We have a new leader and a new direction, and it’s your turn to say what you like/ dislike about the organization. Let Frank and the Board know what you think! We want to know!Ready? Go!
We have a new leader and a new direction, and it’s your turn to say what you like/ dislike about the organization. Let Frank and the Board know what you think! We want to know!Ready? Go!
Seeker
Are your “10 commandments” part of what you call your “objective realism” or part of your Stockholm Syndrome?
reason
I think you are confusing some terminology which makes it difficult to understand precisely what you are saying. We already have a national Public Health Service. So you must be talking about something else.
Please clarify.
character |?karikt?r| noun
the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual -
fifth column | is a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal -
To: American Atheists Board of Directors
Through your collective lack of character, in the handling of your firing of Ellen Johnson, you?ve managed to make me ashamed of having been a member of American Atheists.
Through your collective lack of character, in this matter, you?ve gained a reputation for being unworthy of trust.
Through your collective lack of character, in this matter, you?ve done more to substantiate the claim of the religious that Atheists lack moral character than any of the faithful have ever been able to accomplish.
Which leads me to wonder if you are not, collectively a Fifth Column.
Good bye
atheistud@lycos.com
I am Gil Gaudia. My wife Jeanne and I have been editorial assistants for the past two years at American Atheists. In doing so, we have worked closely with Ellen Johnson whom we respect and admire greatly. We have also had telephone and email contact with a few of the board members, especially with regard to editing their manuscripts. We were not impressed with their interpersonal skills. I have also contributed several articles to the magazine. We have just concluded an hour long telephone conversation with Ellen.
We are extremely biased in her favor, because we found her to be hard-working, honest, courageous, competent and caring of us and appreciative of our volunteer contributions.
This board?s action, in our opinion, will almost certainly result in the end of the organization and publication as we know it. We say this because, from first-hand experience we are aware of the number of hours, the amount of coordination and the knowledge of the operation that are all required to successfully produce a monthly publication, and we have no evidence that any of the board members are willing and able to invest that degree of commitment. Indeed, we have some reason to believe that the opposite is true. To those members who propose hiring Dawkins, Hitchins, Harris and others for the presidency, first see if they?ll agree to work for 38K, or thereabouts, in addition to doing latrine duty in their spare time.
For the board of directors of the most well-known Atheist group in America to have taken such a suicidal action is incomprehensible, but whatever their reasons, unless the
members protest strongly and demand her reinstatement, (which she may not even want) it will only be a matter of time before we no longer have an organization to uphold the civil rights of Atheists.
As a contributor of many articles to this magazine, and as volunteers in editing other journal articles, spending many hours of our time in assisting Ellen in producing this publication, we are no longer interested in writing, editing or assisting in any way a magazine whose board has acted in such an irresponsible, unfair and self-destructive manner.
Gil and Jeanne R. Gaudia
Spanders,
Thanks, Spanders!
I was shocked to read here that Frank Zindel and his wife were (drum roll) editors of the AA monthly magazine, though I guess I knew it on some level.
The magazine needs help: its articles are generally boring (though the Atheist firefighter story was good), redundant, not timely, and the editing is abysmal. In fact, it was sometimes painful for me, an editor myself, to read the magazine.
So now it appears, if you do a terrible job of editing the magazine, they promote you to president? Right.
I had once composed a letter to the magazine telling them that commas, periods and all punctuation go INSIDE quotes. Like “this.” Not
like “this”. which leaves the period hanging out there unprotected. They did it wrong all the time and it annoyed me. But I never sent the letter because I could never figure out exactly who to send it to. IS THERE ANYONE THERE AT THE CRANFORD NJ HEADQUARTERS WHO KNOWS GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION?
But never mind that, I would settle for some interesting, timely articles even if badly punctuated. Ellen’s editorial was always interesting, so I figured it’s not her balloxing up the works.
So now it appears, we have the inmates running the asylum.
Come on, Board of Directors. Time ’s up.
