Newsletter Blogs

Being Repetitive

by Bob Lane

                 I’ve been submitting articles to our newsletter for well over twenty years now. That adds up to a lot of articles. So, I worry about being repetitive about the subject I choose to write about. I also worry about complaining and criticizing too much. It would be nice if I could more often write about educational subjects and sometimes maybe even something a little uplifting. But sadly, now is a time where a lot of complaining and criticizing is necessary.

So, this month I will revisit some of what I call bad religion. Namely, the decision to mandate the Ten Commandments in public schools in a growing number of states, and Christians renewing their war against secularism and the separation of church and state. They are two related subjects. 

A person could write a tome about either of these subjects, but I plan to be short. For what I suspect is a majority of us on the liberal side of politics, it is obvious that mandating into law the placement of the Ten Commandments in public school and on other government property is a clear violation of the idea of the separation of church and state. But, being emboldened in the last several years, the religious right has used their majority in many states to push these mandates through their various legislatures. Not only are they mandating the Ten Commandments, but I noticed recently that some in Oklahoma are trying to get the studying of the Bible put into school curricula. These new laws are simply bad, and they are also unfair and they violate the right of all those who may worship God with a different dogma or who worship not at all.

At this point I want to interject a criticism I have about those pushing the Ten Commandments. A long time ago when I was checking out the place in the bible, (Exodus Chapter 20) where the Ten Commandments appear, I noticed something that surprised me and made me chuckle. I saw that there are actually more than just Ten Commandments.

In Exodus 20: 24 it states, “An alter of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon, thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come and bless thee.” So, I want to ask, “why aren’t believers in the bible offering up burnt offerings? I suspect one reason is that it is a commandment that requires one to sacrifice tangible things like sheep and the like. That can get to be expensive.

  Plus, those chapters in Exodus have a lot of thou shalt and thou shalt nots. Anyway, getting back to secularism, I find it a bit baffling that so many Christians don’t understand that secularism in our society is what makes it possible for a person to worship the way they choose. Secularism protects religion from government intrusions and protects our government from intrusion by the “church.” Without this separation, eventually one religious sect or a group of sects would gain power and turn us into a theocracy. Through this country’s history the religious have mostly understood the need for secularism, but that seems to be changing recently. That’s my complaint and criticism for this month.

Ozone Hole Recovery

by Wayne Wilson

             In the early 1980s a hole in the ozone layer was discovered over Antarctica. Scientists determined that it was being caused by chlorofluorocarbons, which were used largely in spray cans as a propellent to use the product in the cans. When the evidence was seen as undeniable, an international committee was convened to address the situation in 1985 the Montreal Protocol was established which included a plan of what needed to be done to address the situation. Goals were set phase out a number of chemical compounds over time. The treaty was accepted by 28 countries that included larger, more scientifically developed countries to help poorer countries meet the goals.

  This year, for the first time, the fruits of the Montreal Protocol are beginning to show with the ozone hole showing signs of shrinking. To me this means that international cooperation to mitigate climate change can actually work. I find it disheartening that Utah seems to be heading in the opposite direction by extending the life of coal mining and power generation. I’m starting to be skeptical of the so-called Utah Way being a superior way to live.

Independence Month

by Melanie White-Curtis

             July is here! We are halfway through 2024 and in full swing of this unprecedented political cycle. For most of us, July represents independence, patriotic pride, BBQs, fireworks and the red, white and blue. For us Utahns, it also represents the 24th of July which is another huge holiday for our state and creates an entire month of patriotic festivities. 

This year, feels different. With all of the fun and celebration, there is a heaviness with the upcoming election, and the gravity in the importance of the outcomes. The past several years have been filled with a pandemic, the earth changing due to climate, TONS of information and technologies and so much angst and uncertainty that it can feel suffocating at times. It is in this condition that we can no longer live in complacency, ignorance and denial. We need to step into our power as voters, as friends/neighbors, as free people, as humanists and help our communities, our nation and the world.  Folks, even though these are heavy times, please understand that there is so much good, whimsy and happiness as well. It is literally everywhere and can be experienced on the daily.

