Unitarian Universalist Forum January, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) January 5 “State of the Empire” with Reese Erlich, esteemed journalist and reporter, bringing us his own annual discourse on international politics. January 12 “State of the City from the Liberal Perspective”, with Tim Redmond, SF Bay Guardian. Tim will take on issues from removals of benches to play Whack a Mole with the homeless, to corporate takeover of the waterfront. This is a forum not to be missed in an important election year. January 19 Vicky Hoover, “Caring for Creation”, offers a narration on the work of the Sierra Club to care for the wild places of our planet. Photo shows Vicky presenting 200,000 petitions against logging the Giant Sequoias to Under Secretary of Agriculture, Harris Sherman in September, 2011. January 26, “Greening San Francisco”, with an annual return visit with Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., Director of Friends of the SF Environment. Unitarian Universalist Forum February, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) February 2, “Solutions to End the Israeli Occupation and the Prawer Plan to displace Bedouins from the Negev” with Rabbi Alissa Wise, working for justice in Israel/Palestine for over a decade in New York City with Jews Against the Occupation, on the West Bank with the International Women's Peace Service, and founding co-chair of the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council. February 9, “Life after Prison; helping released prisoners find sustainable lives”, with Pam Hogan, author of “From Prison to Paycheck” and other books and training tools geared to helping prisoners live legally, manage conflict, and thrive. February 16, “California Issues and the Progressive Ethic” with Senator Mark Leno. Elected to the California Senate in 2008, Mark Leno has continuously fought for better schools and access to higher education a cleaner and sustainable environment, singlepayer universal health care, improved transportation, renewable energy, safer streets and equal rights for all Californians, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation. February 23, “Marking the 50th Anniversary of the San Francisco Freedom Movement”, with John William Templeton, author of "Our Roots Run Deep". Templeton is a veteran journalist who chanced upon the obscured black history of California while researching police brutality by the LAPD in the wake of the beating of Rodney King. Since 1991, he has followed that trail and produced four anthology volumes, a public television documentary, a short film on William Alexander Leidesdorff; and an integrated learning system based on African-American heritage in California. Unitarian Universalist Forum March, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) March 2 – “Not About Drugs”: The causes of state violence in Colombia and the role of the United States. Interviews with Army officers, victims, judicial investigators, and human rights workers, and how we measure cause and effect, with John Lindsay-Poland, Fellowship of Reconciliation March 9, “Justice Begins with Seeds”, with Miguel Robles from Biosafety Alliance of California, advancing a sustainable food system, free of GMO’s. Artisan, poet, activist, Robles was born in Mexico City, studied art history, silversmithing, and creative writing while involved in social struggles related to globalization, democracy, human rights, environment and food justice. March 16, “Fukushima Step by Step”: Cecile Pineda, author of “Face; Frieze”; and “The Love Queen of the Amazon” is a long-time anti-war activist; her recent book, “Devil’s Tango: How I learned the Fukushima Step by Step”, is a dissection of the nuclear industry seen through the lens of ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. Written as a journal, her day-today observations reflect on the meaning of life on a planet which is as vulnerable as a human body. March 23, Two Among the Righteous Few: A Story of Courage in the Holocaust. Marty Bronstein tells a true story of interfaith courage and compassion, focusing on a couple in the Netherlands who, despite great risks and dangers, help save the lives over two dozen Jews during the Holocaust. The story is meaningful personally to Marty. March 30, "Faces of Human Rights: Human Rights Defenders around the World." Tarah Demant, visiting Professor from Mills College, speaks on basic human rights. Each day, countless people risk their jobs, their freedom, and their very lives in the name of basic human dignity and justice. A 12-year-old girl faces down the Taliban for the right to education; a journalist exposes corruption in Somalia; a mother in Guatemala leads her community against corrupt government officials illegally taking land. Explore the fight for global justice. Unitarian Universalist Forum April, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) April 6, “Active Non-Violence: From Strawberries to the Middle East” with Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first 10 women rabbis in modern Judaism. The co-founder of the Shalom Shomer Network for Jewish Nonviolence, she is also a founding member of the rabbinical council of Jewish Voice for Peace. Rabbi Gottlieb is author of the forthcoming "Trail Guide to the Torah of Nonviolence" (2012, Terre d'Espérance Editions). April 13, “San Francisco, Past and Future. What Next?”Aaron Peskin, former Supervisor of District #3 and Chair of the SF Board of Supervisors, former chair of the Democratic County Central Committee, advocate for curbing Ellis Act evictions and preserving SF historic neighborhoods, addresses forum on San Francisco issues. April 20, in recognition of EARTH DAY, “Fracking and the Rise of Natural Gas” with Jennifer Krill, Executive of EARTHWORKS, an organization dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the