NOSHA is collecting donations to help the Humane Society of Louisiana in their efforts to rebuild and recover from the horrific fire that destroyed their Tylertown shelter building. Animals lost their lives or are recovering from injuries and several employees lost  many personal belongings and will struggle with getting back on their feet. We are encouraging members to donate via our website and we’ll donate in the name of all secular humanists from our organization. Go to our website and…

At the October NOSHA meeting featuring journalist Bob Marshall on the status of the Louisiana coast, Board Member Rita Premo read excerpts from Aldo Leopold’s seminal collection of essays on wildlife management and conservation, A Sand County Almanac (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949). From the Foreword “Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse the land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as…

Just call it another in a long list of “Only in New Orleans” quirks: book and produce professional musical acts in venues whose primary entertainment attraction is something other than live music. Like a bowling alley, for example—and call it “Rock ’n’ Bowl”; or a pinball parlor snuggled in a nondescript white shell of an abandoned church in a nondescript suburban neighborhood— and call it “PinChurch.” Mike Perry’s PinChurch and Mystic Krewe of the Silver Ball project is not yet…

  The St. Charles Parish Library in Luling, Louisiana, just upriver from New Orleans, has something unique: a planetarium. The planetarium is a 42-seat theater that projects images of our solar system and points beyond in a digital dome above and around the seating. The Director of the project is Jason Talley, also known as “The Planetarium Guy,” gave the presentation for the second Science Café presentation at the very un-planetarium-like Neutral Ground Coffeehouse on Danneel Street. Jason’s resume of…

After a busy year or so, it’s time to re-energize the NOSHA committees. First, we should thank those who have been active in our community projects and various other activities! We would not have been as successful without those of you who are dependable and real supporters of NOSHA. Your interests translated into rewarding events that many people have enjoyed! We’ve had quite a year! We had excellent participation in activities like the Second Harvest Food Bank and Save Our…

On the Monday following the Friday the Supreme Court handed down its decision removing legal restrictions against same-sex marriage, Earl Nupsius Benjamin and Michael Robinson exercised their newly-sanctioned right, and became the Benjamin-Robinsons, the first such couple to marry in Louisiana. During the process of getting the license and completing the nuptials, the pair had become the face of the new reality that swept gender restrictions on marriage from Louisianaand twelve other states that had resisted change. They appeared in…

With symbolic baby steps, Louisiana atheist and secular groups entered the Louisiana Capitol on June 7 and set up information tables in the northwest corner of the marble-and mural-embellished Memorial Hall. Those modest first steps may have resonated more than the nonstop shoe clatter of legislators, pages, and other government groupies scuttling across the buffed stone floors of the grand hall of the building. For the first time, an organized presence of openly anti-religious citizens staked a claim to owning…

Local food and restaurant critic Tom Fitzmorrris lists 1401 eateries in metro New Orleans. And that’s not counting franchises or fast food outlets. He will probably not be including one recent opening in his updates—that of a local version of the new multinational concept of  “Science Cafes”. That’s because the fare served there is information, specifically about topics in science, rather than the latest twist on bistro comfort food or arty but bitty portions of nouvelle cuisine. NOSHA has teamed up…

Earlier this month, I was given the gift of a John Edward event. A good friend of mine wanted me to see for myself the powerful psychic abilities of Mr. Edward, so she bought us tickets. She had seen him once before in Baton Rouge, but had not gone to the additional “after event” on that occasion. So, she splurged and got us both “upgrades” for the extended show where John gets more personal. This was my first live experience…