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Why We Didn’t Table At the Maumee Summer Fair in 2025

This week­end was the Maumee Summer Fair. SHoWLE was not there this year and I want­ed to explain why. The first cou­ple of years we had a booth there were great. We were on West Wayne Street and we had a lot of foot traf­fic as we were near the beer and food and the kids zone. Which is the holy tri­fec­ta…

Douglas Berger — President of SHoWLE

Then in 2023 there was a mas­sive recon­struc­tion of the down­town Maumee area and they had to shoe horn every­one into a small­er foot­print. The orga­niz­ers had us in the very back park­ing lot next to a toi­let. Foot traf­fic was very much low­er than before. We said no prob­lem that when they get the con­struc­tion done things will go back to how it was before.

In 2024, we got our appli­ca­tion in as soon as the process opened and we got the very first booth spot on Conant St and we were so hap­py. The prob­lem was they rearranged the booth space again and had them all spread up and down Conant. Our booth was at the far west­ern end of the fes­ti­val area, across from the Indoor Theater, with most of the action hap­pen­ing way down by Wayne St. Foot traf­fic was min­i­mal AND the booth next to ours was for the group try­ing to recall most of the Maumee city coun­cil. They were nice peo­ple but in their zeal to get recall peti­tions signed they would basi­cal­ly block Conant St. and what lit­tle foot traf­fic we did see was way less than if we were fur­ther east and the cit­i­zen group was­n’t next to us imped­ing the traf­fic flow.

The SHoWLE Board decid­ed to sit 2025 out. Besides not believ­ing we would have a good spot, the fact we need more than the usu­al 3 or four peo­ple to help out played a part in the deci­sion.

I looked at the lay­out they had for 2025 and it was much bet­ter than 2024. The booths were most­ly on Conant and East Wayne and that cor­ner was where they set­up the stage for the bands. I think, if we had been there this year we would have had more con­tacts and inter­est.

I think too that if the cur­rent fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is like it is now, we need to be vis­i­ble to those who sup­port our val­ues. We may not be com­mon to Maumee but we nev­er had an issue at the Summer Fair.

Let us know what you think? Should we attend the Summer Fair next year?

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We Are Hosting a Showing of The Last Class

Info for our showing of The Last Class film

Join us for a Screening of The Last Class at Cinemark Franklin Park 16 and XD: The Last Class is a nuanced and deeply per­son­al por­trait of mas­ter edu­ca­tor Robert Reich teach­ing his final course and reflect­ing on a peri­od of immense trans­for­ma­tion, per­son­al­ly and glob­al­ly. It is a love let­ter to edu­ca­tion. The for­mer Secretary of Labor might be famous for his pub­lic ser­vice, best-selling books, and viral social media posts, but he always con­sid­ered teach­ing his true call­ing. Now, after over 40 years and an extra­or­di­nary 40,000 stu­dents, Reich is prepar­ing for his last class.

Over the course of the film, Reich con­fronts the impend­ing final­i­ty, and his own aging, with increas­ing can­dor, intro­spec­tion, and, ulti­mate­ly, emo­tion. He dis­plays a raw­ness of feel­ing he has nev­er shared pub­licly before. Drawing on his life­time in pol­i­tics, he uses his class, “Wealth and Poverty,” to offer us all a deep­er look at why inequal­i­ties of income and wealth have widened sig­nif­i­cant­ly since the late 1970s, and why this pos­es dan­ger­ous risks to our soci­ety.

One thou­sand stu­dents fill the biggest lec­ture hall on the UC Berkeley cam­pus, the last class to receive Reich’s wis­dom and exhor­ta­tions not to accept that the world has to stay the way it is. His belief in the next generation’s abil­i­ty to take on the fight is inspir­ing.

Humanists sup­port edu­ca­tion based on the truth, facts, and data. We also sup­port social jus­tice issues that Robert Reich talks about and we are also con­cerned about income inequal­i­ties.