impacts of irresponsible mineral and energy development. EARTHWORKS was founded in 1988 and focuses on reforming the US Mining Law of 1872, the No Dirty Gold Campaign to build support in the marketplace for reforming the policies and practices of the mining industry, and helping protect tribal, urban and rural communities from the devastating impacts of oil and gas drilling and development. A lifelong activist, Jennifer has previously directed campaigns at Rainforest Action Network (RAN). April 27, “Pre-emptive Conflict Resolution”, with David Hartsough. From the segregated lunch counters of Maryland to political conflicts in Kosovo, Mexico, El Salvador and a dispute over stolen cows in Sudan, David Hartsough of San Francisco has spent most of his 70 years pushing for peace. In 1999, he co-founded Nonviolent Peaceforce, a civilian peacekeeping group of 100 unarmed professionals who work in conflict zones. Unitarian Universalist Forum May, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) May 4, “Guardian Groups Help Rebuild Lives of Refugees” with Galen Workman, Rev. Fred Rabidoux, and Toby Meyer. Members of the Guardian Group provide support to sexual minority refugees, asylum seekers, and asylees who are being resettled in San Francisco and nearby cities. Above photo shows members of Guardian Group welcoming refugees to the UUSF community with a refugee sponsorship. May 11, “Addressing Global warming: ideas to create a more sustainable San Francisco, find consistent access to clean air and reduce climate disrupting emissions." with John Holtzclaw, Sierra Club. May 18, “The Global Heart Awakens”, with Anodea Judith, a master storyteller. The author reweaves the threads of our current tapestry into a new and inspiring picture of who we are, how we got here, and where we’re going. She views our current environmental problems as the perfect evolutionary storm to bring humanity from its current adolescent consumption and greed to the exciting venture of co-creating a promising future. May 25, “The Essential Teachings of Sufism and the nature of the Sufi Path”, with Murshid Wali Ali Meyer. Born in Mississippi in 1942, he was named college editor of the year at the University of Alabama for the newspaper’s editorial campaign against segregation. Later he studied Philosophy and Theosophy, ultimately finding his mentor in Murshid Samuel Lewis, a Sufi mystic, who initiated him in 1970 as a Sheikh on the Sufi path. After his mentor’s death in 1971, Wali Ali Meyer continued to serve, becoming director of the Esoteric School of the Sufi Ruhaniat International, offering guidance to spiritual wayfarers on the path of awakening to the true nature of their souls. He will be joined by Tawawabi Samia Bloch, Esoteric Secretary. Unitarian Universalist Forum June, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) June 1, “Solving Conflicts in the Middle East”, with Richard Becker, reporter on Middle East affairs and featured speaker at political conferences in the USA and across the world. “Becker gives us our most sharply focused and penetrating analysis of the real dynamics at work in the continuing persecution of the Palestinian people,” says Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney general. June 8, “Bridge to the Spirit: the Mosaic of Forgiveness”, with Takashi Tanemori, “Urban Samurai”: How a survivor of Hiroshima found the ultimate solution to human conflict and how to create a peaceful world. June 15 “Protecting the Ocean”, with Keith Howell, Director of the Ocean Film Festival Committee, who takes us from human efforts to generate coral reef gardens to ways to protect sharks and reduce pollution in the ocean. June 22, "The Slave Trade, Oil, and Globalization in the Niger Delta", with Professor G. Ugo Nwokeji. UC Berkeley. Dr. Nwokeji discusses post-colonial slave trade and the hydrocarbon economy together in a region that has shaped and is shaped in a unique way by globalizing forces. “The Holy Universe” with David Christopher, who takes what thinkers and scientists such as Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Mary Evelyn Tucker and many others have taught us about who we are and where we came from and re-tells the new story using metaphor and imagination, exploring how our social, ecological and spiritual crises can lead to positive transformation. Unitarian Universalist Forum July, 2014 First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin Street at Geary, Martin Luther King Room 9:30 am Sunday mornings (light breakfast offered for slight fee) July 6 “Labor, the Occupy Movement and the 99% Coalition! A Team for the People” Labor Fest 2014 comes to UU Forum to highlight the goals of Labor and how they converge with the goals of Occupy and the 99% Coalition. July 13, “Greening the Economy, the Emergining Green Job Sector and making Your Own Life Eco-Friendly”, with Tom Valtin, Senior Editor at the Sierra Club. July 20, "The Impact of the Bush-era on Migratory Birds": Laura Horton, staff attorney at the Wild Equity Institute, will discuss how the Fish and Wildlife Service's Bush-era bird nest policy encourages the destruction of nests. Learn how Wild Equity is fighting to change this disastrous policy and what needs to be done to protect to migratory birds. Ms. Horton will also give an update on Wild Equity's Antioch Dunes campaign. July 27, Waiting at Red Lights and other Meditative Moments” with Ed Baxter, journalist and broadcaster. Ed is a member of the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame, spent over three decades at broadcast icon KGO in San Francisco. He substituted for Paul Harvey on the country’s number one radio broadcast through much of the nineties. Along the way he picked up more than 50 journalism awards including the Edward R. Murrow award for “Best Newscast”.