The ideals of happiness and joy, and doing hard things are not mutually exclusive. In fact, it is very rewarding to have happiness and joy while doing hard things, like becoming politically active, standing up for human rights, speaking out against lies and malfeasance, living your lives as presently as possible and living the principles of humanism. While religion is definitely in the center of the entire polictial conversation, it is our duty to stand firm in our belief of separation of church and state. We must find our voices in this political climate and assist in the conversation that we are not a religious country. We are a country that respects the right for it’s people to practice religion. HUGE DIFFERENCE. People need to be reeducated to the truth of our history. This is important and necessary. 

My dear friends, for as scary as everything feels… I hope you are able to balance it out with joy and happiness. I find joy daily, even if it is in the little things, as it usually is. People are genuinely good. I see good people who have been manipulated, terrorized, scared to death with awful information (most of which are lies) and hurt. This fear is a powerful motivator and can influence outcomes, thoughts and actions and ultimately the course of history. The ones doing this, know this. It really is a war of the people for control. 

Now is the time for you to find your voice, whatever that looks like. Decide how you want to step into this fight and what that looks like. Feel the power of your humanist ideals and stand strong in them. They are good. They are consistent. They represent ALL people and living beings on this planet. They can guide your decisions. Only you can decide these things for yourselves. You are not alone and will not be alone in this endeavor. And as always, speak the truth, even if your voice shakes and you stand alone. Because, honestly, you will never be alone and every voice carries power that will change the world for good. 

My hope for you all is that this July is one of fun, enjoyment, play and pride in our wonderful country that we love. I hope that it will renew your faith in our nation and in its people to do the right thing for everyone who lives here and in the world. Find the hard things that call you or you feel like you need to align with and do it. I see you and would love for you to post your adventures of humanism on our FB page. I see many of you everyday and with the power of our people, we grow stronger. 

With love and respect, Happy Independence Month!

A Christian Nation

by Robert Lane

This month I want to take a break from my serialized “Journey to Humanism” and write about what has been in the news lately and that is the idea of a Christian Nation. Actually, it is more than just “lately,” the idea and the desire of many Christians for a Christian Nation goes way   back. In fact, they say that it started (the U.S.) as a Christian Nation. For me that is a scary thought. You don’t have to spend much time studying history to see the horrors of past theocracies to know it’s a bad idea. The Islamic Republic of Iran is an example of theocracy at its worst in my opinion. In this country we would probably have some ruling coalition of sorts that would start to look down their noses at the Jewish population, the not quite Christian enough Christians, the Islamic people, LGBTQ, Atheists, and so on.

The highly religious, be they Christian or otherwise, don’t want to accept or understand that secular government is what ensures that all the religions [ed note: and all people] of our society are treated the same way, starting with being tax exempt. But I believe that the religious don’t want to just govern the people but to control the people. There would be a total ban on abortion and contraceptives immediately. The idea of keeping women “Bare foot and pregnant” would be back in fashion. And it goes on.

For me, I want no theocracies, not Christian, not Islamic, not Jewish, nor any other religion. It is a little harsh and to the point, but, a quote by Emile Zola kind of sums it up for me at times. “Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.”

I have another bone to pick with the religious. It is their attitude toward science. When  Creationists are dismissive about real science, it insults my intelligence, irritatingly insults my intelligence. They want people to believe almost all of the geological, geographical, biological, anthropological and other earth and life sciences are all wrong.

One of the best examples of the difference between science and religion is their approaches to the study of what turns out to be evidence of an area being post glacial.

The religious scholars had been for along time ben pointing to post glacial environments as evidence of the great flood. They were finding evidence and making it bend to their beliefs. But in the mid-1800s, science was seeing more clearly that these areas with debris, erratic’s (large boulder), etc. were evidence of glacial, paraglacial and post glacial environments. This story is depicted in a book titled “Ice Ages” by Imbre and Imbre.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it over and over again, looking at reality through the lens of science gives me great joy. Despite what the religious say about the various sciences, my degree in Physical Geography gives me an understanding about this planet, and this solar system is awesome.

