2013 Newsletters

The Other Side of Utah's History At our November general meeting we were entertained and enlightened by local author and historian Eileen Hallet Stone. She is a New England transplant, but has resided in Utah for many years and her knowledge of...

Visceral, Mundane, Delightful Do you wonder which eccentricitiesmay reverberate through echoing canyonsif you dare to shout? Do you see the ethereal sadnessin the wisps and strandsof the homeless woman's hair? Do you smile through your tearswhile...

Allons Enfants De La Partrie... Here in Utah there is a growing controversy about the grading system being applied to our public schools. There is also controversy in France…   The French Education Minister, Vincent Peillon, in September unveiled th...

Elaine Ball My Journey to Humanism It has been incredibly exciting to see the many people “liking” Secular Weddings Utah on Facebook over the course of these past few months. I just wanted to take a moment to share with all 200 of you (and cou...

Centennial Oration Robert Green Ingersoll July 4, 1876. Robert Ingersoll delivered an amazing speech celebrating the Centennial of our country. The following is an edited version. The entire text can be found on the Secular Web . One hundred...

Gerald Elias: Virtuoso Extraordinaire It is one thing to be a virtuoso in any given endeavor, but to be gifted in two diverse areas is rare. However, we were treated to a presentation by such an individual at our May meeting, where our guest was...

Core Matters Getting to the Why of Life After multiple requests to hear her speak, and one delay caused by a major snowstorm earlier this year, our speaker in April was Lya (pronounced “LEE-a”) Wodraska, sports columnist for the Salt Lake Tribune an...

Global Climate Change and Local Impacts We were pleased to welcome our speaker for the March meeting, Court Strong, assistant professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, at the University of Utah.   Dr. Strong holds a PhD from the University o...

Darwin Day 2013 The theme for Darwin Day this year was a “Celebration of Science.” Of course, what would be better than to focus on the central theory of all biology: evolution. The Utah Coalition of Reason, with the generous support from the Hum...

President's Message Our January general meeting was canceled due to bad weather. The first significant snow storm of the year made it too treacherous to be out on the roads. I hope none of you went out in that mess to try to get to the meeting....

Susan Fox My Journey to Humanism I grew up as the child of LDS parents in small towns in southern Utah. My great-grandparents were polygamists, leaders of the LDS church. My great-grandmother was well known—at least in LDS circles—for coming acr...