It’s been eighteen (18) days since you fired Ellen.
Time to come out of hiding and explain yourselves.
You’ve had plenty of time to concoct a story, or, better yet, tell the (gasp) truth.
atheistud@lycos.com
It’s really difficult to ignore how many republicans hate Atheists ,but I think we should try to focus less on politics,unless its legislation that directly effects us. The occasional christian bashing is fun,I’m sure they bash Atheists on their boards ,but it doesn’t help as much as it should.
For someone who presumptuously and arrogantly calls herself “smartgal,” you sure don’t sound all that smart. You can’t spell Frank Zindler’s name properly and don’t know where to mail a letter. You are also incorrect about your so-called knowledge of editing, because there are occasions when the punctuation does not go inside the quotations marks. Stop sounding so omniscient and think a bit before you shoot off your big mouth.
Gil Gaudia
Bart,
This is from Gil and Jeanne Gaudia.
We want to take you up on your call for everyone to start working together in order to get American Atheists back on track. Therefore we would be willing to resume our volunteer work with Ellen (and any board members we can assist, in any way we can) in order to return to the status quo ante. If Arthur needs help or Rachael, and we can do it via email or telephone, we would be happy to offer this service, without compensation (as it has always been) in an effort to spark a resumption of business as usual.
Sincerely,
Gil and Jeanne
Dear friends,
I have thought long and hard about the decision I made about withdrawing my sponsorship of “The Atheist Viewpoint”.
This has not been an easy decision to make because I am torn between what the board did to Ellen and the fact that the voice of Atheism and rational thought must never be dimmed.
Today I read and heard numerous times of the comments that “reverend” John Haggee made about the catholic church and also that “god sent Adolf Hitler to the jews”…
I am attaching just one of the articles on Hagge and how John McCain has now rejected the Haggee endorsement. Hopefully this will show the nation how ridiculous and frightening fundamentalist religion really is.
After seeing that Haggee will be picking up where the (thankfully) departed delusional Jerry Falwell left off in his outrageous “faith filled” mindless spewing of hate, I have decided while I do not agree with the boards decision to fire Ellen, I must (after really thinking hard about this) yield to the greater good of continuing to give American Atheists a “voice” in the very catholic and evangelical/ protestant populated city of “saint” cloud, MN.
I have decided to continue my membership in American Atheists as well as continue to sponsor “The Atheist Viewpoint ” here on Charter Cable Channel 12 on Tuesday evenings at 7:30 PM Central Time.
Please know that my greatest and most sincere hope is that Ellen and the board can work through all of their difficulties and Ellen will be re-instated as President and Co-Host of “The Atheist Viewpoint”.
I care about Ellen and I care about the future of American Atheists.
I finally had to realize that much, much more was at stake here than we realize…..
The very survival of the human race is in jeopardy if fundamentalist, irrational religious zealots like John Haggee are not challenged with rationality, proof of the lies and errors of the bible and stopped.
I hope that all of you, especially Ellen can understand my position.
I met so many of you wonderful people at the American Atheists convention in Minneapolis and you all made me proud to be counted among you as a fellow secular humanist.
Please. Make me proud again. Let’s all try to work together for a rational world and put our differences aside once and for all for the common good. Our world and the future of our human species is literally at stake here.
Timothy, please continue to mail me Atheist Viewpoint Episodes.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jack Richter An American Atheist…just like YOU!
Frank Zindler ;
“We?re hitting the ground running, folks!”
The six (6) word sum total of what I’ve seen from the BOD under the energetic and masterful direction of Mr. “Z”.
Pathetic, beyond description.
Ellen would have been popping up every day on every cable and TV show except the Cartoon Network, plus video on the AA web site, the weekly, informative, valuable and entertaining cable show “Atheist Viewpoint”, podcasts all over the place, and on, and on like the Energizer Bunny.
It’s long past the time when the whole BOD needs to be taken out for an afternoon of electroshock, just to see if there’s any life left in any of them.