By Bobbie Kirkhart

y uni­ver­si­ty school days – at least on the stu­dent side of the desk – are two decades past now, but I dare­say this sto­ry is still play­ing out today, in grad­u­ate schools and oth­er places where think­ing peo­ple with dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences collide.

On the first night of class, we start­ed with an ice­break­er: paired off, we were to inter­view each oth­er and then intro­duce our col­league to the class. I was part­nered with a woman who, as soon as the pro­fes­sor said “begin,” nar­rat­ed her life sto­ry. I knew every­thing about her in 10 min­utes with­out hav­ing asked a sin­gle ques­tion.  She con­clud­ed her solil­o­quy with the state­ment, “I’m very active in my church.”

When she inter­viewed me, I con­clud­ed, “I’m an athe­ist activist.” I was almost expect­ing a neg­a­tive response, but she sim­ply com­ment­ed, “that’s interesting.”

When we were called on, she intro­duced me, my school, my spe­cial­ty, my hob­bies, and then turned to me and asked, “Shall I tell them the secret?” Read more »

By Lynette Kirschner

Okay, I am going to have to out myself here see­ing that it’s the 50^th anniver­sary. I am a trekkie! I grew up with Cap­tain Kirk, Spock, and Lt. Uhu­ra. The crew and adven­tures of Star Trek are to blame for my life­long inter­est in sci­ence fic­tion. Well, the moon land­ing is also up there on my list. Why sci­ence fic­tion, you ask? Read more »

The Nation­al Muse­um of African Amer­i­can His­to­ry and Cul­ture (NMAAHC), estab­lished by an Act of Con­gress in 2003, opened its doors to the pub­lic on Sept. 24, 2016. Wrapped in bronze and inspired by the three-tiered crowns used in West African art, the museum’s out­er skin shines bright­ly near the cen­ter of the Nation­al Mall.  Read more »

By Bobbie Kirkhart

The polit­i­cal par­ties spend count­less hours plan­ning their con­ven­tions. This is, after all, four nights of free adver­tis­ing and their first chance to intro­duce their can­di­dates to the pub­lic, who haven’t been pay­ing atten­tion through the pri­ma­ry elec­tions. Every­body works for a great start. It almost nev­er hap­pens. This year was no excep­tion. Inter­est­ing­ly, you could say that it was the same woman who saved both con­ven­tions. Read more »

By Bobbie Kirkhart

Recent­ly, I attend­ed a memo­r­i­al ser­vice for an old friend. Peg had led a long and accom­plished life before her final years of excru­ci­at­ing pain and frus­trat­ing help­less­ness, so while we mourned her loss, we were there to share the joy of hav­ing known her. Peg was a firm athe­ist, a found­ing mem­ber and gen­er­ous sup­port­er of Athe­ists Unit­ed, but most of her time was spent rid­ing the horse trails that she loved, so it didn’t sur­prise me that I was the only per­son from the freethought com­mu­ni­ty at the invi­ta­tion-only event.

Her old­est son led off with a long remem­brance, and then var­i­ous friends and fam­i­ly shared anec­dotes and enu­mer­at­ed Peg’s many con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty. Peg’s involve­ment in freethought wasn’t men­tioned. It was not that peo­ple were avoid­ing con­tro­ver­sy; Peg’s col­or­ful­ly neg­a­tive opin­ion of Repub­li­cans was fond­ly recalled. Still, even in lib­er­al South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, athe­ism is a whole dif­fer­ent mea­sure of controversy.

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By Kai-Arne Zimny

1960: Don­ald Drap­er (Jon Hamm) holds a high posi­tion in a renowned New York adver­tis­ing agency, has an ex-mod­el wife he calls “Betts” (Jan­u­ary Jones), two kids, and a beau­ti­ful home. How­ev­er, that is just the out­side view of the protagonist’s life that is as mul­ti-lay­ered as the show itself. In the course of the decade-span­ning sev­en sea­sons of Mad Men (2007 – 2015), the view­er gains reveal­ing insights behind the so very appro­pri­ate facades of Don Drap­er and his fel­low (m)ad men – and one (m)ad woman. Despite Don Drap­er being the show’s cen­ter, there are sev­er­al plot lines being fol­lowed, for instance that of sec­re­tary Peg­gy Olson (Elis­a­beth Moss), who against all odds and con­ven­tions of the time aspires to a career that goes beyond wear­ing a tight dress, get­ting cof­fee, and oper­at­ing a type­writer “sim­ple enough for a woman to use.” Read more »