Growth of Renewable Energy Generation

by Wayne Wilson

According to the Guardian, 30% of renewable energy sources accounted for more than 30% of the world’s electricity in 2023. Wind and solar accounted for 13.4% of the total.  “Although fossil fuel use in the world’s electricity system may begin to fall, it continues to play an outsized role in global energy – in transport fuels, heavy industry and heating.”

There is optimism that the trend to use non-burning generated sources of electricity will indeed succeed in helping to slow global warming. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this trend is not being supported by the “Utah Way,” as we now have laws in the books that will support coal mining and burning at least until the 2040s.

If I were King of Utah, I would declare the end of coal mining and burning. I would offer early retirement or training to all workers who were 50 or older or whose jobs would be lost in the process. I would also advocate giving all these workers a new Electric Vehicle and a home charging system. Hopefully, this would sweeten the deal for the most personal affected by the change.

The Humanist Society of Santa Barbara had a wonderful speaker last November, Professor Greg Daddis of San Diego State University, talking about the portrayal of “others” (e.g. communists, atheists, and others deemed dangerous to democracy) and the promotion of a culture of fear in Cold War era comic books targeted at young people.

It’s now available on their YouTube channel. Here is the link:

Is This Tomorrow? Cold War Comics and the American Identity

Enjoy! Please subscribe to the channel and ‘like’ the videos. 

Pride is Here

by Melanie Curtis White

In its original sense, pride was hardly something to be proud of, as it carried the meaning of “inordinate self-esteem” and “an unreasonable conceit of superiority” (as per Merriam Webster dictionary). The term is old as it has been used in this context since the 13th century in both verb and noun context. Since the 14th century, the term pride, started to take on different meanings and contexts. Interestingly enough, moving between positive and negative connotations; as is the case with many other polysemous words. With the most recent shift being the association with the modern gay rights movement which began in June 1969 with the Stonewall Inn riots. In recent years, there is still controversy of the term and the use of the rainbow icon for LGBTQ+ community identity.

Humanism is a worldview that values respect for ALL people, based on reason, empathy and concern for human beings. We believe in equality based on sex and gender. This fully includes ALL people: LGBTQ+, women, men, EVERYONE! Humanist organizations have taken positions on LGBTQ+ issues. Included are supporting same-sex marriage, campaigning for pride events and marches, supporting the ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act, including EVERYONE to our meetings, activities and organization. 

Human Rights are paramount and at this time of year, are at the forefront of celebration for our LGBTQ+ community. This includes everyone, family, friends and neighbors. For many, it is a time of empowerment and feeling seen and validated. This is incredibly important for mankind as a whole. Connection in our communities is something we, as humanists, cultivate and support. 

June is a powerful month for standing up for human rights. Including, Pride and Juneteenth, as well as other activities offered around the world. Important events in our country’s history and the direct outcomes of human resiliency have been born and inspired from these events. 

The concept of Pride Month began with the Stonewall riots in June 1969. These riots for gay liberation took place over several days beginning on June 28, 1969. They began after a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in lower Manhattan, New York City.

Later that year, in November, the first proposed Pride march to be held in New York City as a resolution at the Eastern Regional Conference of Homophile Organizations (ERCHO) meeting in Philadelphia. Craig Rodwell, his partner Fred Sargeant, Ellen Broidy and Linda Rhodes made the proposal and started this amazing movement that has spread worldwide. 

My friends, it is a time of celebration. Celebration of the human spirit, celebration of moving through adversity, celebration of differences and celebration of the evolution of humans to include each other and to champion equality for all. I hope you enjoy this rainbow filled month and that you find your voice and strength in your humanist values. Carry them into the rest of the year, into your communities, and always remember that you are important to this world and to all of us. 

Winners of the Fifth Annual Haiku Contest

TheHumanist.com announced the winners of the fifth annual Haiku Contest. The contest requested entries of haikus about humanism and humanist values. Submissions were required to be in the form of a haiku, a seemingly simple form of poetry in three lines: five syllables on line one, seven syllables on line two, and five syllables on line three.  Over one hundred entries were received and our judges chose ten of their favorites published at TheHumanist.com.