Even if you can’t attend, you can buy a tick­et for some­one who wants to attend but can’t afford it. Feel free to share this event with your friends, fam­i­ly, and social cir­cle. Being a mem­ber of SHoWLE or a Humanist is not required. The film is open to all who buy a tick­et.

For tick­ets, vis­it our screen­ing web­page

https://bit.ly/lastclass-toledo2025

We met our min­i­mum tick­et sales on August 15th. Tickets are still avail­able. We can have 100 peo­ple.

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Sign-up for our Summer Solstice Picnic

We now have a potluck sign up form for the pic­nic on June 21st. This just to avoid dupli­cate food but feel free to bring what­ev­er you want to share.

SHoWLE will have a lim­it­ed num­ber of ham­burg­ers and hot dogs as well has cold soda and water to drink and plates and uten­sils to use. Feel free to bring any games you want to share.

Food sign-up here

More infor­ma­tion about the pic­nic can be found the events page.

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Petition Gathering has started to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1

Petitions to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1 have start­ed to be dis­trib­uted. SB 1 as it is known that was quick­ly passed at the start of the year, over the objec­tion of many uni­ver­si­ties and protests by stu­dents, would cen­sor uni­ver­si­ty class­es and is anti-union. It is also known as the high­er edu­ca­tion destruc­tion act and many of the points in the law scratch con­ser­v­a­tive bias­es about col­leges such as the pow­er of unions, not teach­ing how great cap­i­tal­ism is, and hate towards diver­si­ty, equal­i­ty, and inclu­sion.

For a break down of what is in SB 1 check out this explain­er sheet from AAUP Ohio and Honesty for Ohio Education:

Substitute Ohio Senate Bill 1 — Bill Breakdown

Upcoming Signing events:

Our friends at Toledo Troublemakers is host­ing a peti­tion sign­ing event on May 14th from 5:30 to 7 :30 PM at Earnest Brew Works Westgate 3134 W. Central , Toledo.

Findlay Forward Together will be hold­ing a SB1 Repeal Petition Signing Drive-Thru Thursday May 15th from 5 to 7 PM at 111 3rd St in Findlay.

When we hear about oth­er sign­ing events we will share them on social media accounts.

The con­ser­v­a­tives will be very picky about sig­na­tures so here are some basic rules:

  1. You must be a reg­is­tered vot­er to sign
  2. Make sure you sign the peti­tion that match­es your coun­ty
  3. You are only allowed to sign a peti­tion once

“With the title and sum­ma­ry lan­guage approval, peti­tion­ers can now start gath­er­ing sig­na­tures. About 248,092 sig­na­tures are need­ed — 6% of the total vote cast for gov­er­nor dur­ing the last guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. The sig­na­tures must be from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties. The sig­na­tures would like­ly be due at the end of June. ”

For more infor­ma­tion check out this web­site:

OH SB 1 Petition

*Update 06/30/2025* - Even with a strong effort, the peti­tion dri­ve fell short by 50,000 sig­na­tures. The group behind the effort ran a tru­ly grass­roots dri­ve and did­n’t use paid peti­tion sig­na­ture col­lec­tors. SB 1 is a very unpop­u­lar law so hope­ful­ly those opposed to it will try again soon.

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Donate to sponsor a conference about human trafficking

The International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference, which is put on by the University of Toledo, Human Trafficking and Social Justice Institute, recent­ly reached out to us to ask if we could spon­sor this years con­fer­ence that will be held vir­tu­al­ly in September. This is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for SHoWLE to have our name out pub­licly in sup­port of an event that fits in with our val­ues.

They have spon­sor­ship lev­els with the low­est pack­age being $500 which would have our name and logo in the pro­gram and web­site and would pro­vide three one day tick­ets we could give out to donors.

Our goal is to raise $500 by June 30th for our spon­sor­ship. If you donate and want to attend we will have the tick­ets avail­able on a first come first serve basis. The largest spon­sor­ship pack­age is $5000 and each pack­age comes with more free tick­ets but our goal for now is $500.

We will donate any funds we raise to help with the con­fer­ence.

