HSGP members Bruce Stiles and Ann Marie Eisentraut hosted a Pot Luck event to “Celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th Birthday.”

It had been five years since Ed Sylvester last spoke to us about the latest findings in brain research. He gave us an update on what has been discovered since then.

Ed Sylvester teaches science writing and the core undergraduate and graduate news courses. As a science writer, he has written four books for popular audiences on subjects ranging from the prospects for genetic engineering — as the field was first developing in 1983 — to the efforts of neuroscience doctors to discover the secrets of the brain in order to rescue their most seriously ill patients in his latest book, “Back From The Brink,” published in January 2004.

He has moderated a popular presentation with Barrow Neurological Institute physicians on new developments in stroke treatment and brain health. He has written magazine articles for several national publications, op-ed pieces for USA Today, and book reviews for The New York Times.

Sylvester joined the ASU faculty in 1980 from the Los Angeles Times, where he was San Diego County government reporter. Before going to the Times, he had worked as a reporter and editor for 10 years at newspapers, including the Arizona Daily Star, the (Newark, N.J.) Star Ledger, The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record, and The (Paterson, N.J.) Morning Call.

At ASU, he was a Knight Fellow during the program’s inaugural year of 1995, teaching computer-assisted reporting at The Oshkosh (Wis.) Northwestern. He received a publishing grant from the Freedom Forum in 1996 to write a series of articles on the U.S. Epidemic Intelligence Service.

He received the Burlington Faculty Achievement Award for teaching in 1991. Earlier, he was founding co-director of the Cronkite School’s seminars for journalists on computer-assisted reporting, which were among the first on the subject.

Professor Sylvester holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Princeton University and a master's in creative writing from City College of New York. He was a member of Joseph Heller’s fiction workshop at CCNY.

Dr. Elliott Goldstein is Associate Professor of Biology at ASU, where he has taught since 1974. He received his Ph.D.in 1972, from the University of Minnesota. He teaches courses in Genetics and Molecular Biology, with specialization in control of messenger RNA during development of Drosophila, recombinant DNA, and Drosophilia oncogenes' role in learning and memory. Dr. Goldstein is the author is numerous articles and publications in his area of specialization.

This marked Dr. Goldstein's third appearance at HSGP!

New meeting location: Chandler Main Library, 22 S. Delaware St. (South on Arizona Ave to Buffalo, East on Buffalo, South on Delaware.

President-elect Barack Obama's autobiography, published in 2004. The book offers fascinating details about his biracial identity and how it has shaped his life.

Members of our HSGP Board of Directors for 2009 each gave a brief profile of themselves, including their early years, education, employment, family and friends and their past and current worldview. They also discussed how and why they became Humanists, along with their expectations of Humanism for the future.

We hope that there will be future meetings in which our members will share a little about themselves, so we can get to know our members and their fascinating backgrounds!

Our Annual Solstice Party and Fund-raising Auction is always a great event. We celebrated the Humanist holiday of HumanLight. We inaugurated our new board members and gave out the annual Helen Goldsmith Awards to our most deserving volunteers!

The HSGP Book Club meets at the Mesa Library, Main Branch, 64 East 1st Street (East of Country Club Way at the intersection of N. Centennial Way -- N.W. corner.)

From Publishers Weekly:

Hamilton's captivating third novel (after 2004's The Distance Between Us) follows Fiona Sweeney, a 36-year-old librarian, from New York to Garissa, Kenya, on her sincere but naïve quest to make a difference in the world. Fi enlists to run the titular mobile library overseen by Mr. Abasi, and in her travels through the bush, the small village of Mididima becomes her favorite stop. There, Matani, the village teacher; Kanika, an independent, vivacious young woman; and Kanika's grandmother Neema are the most avid proponents of the library and the knowledge it brings to the community. Not everyone shares such esteem for the project, however. Taban, known as Scar Boy; Jwahir, Matani's wife; and most of the town elders think these books threaten the tradition and security of Mididima. When two books go missing, tensions arise between those who welcome all that the books represent and those who prefer the time-honored oral traditions of the tribe. Kanika, Taban and Matani become more vibrant than Fi, who never outgrows the cookie-cutter mold of a woman needing excitement and fulfillment, but Hamilton weaves memorable characters and elemental emotions in artful prose with the lofty theme of Western-imposed "education" versus a village's perceived perils of exposure to the developed world.

Many of you are aware of the billboard recently seen in Gilbert that reads "PostMormon.org -- You are not alone." Our speakers, Paul Hahn and Tom Donofrio, were local men who are part of the PostMormon movement (headquartered in Logan, Utah).

Paul Hahn grew up in Arizona and served a mission for the Mormon church in Rapid City South Dakota. After returning to Arizona, he spent 10 more years in the church before leaving it in 2007. Paul has been a software engineer for the past eight years, currently employed with Shamrock Foods. A 2004 graduate of DeVry University Phoenix, he currently resides in Queen Creek.

Tom Donofrio was a Mormon until 2002, when he formally resigned his membership. He came to Arizona from Pittsburgh as a Mormon missionary, from 1979 to 1981. After his two-year service, he settled in Arizona. He met his future wife during his mission and married six months after his service terminated. (She remains a faithful member of the LDS church.) Tom currently works for Industrial Refrigeration and Boiler Company as an ammonia technician. Their clients include some of the large food warehouses in the valley.

Tom and Paul gave us information about the Post Mormon organization and what effect it is having on the Mormon community. Visit their website at: http://www.postmormon.org.