Happenings

April 26 is Arbor Day. Join in the celebration at Red Butte Garden and plant a tree. Arbor Day is sponsored by ZAP and admission is free! April is a beautiful spring time to visit the Garden AND get a free tree seedling of your choice!

Visit the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art exhibit of the Biocrust Project and As the Lake Fades, open through June 1.

Visit the Jane Goodall special exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Utah, open through May 27. Learn about Jane’s groundbreaking work with chimpanzees and her world environment/climate initiatives. While you’re there, check out the new Climate of Hope exhibit.

Expanded Medicare

Path to Universal Health Care Coverage
Lauren Florence, MD

The organization that I belong to, PNHP, which stands for Physicians for a National Health Program, was founded in 1987 with the goal of getting affordable health care coverage for everyone in the United States.

PNHP saw that 70% of health care is paid for with public funds, i.e. Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans benefits, public employee benefits (including State and Federal Legislators), as well as tax deductions for employers to buy health insurance for their workers.

Compared to any of the developed countries in the world, we are paying more. Those other countries cover all of their people. The US does not.

Medicare came into being in 1966 when Congress passed a bill to create it. To expand 2 Medicare, Congress again needs to pass legislation. There is a bill, HR 676, Medicare for All, which has been wending its way through Congress for decades. The intent of HR676 is to expand Medicare to cover all medically necessary services for everyone, automatically, at birth. Under HR676 patients would have free choice of doctor and hospital.

HR676 would institute large scale cost controls (i.e. there would be a negotiated fee schedule with physicians, bulk purchasing of drugs, hospital budgeting, capital planning, etc.) to ensure that benefits are sustainable over the long term.

Medicare pays for health care for every senior and runs with a 3% administrative overhead. HR 676 redirects public funding for health care in the US to Medicare for All. The administrative overhead beyond 3% would be redirected to actual care with no net increase in spending.

In HR676, premiums and out-of-pocket costs are replaced with progressive income and wealth taxes. 95% of Americans would pay less for care than they do now. In April, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. One important feature was the restriction on how much profit the private health care administrators could garner. Under the ACA, these private companies could charge no more than 30% for “administrative overhead”. (Please remember that Medicare operates with a 3% overhead, no profit, no shareholders.)

Before the ACA, the private companies administering health care payments were allowed to extract MORE than 1/3 of every health care dollar for administrative overhead. When the ACA limited the private corporations’ abilities to get large chunks of the $4.5 trillion that goes to pay for Medicare, they made up a new program,

Medicare Advantage, to get a larger portion of that big pot of money. Medicare Advantage is not a supplement to Medicare. A Medicare supplement fills the gaps and holes in the Medicare safety net that were put in as a compromise in order that the bill would pass to create Medicarel A supplement plan leaves Medicare functioning as it has traditionally and then supplements the gaps in care from payments by patients. On the other hand, Medicare Advantage plans take advantage of the patients and providers. These plans take money from the Medicare public funds using various tactics. i.e. Medicare Advantage plans decide who gets paid and who doesn’t. They create restricted panels of providers with which they contract. They don’t pay any provider who is not on the panel or who delivers care outside the state where the MA is incorporated.

With Traditional Medicare (+/- supplements), a patient can go to any provider in the US. The MA plan can contract to pay less to the providers than Medicare pays. About ½ the rural hospitals in Utah are having financial trouble. Medicare Advantage Plans are seeing a rapid increase in enrollment rurally. The hospitals can’t make it on the amount MA pays. Some are closing. Medicare Advantage plans can decide to delay when a provider gets paid just by holding the billing invoice or tossing it out for no reason. Many, many phone calls and repeat invoices from the provider can be required to get payments. Prior authorization is also a delay tactic. Hospitals have tripled the size of their billing departments to deal with the delays.

The MA’s also deny care. Getting them to pay for a covered procedure can be extremely difficult. I signed a contract with Cigna once that said that if I hadn’t been paid in 6 months, they did not have to pay me. An MA plan also upcodes billing codes for both diagnosis codes and procedure codes in order to get paid morel For example, to bill, providers are required to use a standardized billing form. Billing forms use standardized 6-digit codes to indicate what procedure was done and what diagnosis made that procedure necessary.

