Headlines of the Week (Or Whatever)

The Irrational Consumer: Why Economics Is Dead Wrong About How We Make Choices: A new paper reviews how psychology, biology, and neurology are ganging up on economics to prove that, when it comes to making decisions, people are anything but rational.

IRS sued for not enforcing politicking restrictions on churches! Yay!

On the "mind-blowing" revelations offered by use of LSD in science. Because science!

Occupy Earth Day: An Expose of the Corporate Propaganda Systems that Undermine Systemic Change Activism

The Rape of Petty Officer Blumer: Inside the military's culture of sex abuse, denial and cover-up.

YRE Recap: "Inherent Worth"

Today's lesson concerned inherent worth and dignity. We had to unpack what those words meant, which led to a very interesting discussion regarding who has worth, what it means/is, human rights, animal rights, Hitler, and value via a vis cost.

At one point, the children insisted that value was equal to fiscal cost. I responded by asking them how much to sell me their mothers. One child said $300, which they obviously thought was a great deal of money. Another child said $3,000,000... A DAY! Exactly like that. The rest of the children declined to sell me their mothers at any price, thus neatly elucidating my point. ;)

During this discussion, one of the children posited the idea that inherent worth is akin to a soul. This was really an astounding leap, and is one of those moments that makes me feel very lucky and grateful to be allowed to teach these kiddos. (Or for them to teach me. One or the other. Or maybe both? :P )

We also discussed the story of King Midas, played a game to illustrate the story, and closed by reading a letter from Reverend Tom Owen-Towle, a UU minister, that details exactly how lucky we are to be here. (700,000,000,000,000 to 1, to be precise.)

YRE Recap: "Asking Questions"

Today's lesson centered around the 4th UU Principle, which is the idea that every person is free to search for what is true and right in life. We discussed the terms 'free', 'responsible', 'truth', and 'meaning' to arrive at a better understanding of this principle, and played Twenty Questions to exemplify the idea of those searches. We learned about fellow Unitarian Maria Mitchell, who was the first female astronomer, and her unusual education and training that allowed and encouraged her to ask questions. At the end of our lesson, each student wrote down two questions on index cards, ranging from 'What is Grammy's middle name?' to 'Why does the moon glow?', and will receive a prize if they bring their cards back with answers. :)

Photo of the Day

 Isaiah was very proud of his pyramid, and he very
politely insisted that I take a photo and send it to everyone.

Ike and Angel, playing with magnets before big church. :)

The door to my Sunday school classroom,
showing our inherent worth self-portraits. :)