To donate for our spon­sor­ship fol­low the link below:

SHoWLE Sponsorship Campaign

Here is infor­ma­tion about the con­fer­ence from their web­site:

“Human traf­fick­ing is one of the most preva­lent and active crim­i­nal enter­pris­es affect­ing our local, nation­al, and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Responses to com­bat traf­fick­ing include pre­ven­tion, pro­tec­tion, pros­e­cu­tion, and part­ner­ship. The International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference is proud to be the host of the old­est and largest aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on human traf­fick­ing in the world. As the world’s lead­ing aca­d­e­m­ic con­fer­ence on this top­ic, we serve as the hub through which prac­ti­tion­ers, pol­i­cy mak­ers, researchers, crim­i­nal jus­tice pro­fes­sion­als, busi­ness­es, health­care pro­fes­sion­als, social work­ers, and more become edu­cat­ed and equipped to pro­vide the best local and glob­al respons­es pos­si­ble. We remain com­mit­ted to edu­cat­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and we need your help!

The 22nd Annual International Human Trafficking & Social Justice Conference will be host­ed vir­tu­al­ly on September 17–19, 2025 and will high­light a vari­ety of skilled pre­sen­ters at the fore­front of both human traf­fick­ing and social jus­tice issues. This year’s con­fer­ence will fea­ture over 100 pre­sen­ta­tions and thou­sands of atten­dees tun­ing in from all cor­ners of the world. Attendees will learn how to iden­ti­fy risk fac­tors, improve respons­es for vic­tims, and learn how we can col­lec­tive­ly move for­ward with an agen­da for change.”

https://www.traffickingconference.com

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Good News We Have T‑shirts Available

If you missed the Here 4 Good sale through Jupmode in March we have good news. SHoWLE has a lim­it­ed num­ber of T‑shirts for sale and 100% of the sale goes to the group. We have 5 shirts each in the fol­low­ing sizes: S M L XL 2XL. Once these shirts are sold there will be no more until next year.

Price for all shirts is $20 each and if you want it mailed to you then it is an extra $6 for ship­ping. Once you buy a shirt we can arrange a meet­up to get the shirt or you can pick it up at a meet­ing if you want to save ship­ping costs.

This is an excel­lent way to sup­port SHoWLE and show the town you sup­port us.

If you would like one fill out the form below while pro­cess­ing a cred­it or deb­it charge. Be sure to let us know the size you would like.

If you plan to mail a check click on the Sending a Check link and fill out the form let­ting us know, skip the dona­tion form, and mail the check to SHoWLE PO BOX 6433 Toledo, Ohio 43612. We will hold a shirt for you until the check arrives.

We only need your address from this form if we will be mail­ing a shirt. Once you sub­mit the form it will take you to our dona­tion form to pay for it.

First come first serve.

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Resources to help support Democracy

People protesting in support of science

SHoWLE recent­ly cre­at­ed a new resource page that has links to tools and sources to help us sup­port democ­ra­cy.

These links include links to liked mind­ed groups and news sources that actu­al­ly cov­er the real news and not the cor­po­rate white-washed ver­sion we see most often.

The title of the new page is Supporting Democracy and can be found under our Resources menu on the web­site.

Also includ­ed is links to new videos cre­at­ed by President Doug Berger that helps the view­er set­up and use the My Ohio Legislature and GovTrack.us leg­is­la­tion track­ing web­sites.

If you have any sug­ges­tions or cor­rec­tions for this new resource please let us know.

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Resolution In Support Of The LGBTQ+ Community And Opposing Bigotry

The SHoWLE Board of Directors adopt­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment in sup­port of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty and to oppose big­otry. This state­ment can be found in our Policies and Resolution page of the web­site.

The Board of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie vot­ed on January 21, 2025, to “sign on” to a state­ment issued by a major­i­ty of the sec­u­lar, Humanist, and freethought groups in the coun­try affirm­ing our com­mit­ment to sup­port and pro­tect the rights of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try.

