FreeThought Fort Wayne’s November meeting will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 11th at 7 PM in meeting room B at the Main Allen Country Public library.  The meeting is open to new comers.  I (with the help of Rae and Sandie) will give a very short overview about Robert Green Ingersoll,  (The Great Agnostic).  We attended the CFI sponsored event in Indy which Tom Flynn, the editor of Free Inquiry, spoke about this influential freethinker which most never knew existed.

The rest of the meeting will be a important discussion about upcoming elections and the direction. of the group.  We will do extra long introductions since we haven’t had a meeting to ourselves for awhile and we want to hear from our newer members.  Afterwords, some of us will head out for dinner and drinks.

Jose Luis Rodgriguez* recently won the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 award for his photograph, The Storybook Wolf.

For more information on the contest and other winners, go to this BBC article, Leaping wolf snatches photo prize, or the this photo gallery at The Guardian.

The BBC article quotes one of the judges, Mark Carwardine, “It’s captured thousands of years of human-wolf interaction in just one moment.” I couldn’t agree more. I would even go so far as to say that this photograph captures mankind’s interaction with nature in general. We have persistently tried to tame, control and keep out nature but nature, life itself, always finds a way.

Maybe this is just me. Photography seems to capture just one discreet moment in time but always make me want to know more about who or what is being photographed, what happened before or after the shot, what brought the photographer to that place at that point in time.

Video on the other hand is more directed. It leads you through the story. It not only answers those questions but often defines what the questions are.

Each serves its purpose just fine and I certainly don’t see one being better but there is something about photography can seem more compelling.

Do you have any favorite photos?

* I tried to find if the photographer has a website but apparently googling Jose Luis Rodriguez in Spain is about like searching for a John Brown in England. I’m still trying to figure out how to get a print of this.

A good friend just sent me an article about an op-ed the talented Jonathan Turley wrote for USA Today (which is generally a little less talented, journalistically speaking, but that’s a different post). He discussed that the Obama administration helped pass the UN resolution we discussed in March which would recognize exceptions to free speech for “negative racial and religious stereotyping”. Although it sounds nice, it has extreme implications:

In the resolution, the administration aligned itself with Egypt, which has long been criticized for prosecuting artists, activists and journalists for insulting Islam. For example, Egypt recently banned a journal that published respected poet Helmi Salem merely because one of his poems compared God to a villager who feeds ducks and milks cows. The Egyptian ambassador to the U.N., Hisham Badr, wasted no time in heralding the new consensus with the U.S. that “freedom of expression has been sometimes misused” and showing that the “true nature of this right” must yield government limitations.

The editorial has a great list of blasphemy-related cases in the past few years. Under this UN resolution, the international community would support the prosecution of these free-speakers. And by aligning with them, the Obama administration deserves some scorn for their part in it.

For as many things as I think our president has done right, this is not one of them.

Thoughts?

Chad and Jake hosted a live call in show about common misconceptions about atheism. (1 hour)

Links talked about on the show:

About Atheism. Internet Infidels.  Indiana “You Can Be Good Without God” bus campaign. Fermilab.

Andy W made a fantastic behind the scenes special of this episode….  Check it out so you can see the madness before we go live…  There is a lot to each of these productions and many people behind the screen.

Nice editing Andy W… and yes that is Chad putting on makeup!  Thanks to all who helped on the project:  Chad, Jake, Luke, Paul, Kristine, Anna, Andy D, and callers

The next FreeThought Fort Wayne Sunday Coffee Klatch is coming up this Sunday, Oct. 25 at the Firefly Coffee House on North Anthony Blvd.

What: Sunday Coffee Klatch
Where: Firefly Coffee House, 3523 North Anthony Blvd. Fort Wayne, IN 46805
When: Oct. 25, 2009; 10 am - 12 pm

FFW’s Sunday Coffee Klatch is just a relaxed, informal meet-up for the group to enjoy some fine coffee, good conversation and a little bit of camaraderie. There’s no need to be a member of FFW either. Anyone who fancies spending their Sunday morning shooting the breeze with a bunch of friendly, caffeine-buzzed freethinkers is welcome.

There’s no set topic for discussion, but if you have a recent article or item in the news that you’d like to discuss just mention it in comments with a link so we can all check it out ahead of time. We would love to meet and mingle with all the new visitors who came to our August monthly meeting. Click here for the Firefly’s website.

Skeptics Day is either October 13th, January 13th, or the first Friday the 13th of the year.  I’m going with October 13th to fit my own selfish needs.

However, yesterday was Freethought Day.  A real and recognized by Wikipedia (and a number of other groups) holiday. I didn’t realize it was Freethought Day until this morning. So, a happy belated Freethought Day to you all!

I guess it was doubly exciting for the folks who got in to see Richard Dawkins speak at Indiana University yesterday.  From what I have heard there was a fantastic crowd and over 700 people who could not get in to the auditorium.  The Indiana Daily Student has one article about it online but I very much doubt it really does it justice.

I guess I should also give a shout out to my husband since today is Navy Day.  Unless it is a holiday for the color navy and then it doesn’t mean so much.

They’ve spent some time and cash trying to counter-balance some of the usual misleading and fear-mongering healthcare ads by special interest groups not interested in you and me.

It’s refreshing to see a prominent group trying to inform our seniors instead of trying to use and abuse them.

I did however happen to notice a particularly beautiful sunrise about a week ago and felt compelled to pull over and take a few pictures.

Sunrise 1

Sunrise 2

Taco Bell Sunrise

Sunrise 3

As I’m posting these pictures I see this other one that I forgot I even took. The parking lot I pulled into to take some of these shots happened to have the following sign. I’ve passed it many times on the way to work. It’s in a small shopping plaza on Lima Road. I wonder if the folks at Lima Road Dentistry are happy with this embarrassing sign out front.

I’ve noticed the “Say No to Obamacare” multiple times but it wasn’t until I stopped and noticed that the moron who typed the sign in spelled Obamacare as Obomocare. Ha! It’s like Michael B’s post on Not an Acedemic Pursuit, only our local version of stupid. Seriously. You are so vexed by national healthcare you feel compelled to put a sign up alternately advertising “Free laughing gas”, your oddly named dentistry website, webabychickens.com , and the time and temperature and then you spell it Obomocare. Too funny.

Anyway enjoy (it’s kind of hard to read), the best address I can give you to see it in person is the address of the dentist office, 9019 Lima Road, Fort Wayne, IN 46818**,

Say No to Obomocare

Also ironically I was thinking of switching to that very dentist until the sign went up. That’s the last thing I want to be is strapped to a dentist chair listening to this guy (or gal) prattling on about death panels and soylent green. I think I’ll pass.

John W. Loftus  author of “Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity” and blog manager of Debunking Christianity sits down with Andy Diekroger to talk about the problem of pain and suffering section of his book.  Moreover, John discloses the story behind his hat and his role as editor in a forth coming book, “The Christian Delusion.“