“I always felt there was something missing from my badge sash,” wrote Life Member Mary Jo Sirling of California, prior to earning FFRF’s Freethought Badge. “My sash has the 39 Girl Scout badges that I earned, but it was time for me to receive the 40th. I have been working on this badge for 79 years and I have always been a good citizen in ‘thought, word, and deed’ as my 1950 Girl Scout Handbook states. And here I am wearing my Freethought Badge. My Girl Scout Handbook had no directions about where to place it, so I put it at the top of my badge sash. Obviously, that is where it belongs.”
Cartoonist Steve Benson will be drawing caricatures of attendees at FFRF’s convention in October as a fundraiser for FFRF.
Benson cartoon
This photo of the statue of the archbishop of Warsaw, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, was taken by FFRF Co-President Dan Barker.
Unalienable rights
There goes the neighborhood.
Pompeo rapture
Gathering on the steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol are FFRF’s 2019 summer legal interns. From left, Joshua Engelkeimer, University of Wisconsin Law School; Ryan Shaner, Chicago-Kent College of Law; Mendel Jimenez, Vassar College; Eleanor Pressler, University of Wisconsin; Derek Hein, Marquette University Law School; and Alex Schmidt, UW-Madison Law School. During their stint at FFRF, the interns help write legal briefs and letters and do legal research.
The FFRF Kentucky chapter used its $1,000 chapter grant to “once again buy items for poor senior citizens living in Section 8 housing at American Village in Louisville, Ky., in July,” according to chapter president Edwin Hensley.
“The event was successful and our best ever! Four senior citizens are now sleeping on beds rather than the floor. Many others received household items like sheets, blankets and towels that they could not purchase otherwise. The management and residents of American Village were very pleased with this event.”
In the photo are, from left, an unidentified resident assistant at American Village; Carol Craig, manager of the facility; Shelly Henry, AU Louisville Chapter president and FFRF attorney in Kentucky; an unidentified American Village employee; and Jim Potash, FFRF member and president of the Kentucky Secular Society.