EthicalStL.org

We constantly experience transitions in life, mostly small ones. Sometimes, however, big changes happen that require mindful attention. Eunice will speak of her recent experience of life change and the lessons that she has learned from it. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Eunice Hiott has been a devoted member of the Ethical Society since 2006. Eunice received her Masters of Divinity at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, and studied Clinical Pastoral Education at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, NC. She became a healthcare chaplain in 1992, and was endorsed by the American Ethical Union as an Ethical Culture/Ethical Humanist chaplain in 2009. Before settling in St. Louis, she served as a chaplain at Hermann Hospital in Houston, TX; she has served BJC Hospice as a chaplain

Do YOU believe that health care is a human right, and that the U.S. health care system focuses too much on profits for corporations and not enough on providing adequate health care for ALL of our citizens? Bring your family and friends to the Ethical Society today and expect to be inspired! Ron Hikel shares his experiences working with Canada's "Medicare," which provides ALL Canadian citizens with health care from cradle to grave, and advising Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) on how to best assist state and federal citizen-advocates to obtain the same level of health care access for U.S. citizens. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; Ron Hikel holds dual citizenship in the U.S. and Canada. He served in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Naval Reserves, completed degrees in political science at Boston and Columbia Universities, taught political science in the U.S. and Canada, and ran a large social science study in Canada. He held Canadian government positions in both Health and Social Service Departments, and also consulted on health care issues within the private sector. Mr. Hikel currently works with Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). He lives with his wife Tricia O'Malley in Toronto and Washington, DC; they have three grown children.

Bob's talk will explore four points: the need to drastically change the federal income-tax system; the goals of a change; some means to achieve the goals; and a path to meaningful change. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Bob Jackson is a lawyer with Armstrong Teasdale LLP, a multi-state firm headquartered in Clayton. He has focused his practice on matters of taxation, and he is the senior member of the firm's tax department. Bob graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School. He earned an LLM (in Taxation) at New York University School of Law. Before entering private practice, Bob was an adjunct professor of taxation at New York University School of Law, and he clerked for a judge of the United States Tax Court. Bob is married to Andie Jackson, a member of The Ethical Society of St. Louis's congregation. They met in law school and married right after graduation. They have two children and four grandchildren.

As an Ethical Humanist, I believe making connections with other people is the most powerful transcendental experience of being human. A relationship is the fundamental unit of society, at once a point of transmission and creation of ethics and culture. This Platform will address the difficulties of creating and maintaining meaningful friendships. Improving communications and travel technologies alleviate particular problems yet also create new challenges. Despite many cultural changes, the need for personal connection and the basic building blocks of friendship have remained unchanged for millennia. Drawing upon personal experience, I will outline specific challenges to forming healthy friendships.

D.J. Grothe explores the history of the organized skeptics movement, explaining the mission of the lt;a href="http://www.randi.org" target="_blank"gt;James Randi Educational Foundationlt;/agt; (JREF), dedicated to advancement of scientific and critical thinking about paranormal beliefs (psychics, UFOs, astrology and spiritualism). He will talk about how JREF advances its mission, including its Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, the internationally-popular Amazing Meetings, and the new "JREF in the Classroom" program. He will explore the Ethical Humanist foundations of JREF's mission, and how skeptics can work with humanists to advance common values. lt;brgt;lt;brgt; D.J. Grothe, President of the James Randi Educational Foundation, has lectured widely on topics at the intersection of education, science and belief at universities such as Stanford, Harvard, Yale, UCLA, and UC Berkeley. Formerly a professional magician, he is especially interested in the psychology of belief and processes of deception and self-deception. He hosts the radio show/podcast "For Good Reason," prior to which he hosted over 200 episodes of the popular interview program, "Point of Reason," which he and partner Thomas Donnelly originated in 2005.

Our modern psychological self, which provides the underlying, assumptive framework for how we make sense of ourselves and our place in the world, is a recent historical phenomenon, confined to the industrialized West; profoundly different and radically new. As religion has given way to science, the soul has been supplanted by the self. We will examine this shift from soul to self as well as implications and shortcomings of our modern idea of self. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Ethical Society member Brian Vandenberg is Professor of Psychology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He received a B.S. in Nuclear Engineering and a M.A. in Philosophy/Psychology from SUNY at Buffalo, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Rochester (NY). He has published over 75 professional articles, including research on the topic of science, religion and the self. He has been elected Charter Fellow of the Midwest Psychological Association and Fellow of the American Psychological Association for his contribution the field of psychology, and has been the research advisor for more than 30 Masters and Doctoral level students.

Claire Anderson, M.D. spent more than 30 years practicing Chest Radiology at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and was perennially elected to the Best Doctors in St. Louis. Recently retired, she describes herself as a writer, a video-editor and a "naturalist-wannabe," but most importantly as Grandmother. Today she translates her own life's arc and recent influences, including the book, Long for this World: The Strange Science of Immortality by Jonathan Weiner, into a prescription for living "life-long immortality". She has been a member of the St. Louis Ethical Society since 1983, and served as President of the Board of Trustees. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;lt;igt;The time calls for action. Up, then, and let us do our part faithfully and well. And oh, friends, our children's children will hold our memories dearer for the work which we begin this hour.lt;/igt;—Felix Adler

How do we promote and assess learning in the 21st Century? While everyone believes in standards, the path from intention to implementation is paved with problems. Problems of trust among learners, parents, teachers, administrators, governments and an endless number of stakeholders abound while citizens from the previous generation plan quality education for children of the next. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;As we establish standards, “teaching” and assessment methods further complicate the process. Applying "one-size-fits-all" standards to all children assumes ignores their unique talents and needs as they move through the system. "Standards" are reduced to daily goals and objectives so that metrics may be applied, and we sacrifice the larger goal of education to a mass production model. lt;brgt;lt;brgt;Sandra Sermos is a teacher at Wydown Middle School in Clayton, MO. She has taught all subjects at each grade of middle school for more than 40 years, 25 of them as a science teacher. She has received numerous awards and was the 2009 Missouri Middle School Science Teacher of the Year. Her primary focus is on the Expeditionary Learning Program, an experiential science program, facilitating "hands-on" interaction between students and the natural world.

It's that time again! Our annual pledge campaign kick-off is an opportunity to reflect on what we truly value most in our lives, and for each of us to examine how we use our life resources to promote those values. Our whirlwind consumer culture is constantly buffeting us with messages to blow us off track, so let this Platform and the Kick-Off Party afterward be your calm within the storm—a time to reflect and be re-energized. Together we can continue strengthening our ethical home and extending our welcome across the wider community.

People often use the words "guilt" and "shame" interchangeably, but they refer to two different emotions with very different implications for ethics. This Platform will explore how, although both guilt and shame are unpleasant, and therefore both can be used to motivate behavior, guilt can actually be our friend as we try to live more ethically, whereas shame is usually an obstacle to our development. How can we better understand our emotions and cultivate those that are healthier and more ethically productive, in ourselves and others? How can we resist or heal from the effects of those who would try to use shame to get their way?