Rationalists of East Tennessee Newsletter

November 2025

Daylight saving time ends for the year on Sunday, Nov. 2, at 2 a.m. local time.

First Sunday In Person Meeting

November 2, 2025 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM Eastern Time

Lee Rumble will speak on "Good Things Come in Trees"

Join UT Extension Agent and ISA Certified Arborist, Lee Rumble for a dive into the beauty of trees. For this talk, Lee will discuss why and how we utilize trees in the landscape, how to select healthy nursery stock, how to properly asses a site and install plant material correctly, and ultimately how to manage trees in the landscape to ensure their long-term survival.

Lee Rumble is a Tennessee native with over two decades in the arboricultural industry. He received his International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) Arborist Certification in May of 2010, and followed this milestone with an A.S. in Horticulture (2014), a B.S. in Plant and Soil Science (2016), and an M.S. in Botany (2019)— even conducting his master’s research in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Following graduation, Lee always knew he would call east Tennessee his forever home.

In January of 2020, Lee joined the Knox County Extension Office as an Extension Agent in Agriculture and Natural Resources. Lee’s close working relationship with the public prior to his schooling, along with his desire to be both a life-long learner and educator is precisely what led him to UT Extension. Lee works closely with commercial landscapers, nursery producers, fellow arborists, and the residents of Knox County in order to promote the proper management and care of plant material in both urban and rural landscapes.

We meet in the cafeteria annex of the Goins Administrative Building. Please enter the annex directly from the back of the building. 

Coffee and other warm beverages will be provided. Bring a snack to share if you would like. 

Blount County First Wednesday Meetup

Wednesday,  November 5,  6:00 - 7:30 pm  

Come join us at "The Bird and The Book" Cafe,  1509 E Broadway Ave, Maryville, for socializing and dinner.

If you have any extra copies of Free Inquiry, Skeptical Inquirer, Freethought Today, or other Freethought magazines, bring them to the social. We will try to have RET stickers ready to place over your addresses to make the magazines suitable for distribution for outreach. 

This will be a monthly event, normally on the First Wednesday.  All are welcome to join in.

RET Skeptic Book Club

November 9,  2025  Sunday    4:00 – 6:00 pm EST

Zoom Meeting

Runaway Inequality Updated 3rd Edition: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice

by Les Leopold

Runaway inequality is now America’s most critical economic fact of life. In 1970, the ratio of pay between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker was 45 to 1. In the current decade it is a shocking 800 to 1! During the time in between a new economic philosophy set in that cut taxes, deregulated finance, and trimmed social spending. Those policies set in motion a process that greatly expanded the power of financial interests to accelerate inequality. But how exactly does that happen? Using over 120 easy-to-understand charts and graphs, Runaway Inequality explains the process by which corporation after corporation falls victim to systematic wealth extraction by banks, private equity firms, and hedge funds. It reveals how financial strip-mining puts enormous downward pressure on jobs, wages, benefits, and working conditions, while boosting the incomes of financial elites. But Runaway Inequality does more than make sense of our economic plight. It also shows why virtually all the key issues that we face, from climate change to the exploding prison population, are intimately connected to rising economic inequality. Most importantly, Runaway Inequality calls upon us to build a common movement to tackle the sources of increasing income and wealth inequality. As the author makes clear, the problem will not cure itself. It will take enormous energy and dedication to bring economic justice and fairness back to American society. 320 pages.

November Third Sunday Zoom

November 16, 2025 10:30 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

For this Zoom Meeting we will be bringing our own topics to discuss. There is much going on in the world. So let's share our thoughts. 

Bring your own coffee and snacks, too. 

Saturday, November 22, 8:30 AM

Fossils dating between 4.5 and 4.9 million years old.

Field Trip!!

Gray Fossil Site

We are meeting behind the gas station at the Northshore/Pellissippi Kroger at 8:30. From there we will carpool or caravan. After touring the museum and site we will make plans (if any) to go out to lunch, depending on interest and availability of restaurants. 

November 23,  RET Reflections

Sunday, 11/23/2025  4:30 PM - 6:00 PM     Zoom

We've been pretty wound up about recent events and the current administration, but with the Holidays coming up we need to take a shot at relaxing.  It will all still be here next year.

So, let's take a moment to talk about what is going well and new things that are working in our favor.  Also, remember to chill for Thanksgiving dinner.  

NO Knox County Fourth Wednesday MEET-UP

Since Thursday, November 27, is Thanksgiving Day, we will not have a

November Knox  County Meet-Up.

Appreciate the bounty of the earth and the people who cultivated, harvested, and prepared the food we eat.

RET Donations, General and Scholarship

(Forrest) Lee Erickson has done some research on ways to contribute to RET and how those donations are taxed.  Click here for details.

Information about financial matters to consider after retiring:

Revocable Trusts, IRAs, and Qualified Charitable Distributions.

Do your part for RET

Our Annual Business Meeting, during which we elect board members and officers, will be in February. It is time for the Nominations Committee to get to work. If you are willing to be on that committee or if you are interested in serving on the board of directors, please contact nominate@rationalists.org.

You can always nominate yourself!  Any paid member can serve on the board, but officers must have been on the board for at least a year. 

The board usually meets once a month via Zoom. It is a convivial group. This is a wonderful opportunity to be more involved and help shape the future of RET. 

NEW!  Secular Events Calendar

RET has created a Google calendar named Secular Events that includes additional secular events in and around our community. Members can access this calendar here:  Secular Events

If you know of events that you would like to be included, please email <outreach@rationalists.org> We hope this will enhance your social connections with other like-minded people. 

Call for books for the Skeptic Book Club

RET members,

 It is again time for us to select books.  The books must be nonfiction but can cover a wide range of topics: medicine, history, religion, politics, science, biography, ethics, economics, you name it!  We don’t have a page limit, but remember there is a month between meetings, so select something you think can be covered in about a month.  A couple of shorter books would be welcome for a change.  In fact, I would like it if some of you could recommend some essays or articles of less than 50 pages or so that can be read in less than a week so some of our busier members can jump in; web references are okay but watch for paywalls.  A golden oldie perhaps?

 Leading a session is not hard, as this group has plenty of opinions and viewpoints, so feel free to dive in with something you have always been interested in.  All you need is an outline to guide the discussion; you can be more elaborate if you wish, but it is not necessary to have a full-fledged power point presentation.  Ideas and knowledge are the goal.  Open your mind and ours!

 Please send me your titles soon so I can put together a list for 2026.   Previously, I have been compiling the book list over the months as I get titles, but I would like to have a complete list by the end of this year.  Send the titles to:

 rmorris126@comcast.net

Thanks for your participation,

Bob Morris 

Skeptic Book Club Coordinator

Something else our members should know about:

RET has a discussion group on Facebook. Feel free to join the group and post topics that you would like to have discourse about, or events that you would like to attend with other like-minded folks. 

If you are on Facebook, search under Groups for Rationalists of East Tennessee Discussion.