Our distinguished speaker was also our HSGP member, Dr. William Raby. Dr. Raby (Bill), retired Deloitte & Touche partner and emeritus professor of accounting at Arizona State University, is a past vice president and board member of the American Institute of CPAs and a past chair of its Tax Division. A member of the U.S. Tax Court Bar, Bill Raby handles transactional tax planning and tax controversies with the Raby Law Office in Tempe, Arizona; co-authors (with attorney Burgess Raby) weekly tax practice articles for Tax Notes and for Tax Practice, weekly tax magazines published by Tax Analysts; is the regular guest expert on the monthly CPE Network video tax tapes and the monthly audio tax and financial planning tapes produced by Bisk Education for CPA continuing education; and serves as a consultant to accounting and law firms and an expert witness in cases involving tax-related matters.

The author or co-author of eight tax-related books, his CPA firm experience included heading the tax function nationally for Touche Ross and then managing the Phoenix Touche Ross office, plus earlier partnerships in Swenson & Raby, Rockford, Illinois, William L. Raby & Co., Tucson, Arizona, and Laventhol & Horwath (where he was National Tax Partner and a member of the governing board from 1970 to 1977). He was the 1993-94 president of the Arizona State Board of Accountancy, served twelve years on the Arizona Board of Tax Appeals (four as chair), is listed in Who's Who in America, and was named to the Accounting Today list of the 100 most influential people in accounting nationally in 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. In 1991, he was presented with the AICPA's Arthur J. Dixon Memorial Award for service to the tax profession.

From Publishers Weekly: "In September of 2001, Breitweiser had a tumor in her breast, was suffering from colitis and lupus and recovering from the death of her mother from cancer of the mouth. Then terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, killing her beloved husband and hundreds more. Devastated, the New Jersey stay-at-home mom became an activist, channeling her pain and rage into learning everything she could about the U.S. government's role in the attacks—an excruciating journey that is carefully chronicled in this emotionally charged memoir. Colloquial in tone, Breitweiser recounts how she and three widow pals—her fellow "Jersey Girls"—began lobbying the government to establish an independent 9/11 commission to explore all that went wrong that day. With narrative ease, the author, who has a law degree, breaks down complex arguments and political theories: one chapter is dedicated to a single footnote from The 9/11 Investigations, while another segment explains why negligence is cheaper than prevention for airlines and governments. "

Dr. Betsy Fahlman is Professor of Art History and Associate Director of the School of Art at ASU, where she has taught since 1988. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Delaware. A specialist in American art of the 19th and 20th centuries, she is writing a book on New Deal photography and culture in Arizona. Dr. Fahlman is the author of The Cowboy's Dream: The Mythic Life and Art of Lon Megargee (2002).

Dr. Fahlman presented a slide show highlighting Depression-era photos.

Our Annual Solstice Party and Fund-raising Auction is always a great event. This year we raised $1814.50, our best effort yet!

We also celebrated the Humanist holiday of HumanLight. We inaugurated our new board members and gave out the annual Helen Goldsmith Awards to our most deserving volunteers!

Robert J. McWhirter -- Bob -- returned to charm us again with another outstanding presentation! (See July 23, 2006 for his previous talk on the Fourth Amendment.) Bob is Assistant Federal Public Defender, District of Arizona. He received his Juris Doctorate from Arizona State University College of Law in 1988. Upon graduation, Mr. McWhirter clerked for then Vice Chief Justice Stanley G. Feldman of the Supreme Court of Arizona. He has been an Assistant Federal Public Defender since 1989, representing Native Americans and other clients in a broad range of Federal cases including homicide, sexual abuse, and bank robbery. In addition, Mr. McWhirter has developed a specialty in criminal immigration law, having published articles in the Georgetown Immigration Law Review and the Criminal Practice Law Report. The American Bar Association has published his book The Criminal Lawyer's Guide to Immigration Law: Questions and Answers. Mr. McWhirter also teaches criminal immigration law and immigration consequences of criminal convictions nationally for Criminal Justice Act Panel Attorneys (with the program sponsored by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts), as well as the history of the Fourth Amendment.

Professor Matthew Whitaker earned his B.A. in Sociology, B.A. in History, and M.A. in United States History, from Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe. Dr. Whitaker earned his Ph.D. in History, with honors, from Michigan State University (MSU) in Lansing. After earning his doctorate, Professor Whitaker worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Comparative Black History Program at MSU; a trail blazing program founded and directed by the eminent historian and public intellectual, Dr. Darlene Clark Hine, John A. Hannah Professor of History at Michigan State University, and Board of Trustees Professor of African American Studies and History at Northwestern University. Professor Whitaker came to ASU in 2001, after completing his post-doctoral research on the Civil Rights Movement in the American West at MSU.

Dr. Whitaker specializes in Modern U.S. history, African American history, the African Diaspora, Civil and Human Rights, Critical Race Theory, sports history, popular culture and the American West. His research focuses on African American leadership, social movements, activism, and the struggle for racial, economic, and gender equality in American history and life. His articles have appeared in many scholarly journals and encyclopedias, and his latest book is entitled Race Work: The Rise of Civil Rights in the Urban West (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). Dr. Whitaker’s commentaries on topics such as the intersection of race, class, and gender, presidential politics, the Roman Catholic Church, reparations, Black conservatism, civil liberties, and U.S./African relations, and have appeared on NPR, PBS, various newspapers, and other media outlets. He also serves on numerous boards, including the distinguished International Advisory Board of the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky, California Legal History, and the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center in Phoenix.

To learn more, go to Dr. Whitaker's website, http://www.drmatthewwhitaker.com

Just prior to Dr. Whitaker's talk, HSGP members voted for officers for 2007.

The Humanist Book Club meets at 1:30 p.m. at Bookman's Used Book Store, northwest corner of Country Club and Southern in Mesa.

From Publishers Weekly: The "Lucifer Principle" is freelance journalist Bloom's theory that evil-which manifests in violence, destructiveness and war-is woven into our biological fabric. A corollary is that evil is a by-product of nature's strategy to move the world to greater heights of organization and power as national or religious groups follow ideologies that trigger lofty ideals as well as base cruelty. In an ambitious, often provocative study, Bloom applies the ideas of sociobiology, ethology and the "killer ape" school of anthropology to the broad canvas of history, with examples ranging from Oliver Cromwell's reputed pleasure in killing and raping to Mao Tse-tung's bloody Cultural Revolution, India's caste system and Islamic fundamentalist expansion. Bloom says Americans suffer "perceptual shutdown" that blinds them to the United States' downward slide in the pecking order of nations.

Our speaker was HSGP member Dr. Harvey Turner. Dr. Turner was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1932. His undergraduate work was at Columbia University, where he majored in psychology and contemporary civilization. He attended medical school at University of Berne, Switzerland. That was followed by an internship in 1960 and general surgery residency in Brooklyn, NY and thoracic surgery residency in Boston, MA. Dr. Turner has been an Arizona resident since 1987 and is on several hospital ethics committees. He taught medical ethics at Gateway Community College for several years. Dr. Turner retired from active practice in 2000.