Dec 5, 2016 Newsletter

I'm writing this week's newsletter to ask for your help.

At our latest Sunday meeting, one of our members told us about one of the new participants in her single mothers' support group. This woman is a single mother with a one year old child.

The young lady in question has just escaped an abusive relationship and has had to move into a bare apartment. She requires furnishings but she obviously can't afford it.

At the meeting we raised a bit of money to help but she's really looking for the basics to furnish her new apartment. If you have something you can spare, please email me at [email protected].

In Humanism

Gord Leslie
Vice-President

Solstice Dinner 2016

Thanks to everyone who came out to this year's (early) Winter Solstice Dinner. We had 37 people share dinner and company and the lovely Pacific Institute for Culinary Arts.

And a special thanks to our silent auction donors: Shellina Velji, Carrie Chapman, The Drive Coffee Bar and Anna d'Archangelo. Because of their generosity, we raised almost $500 in the evening.

And thanks to Glenn Hardie for these pictures of the evening.

New

Blog

Blasphemy laws get used for political purposes

From The Conversation
Dec 01, 2016

Around one-quarter of the world’s countries, both in developing and developed economies, have anti-blasphemy laws. But these laws punishing speech or actions seen to be contemptuous of religion are highly controversial.

The implementation and application of these laws is politicized and prone to be influenced by public pressure. Purnama’s blasphemy investigation is a clear example.

The seeds of the alt-right

From The Conversation
Nov 29, 2016

I’ve spent years extensively researching the American far right, and the movement seems more energized than ever. To its critics, the alt-right is just a code term for white nationalism, a much-maligned ideology associated with neo-Nazis and Klansmen. The movement, however, is more nuanced, encompassing a much broader spectrum of right-wing activists and intellectuals.