Upcoding diagnoses is adding more actual codes to the diagnosis OR more complicated diagnosis codes. Metastatic cancer as a diagnosis gets a bigger payment than a small, contained cancer. To upcode a procedure code, the MA plan picks a code for a more complicated procedure, or repair of a bigger injury to send to Medicare for collection. Payment to repair a longer cut is bigger than for a smaller cut. This upcoded payment is not passed along to the provider.

The MA plans also make money using favorable selection. That means MA tries to enroll only the healthy seniors but gets paid, on the capitated system, for the average amount of illness that seniors have. Case in point: One company held the orientation and enrollment for the MA plan on the top floor of a building with no elevator. Who can get to that meeting? Healthy folks who will cost the Advantage plan less than the average patient costs.

They also de-select the sick ones. Anyone in a MA plan who is requiring a lot of care costs the plan money. Those patients are treated to the tactics of delayed and denied payments until they fear that the plan won’t pay for the care that they need. Then they go back to traditional Medicare. About half of Medicare beneficiaries go back to Traditional Medicare in the last year of their lives. Traditional Medicare always pays for a covered procedure.

We have a lot of work to do to get everyone healthcare coverage. PNHP is leading the way.

The Gulf Stream

By Wayne Wilson

The first thing I learned about the Gulf Stream was in high school history classes, that it is a river in the Atlantic Ocean that early European adventurers used to sail to and around the American continents. Recently I have discovered that it is also called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) because it mixes warm water flowing northward towards the pole where it cools and sinks, which actually drives the Atlantic currents. But an influx of fresh water from the accelerating melting of Greenland’s ice cap and other sources in increasingly smothering the currents.

According to The Guardian “a collapse of AMOC would have disastrous consequences around the world.” AMOC has collapsed and restarted repeatedly during the ice ages that occurred from 115,000 to 12,000 years ago but scientists are very worried about rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America, and west Africa. It would likely increase storms and drop temperatures in Europe and lead to rising sea level on the eastern coast of North America. Global Climate Change is a many faceted challenge on numerous fronts.

Born a Skeptic

My Journey to Humanism
By Robert Lane

This month I think I will start to redo, “My Journey to Humanism.” As I mentioned last month, I decided to change it from journey to discovery, in that I didn’t one day after a long journey discover humanism and turn into a humanist. But rather, after about 50 years or so of thinking like a humanist and for the most part acting like a humanist, I was made aware of Humanists of Utah and have been a member since that time. It’s not surprising that I didn’t know about humanism because it wasn’t something discussed or even known about by my Mormon family or even know or talked about in the community back in the 1950s or 60s.

As I mull over my childhood, I remember that I was more interested in Flash Gordon than the Mickey Mouse club. Plus, a friend of mine’s father had a fairly decent telescope that he let us kids use (with some supervision). To actually be Looking at the moon and some of the planets was awesome for me and reinforced my love of science and science fiction. As an adolescent another happening that made me turn to science was a Christmas gift, I received at about age 10. The gift was a Microscope and chemistry set. It came in a metal box with a microscope (which I still have) and some chemicals to mix and have them foam up or turn different colors. One of the mixtures would grow crystals in a few days. It also had some brine shrimp eggs that you could put on a slide with a couple drops of water and then watch them hatch. Amazing! My brother was influential without really trying. He was eight years older than me but he tolerated me if I kept my ands of his stuff. His stuff was the model airplanes he made which were powered with small gas engines. He even had one that was a two-engine craft that won a prize in a contest. Watching him and helping him fly these planes was far more interesting than what most eight-year-old kids were doing.My mother and step-father were devout LDS, so at the same time I was becoming scientific minded, there was what I later started calling the “Sunday Syndrome.” That is, where everyday life gets suspended one day a week and you dress up and go to Sunday school in the morning and then in the afternoon attend sacrament meeting. You had to play the role of a good little Mormon boy destined for a mission somewhere and a temple wedding soon after your mission.
The above accounts, for the most part, the way my mind was heading in a scientific way. Next month I will write about the time in my life (early and mid-teen years) when I began to pay more attention to religion and being skeptical of its claims and deciding it was not for me. Also, next month I plan to start saying a few things about politics and such. Like Donald Trump hocking bibles. Ya can’t make this shit up.