In a state­ment titled “Statement from American Atheist, Humanist, Freethought, and Secular Groups Affirming Commitment to Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights” 16 nation­al sec­u­lar groups affirmed:

“We will not per­mit reli­gious extrem­ists to foment a moral pan­ic, encour­age harass­ment or vio­lence, and enact dan­ger­ous poli­cies that seek to force LGBTQ+ Americans generally—and trans Americans in particular—out of pub­lic life and out of exis­tence. Nor will we sit silent­ly or ignore when the talk­ing points, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and out­right fab­ri­ca­tions of anti-LGBTQ+ extrem­ists are laun­dered and giv­en a veneer of legit­i­ma­cy or accept­abil­i­ty by those who hold them­selves out as voic­es of rea­son or sci­ence.”

The SHoWLE Board agrees 100% with the state­ment and we intend that our group will con­tin­ue to be a wel­com­ing place for all peo­ple no mat­ter who you are or who you love. Our Humanist val­ues demand it.

We need more com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing and much less irra­tional hys­te­ria. We need laws and poli­cies based on data and actu­al real­i­ty and not bias­es, reli­gious indoc­tri­na­tion, or tabloid anec­dotes.

SHoWLE also will not tol­er­ate big­otry from our state leg­is­la­ture, gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty, or our mem­ber­ship. We will call out that big­otry when need­ed. We will not sup­port or work with any group that sup­ports big­otry of any kind espe­cial­ly toward the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

Some peo­ple have said that recent attacks on the Trans com­mu­ni­ty have been only about dis­cussing sci­ence and biol­o­gy and that by not allow­ing that dis­cus­sion we are cen­sor­ing sci­ence. We reject that argu­ment.

Free speech argu­ments should nev­er be used to jus­ti­fy hurt­ing peo­ple and whether a group should have basic dig­ni­ty, and worth should nev­er be debat­ed.

No one should live in fear for sim­ply exist­ing.

Adopted January 2025

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SHoWLE To Move Away From Facebook

Facebook logo

Starting on February 1st, 2025, SHoWLE will reduce our use of Facebook. We will put in a sta­t­ic post point­ing vis­i­tors to our web­site but we will not update our pub­lic page, boost any posts, or cre­ate any new events.

We don’t make this deci­sion eas­i­ly but the change in polit­i­cal views of the CEO and oth­er actions tak­en by Meta, the own­er of Facebook, make our con­tin­ued use of the plat­form prob­lem­at­ic. If you are not aware of these issues check out the links at the end of this post for some details. In gen­er­al:

  • Donated $1 mil­lion to Trump’s inau­gur­al fund, while Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-A-Lago
  • Ended its fact-checking pro­gram to cater to the right-wing
  • Relaxed its rules on hate speech to allow hate­ful rhetoric against LGBTQ peo­ple, includ­ing as part of “reli­gious dis­course”
  • Deleted Facebook Messenger themes that used the col­ors of the trans­gen­der and bina­ry flags
  • Ended its DEI work and elim­i­nat­ed its chief diver­si­ty offi­cer posi­tion
  • Called for com­pa­nies to dis­play more “mas­cu­line ener­gy” (Zuckerberg) despite the over­whelm­ing dom­i­nance of men in the tech indus­try.

The fact-checking mod­er­a­tion was put into place a decade ago because Facebook was used to facil­i­tate eth­nic cleans­ing in a cou­ple of coun­tries. Not to men­tion now there will be more irra­tional posts about the harm of vac­cines and oth­er pro­mo­tion of woo.

We will keep our pri­vate group page for now but we intend to pro­mote a more open com­mu­ni­ty forum in the future off Facebook.

We rec­om­mend that our mem­bers also move away from Facebook but that deci­sion should be left up to each indi­vid­ual. In the links below is an arti­cle from EFF.org that shows how to block use of your data for prof­it mak­ing by Meta.

If you have any ques­tions about this new pol­i­cy, feel free to reach out to Doug or oth­er Board mem­bers.

