergy
seemed even more susceptible than laymen. So the Plague may have planted the
seed of the Renaissance, to bloom a century later.

The
Great Mortality is a great read. Recommended—if you are feeling well today.

Ken
Nahigian, reprinted from July 2006

So Far, So Good

- James C.
Davis, from Epilogue to The Human Story

From Labrador to
Coral Sea

Our lives were
stunted, bleak, unfree.

We shared our huts
with rats and fleas

And lost our
children to disease.

(Our holy men would
sigh and nod

and tell us,
"That's the will of God.")

But then, with
steam, vaccines and votes,

Our fortunes rose
like tide-raised boats.

We'd more to eat;
drew breath more years;

Dethroned (or
worse) our tsars, emirs;

Sent men and
mirrors as our eyes

To search the black
galactic skies.

And in our cells,
till then unseen,

We found our Fates,
our djinns: our genes.

The world's still
cruel, that's understood.

But once was worse!
So far so good.

When you donate blood...

Don’t wait for a vampire. Donate at Sacramento’s
BloodSource. And if you do, use AOF Blood Source ID# 4857.

Numerous BloodSource Donation Centers exist --
find them listed at:  http://www.bloodsource.org/Locations.

AOF gets no perks when members donate, but it
saves lives, and shows we can serve the community. And what can be more
Humanistic than donating blood?

Support Reason Center

Reason Center
opened in July 2014. Since then it has hosted over 200 freethought events.
Currently the Center has twelve partner organizations.

The Reason Center mission is to support a social and
intellectual community for freethinkers, contribute to society through
education and community service, advance the civic understanding and acceptance
of freethinkers, and uphold the separation of religion and government.

To continue its good work, “RC” relies on continued support
for its members and donors. Please consider making a contribution to the Reason
Center. To set up a monthly or one-time donation visit ReasonCenter.org. It’s
easy. It will amaze you how easy.

Support AOF

If you shop at Amazon.com, try this: do the shopping at smile.amazon.com/ch/68-0325762. What’s the difference? Nothing,
prices are identical, service as sweet. But AOF will receive a small residual
for every dollar you spend. This will enable AOF to bring in more smoking great
speakers from out of Sacramento. Be smart, try it!

F Are you a voting member of Atheists and Other Freethinkers?

Big news. AOF is updating its bylaws—and needs
your help! As a democratic association, AOF requires a membership vote on major
bylaw revisions. Please see http://media.aofonline.org/AOFBylaws_SuggestedChanges_2016.pdf for the proposed changes. AOF will host a special business meeting soon
to discuss and vote on these. (If you have no Internet access, call AOF, we
will mail you a copy of the new
bylaws. That’s how eager we are for your ideas!)

Not a
member? Then join us! (See form above.)

AOF is a 501(c)(3)
non-profit association, FEIN 68-0325762. General Meetings are free and open to
the public.  AOF also hosts civic service
projects, dinners, movie outings, parties. To see what awaits you, visit the
website, www.aofonline.org; or
contact AOF at our 24/7 voice-mail: 916-447-3589; or write to PO Box 15182,
Sacramento, CA 95851-0182. Telepathic? Think loudly.

AOF Acting
President: Kristi Craven. Vice-president: Mynga Futrell. Editor: Fran Evanisko.
And all the rest of us, their elves, their daemons, their minions.