Ross Island sits mid-Willamette just south of downtown Portland, and has a history of being built up and exploited by men, but today it is ruled primarily by nature. From Friendly House, Mike Houck, Director of the Urban Greenspaces Institute, will present his vision of how it can serve as one. Mr. Houck has been a leader in urban nature issues since 1980 when he founded the Urban Naturalist Program at the Audubon Society of Portland. He has co-founded Coalition for a Livable Future (CLF); The national Coalition to Restore Urban Waters (CRUW); The Intertwine Alliance; and The Nature of Cities forum.
Video of Programs (search and sort)
AHA Conference 2025: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart
08/17/2025
David Buckley
At Friendly House, HGP member David Buckley reports back from the American Humanist Association conference which took place June 26-29. While the challenges of this moment in American society and politics are hard to overstate, the conference highlighted hopeful developments and opportunities that are present in spite of - and sometimes because of - those challenges. David conveys that sense of hope and lays out specific opportunities for AHA chapters (like ours) to consider. Buckley is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who has been actively involved in Humanist Community for over a decade.
China: What It's Actually Like
08/10/2025
Ralph Jennings
A beyond-the-media presentation by a media guy, about the world's (second?) most important country. What's it like to live there, as native or not? Are you oppressed? Free to move about? What inspires the average person to get out of bed? Ralph Jennings was born and raised in Portland, graduated from Cal, and later pursued an MA in Taipei. A lifelong journalist, he now works for the South China Morning Post (scmp.com) covering the Chinese economy: prices, consumption, talent, labor, aviation, shipping, trade – and once in a while the king of fruits, durians.
Further reading:
"50 Useful Tips on China" by Ralf Jennings
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CXJDLDPX.
Why do Chinese people do so much voluntary overtime at work? Who is the key mastermind behind traditional marriages, and how come their jokes are funny but yours are not? 50 Useful Tips on China helps to unravel the many mysteries of the Middle Kingdom. The author, Ralph Jennings, isn’t Chinese and while that gives him a certain objectivity, it also inevitably leaves him partly in the dark. He put in his time, but how far did he really get in figuring things out? A lot further than most.
When Good Intentions Meet Hard Realities
08/03/2025
Anand Atre
From Wall Street to rural Malawi, HGP member Anand Atre reveals why changing the world can be surprisingly messy, hard, and complex. Case studies from special needs education projects across three continents illustrate the dilemmas when good intentions meet organizational politics, cultural differences, and unintended consequences—and why the work's still worth pursuing. Atre grew up in British colonial Hong Kong, came to the US for undergraduate studies, then spent 16 years working in investment banking, private equity, and co-founding a hedge fund, subsequently transitioning to hands-on altruistic volunteer projects supporting young people with special needs
The Neurobiology of Morality
07/27/2025
Dr. Sarah Strand
Dr. Sarah Strand returns for part 3 of her series. Religion has traditionally guided our moral judgements, but contemporary psychologists find that humans of all types and (non)beliefs make remarkably similar moral judgements. Dr. Strand shows from human and non-human studies that regions in the frontal and temporal lobes are active when making moral judgements, and morality (like physical and behavioral traits) is subject to evolutionary mechanisms. Strand is an associate lecturer in Psychology at California State University, Sacramento, lecturing about religion and neuroscience since 2010.
On line Test: https://www.moralsensetest.com
Liane Young: https://youtu.be/D6XcjuN0sjY