For further information:

Meta ends its DEI pro­grams as Zuckerberg blasts Biden on Joe Rogan

Mark Zuckerberg Preps for More Ethnic Cleansing

Mad at Meta? Don’t Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

You can also find us on Bluesky as Toledo Humanist Community

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A ‘Magical Night’ with Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem on Zoom 12-21-2024

The evening of December 21, 2024 was a mag­i­cal night and I don’t even believe in mag­ic. My group the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie held our first Winter Solstice event at the Yeager Center at Swan Creek Metropark. When plan­ning the event I did want to have some­thing spe­cial like a spe­cial speak­er but our group is still pret­ty small. Our co-founder Shawn sug­gest­ed invit­ing Gloria Steinem to speak over Zoom. Gloria is a fem­i­nist icon, 2012 Humanist of the Year, and grew-up in Toledo. I did­n’t believe it would hap­pen. This is Gloria Steinem, one of the most famous activists in the world and we are a low­ly Humanist group in the Black Swamp of Northwest Ohio. But we tracked down her speak­ing con­tact and I sent an email.

The day I got the response was emo­tion­al — her peo­ple said she was con­sid­er­ing our request. Holy S*it!!!! It might hap­pen. I was so excit­ed and then got more excit­ed when we agreed on a speak­ing fee and signed the con­tract — It was going to hap­pen.

25 peo­ple joined us on December 21. Several of them had donat­ed to Gloria’s speak­ing fee and many more joined us to hear from Gloria. The food spread was so gen­er­ous that we had to break out anoth­er table to hold it all. There were some adult bev­er­ages drank and cof­fee made and we were all hav­ing a good time.

As it came time for Gloria’s vis­it my 10 year old lap top decid­ed to be dif­fi­cult and it was­n’t going to boot up and be ready to go in time. Oh did I tell you the Yeager Center does­n’t have WI-FI?? I was prepar­ing for a huge melt down because of tech issues. Shawn saved the day because in try­ing to play a music playlist from their phone to the TV we dis­cov­ered they could screen­cast to the TV. When I could­n’t get my lap­top ful­ly boot­ed up I used my phone to start the Zoom ses­sion and Shawn joined the meet­ing and host­ed as orig­i­nal­ly planned. Then once we fig­ured out to make it full screen the tech issue was gone and we enjoyed our short time talk­ing to Gloria *Freaking* Steinem as she sat at her desk in her brown­stone in New York City.

We had some ques­tions pre­pared and took a few from the audi­ence. One per­son asked if there were any younger polit­i­cal women she admired and she men­tioned Amy Richards but what she did next blew my mind. She asked us who the up and com­ing polit­i­cal women in Toledo were and we called out some like Dr. Michelle Grim, Erika White, and Katie Moline and Gloria WROTE their names down. I hope she reach­es out to them in some fash­ion. I wish we had some more names ready. Gloria still cares about her home­town even though she left before she grad­u­at­ed from high school.

As we closed she wished us well and hoped to stay in touch and Shawn told her if she was ever in the Toledo area to let us know and we would set­up and event or some­thing for her.

Shortly after the call, the potluck for­mal­ly end­ed as we held the draw­ing for a large gift bas­ket donat­ed for the occa­sion. It was won by our mem­ber Colette C.

And I was able to make in home in time to catch the Ohio State foot­ball game against Tennessee which turned out great as the Buckeyes won.

Like I said it was a mag­i­cal night and we are already talk­ing about hav­ing a Summer Solstice event in the com­ing year.

Thanks to all our mem­bers and friends who attend­ed and donat­ed toward this potluck and made it a great suc­cess and I want­ed to thank again the mem­bers of the Potluck com­mit­tee for this six month odyssey — Shawn and Anne E. and our set­up and clean up helpers Bev and her friend Anne B.

If you attend­ed please feel free to send us feed back by email or use our con­tact form — let us know what you liked or did­n’t like the event.

This post was writ­ten by SHoWLE President Douglas Berger

Here is a mon­tage of the night:

Although due to the con­tract we signed, we were not able to record or livestream the vis­it, Zoom did pro­vide a sum­ma­ry cre­at­ed by AI. After some light edit­ing here is the sum­ma­ry:

gloriavisitsummary12212024Download