Bye for now.

Cosplay Your Better Self

Chaplain Jared Anderson

“Well if I’m going to dress up as Thor, I’m going to have to hit the gym hard for the next six months!”

One of my favorite things about popular culture and art in general is how it can inspire us and even change our lives. As best as we can tell, the ability to imagine things that don’t exist and then make them real is uniquely human. Foundational to Humanism is the insight that we can imagine a better world, and then work together to make that world a reality.

Back to Thor. This kind of statement is not uncommon in popular culture circles. Undoubtedly influenced by film representations of super heroes, geekdom has become much more mainstream, increasing the power of popular culture to motivate and inspire. It’s worth noting that there are male and female versions of Thor, and adapting fictional characters in many ways is a common element of “CosPlay”, dressing up as a favorite character, often for conventions, and often with a tremendous amount of investment, preparation, and care). Fans sometimes spend months preparing their costumes, which often rival the work of professionals. For other fans, conventions are just a low key opportunity to have fun.

That’s the powerful thing about play–we can engage at a range of levels, from children on playgrounds to the world class athletes at the Olympic games. An odd challenge about being human is that we are often more motivated to play than we are to work! As I read a book about the psychology of belief in unseen agents (“How God Becomes Real,” by T. M. Luhrmann), I was struck by her framing of “serious play”, which I updated in my mind to “rigorous play”. Play bridges imagination and reality, delight and work. When we play, we nurture our relationships and increase our capacity to engage in our real lives, including our work. I believe that in a sense, everything we do within human civilization can qualify as play, each interaction holding its own rules that go beyond the requirements of nature.

Back to Thor, but Thor in the Army. I imagine someone has combined those elements at some point. The soldiers that I talk to have differing responses on my proposal that military is also cosplay. But it undeniably is, right? Military uniforms track levels/ranks, class, assignment, and experience. Most significantly, uniforms impact the way that we behave, and the way that we feel about ourselves.

Not only are uniforms costumes, but the way that we dress from day to day, the way that we present ourselves, is always a costume. We see a standard like “business casual”, and our clothes become an expression of the conversation between that standard and our own preferences. I will share that my personal preference is what I call “tactical Mr. Rogers”–a comfortable and stylish button up and socks along with tactical pants, belt, and combat boots. At a glance, it looks like regular business casual, but two glances reveal the more tactical nature.

I have found that almost always, the next best step toward self-improvement or increasing quality of life is a better, more effective version of what you already love, what you already are doing. We already use clothing to shift from context to context, to remind ourselves of our roles and responsibilities, or the freedom of comfort and fun. It gets even more significant–how we dress not only impacts the way that we feel, it impacts the way we behave, and even the way our minds and bodies work. The placebo effect provides its own superpower. For example, experiments have shown that wearing a white lab coat increases attentiveness and focus, because of the popular associations with lab coats, expertise, and authority. “Enclothed cognition” has been suggested as a term to describe this phenomenon, and draws on both symbolic meaning of clothes and the physical experience of wearing them.

Realizing that we are always in costume can help us in multiple ways. We experience different versions of ourselves. We experience more confidence. We feel connection with others who wear similar costumes. Costumes associated with excellence not only motivate to push ourselves, but increase our ability to do so!

One of my favorite uses of costume is to metabolize stress, grief, and other emotions. I think many of us change into cozy, comfortable clothing as soon as we get home (if you don’t, I highly recommend it). This shift reminds us that we are in recovery mode rather than work mode, that we can be safe in our own spaces. For those of us in high intensity contexts, our work costumes remind us that when we wear those clothes, we are acting in a specific role that is larger than us.

The awareness that we are cosplaying different versions of ourselves reminds of just that, that we are different versions of us in different contexts. This insight can be very empowering. We can change, update, and improve, training ourselves into those better versions like upgrading the costumes we all wear. And if we are into it, we can even look a bit more like our favorite fictional character.