I don’t know anyone who kicks quite as much ass as Desiree Schell does. I don’t know that she does anything that isn’t designed to make the world a better place. Nor does she do it in any sort of haphazard way. She studies. She takes the best of what’s been done before and avoids what didn’t work.
In her talk at Imagine No Religion 2 this May, Desiree shared some of what she’s learned with us.
Stephanie Zvan is one of the hosts for the Minnesota Atheists' radio show and podcast, Atheists Talk. She serves on the board of Secular Woman. She speaks on science and skepticism in a number of venues, including science fiction and fantasy conventions.
Stephanie has been called a science blogger and a sex blogger, but if it means she has to choose just one thing to be or blog about, she's decided she's never going to grow up. In addition to science and sex and the science of sex, you'll find quite a bit of politics here, some economics, a regular short fiction feature, and the occasional bit of concentrated weird.
Oh, and arguments. She sometimes indulges in those as well. But I'm sure everything will be just fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
Brilliant summary of elevatorgate – There are still vast numbers of clueless comments about that issue which is seriously bizarre given the constant restatement of the facts. I’ve been linking to the actual video where RW made the offhand comment. But given how RWs fissog seems to inspire hate I think I’ll link to this in future. To jump to the relevant part…
[URL deleted. –SZ]
James, everyone loves Des. This is so universally true that I think not loving Des (presuming you’ve met her) suggests some sort of embarassing secret or personality defect. 😀
She is a skeptical hero of mine. I was so pleased to get to meet her when she was in Seattle for GeekGirlCon, and she even allowed me the great privilege of an interview while she was here. A truly awesome woman.
Brilliant summary of elevatorgate – There are still vast numbers of clueless comments about that issue which is seriously bizarre given the constant restatement of the facts. I’ve been linking to the actual video where RW made the offhand comment. But given how RWs fissog seems to inspire hate I think I’ll link to this in future. To jump to the relevant part…
[URL deleted. –SZ]
Oops should have just said add #t=1310 to jump to the relevant part – forgot wordpress tries to be helpful and embeds the video 🙁
Fixed.
Direct link for those without embedding:
youtube link
(also though youtube’s automatic captioning sort of helps, it’s often hilarious – “intersection dump truck” heee)
(and “context culpepper idiopathic” … lawl… )
Desiree once scolded me for cleaning my glasses on my shirt, and handed me a microfiber cloth. Just felt I needed to share that.
Excellent speech. 🙂
Great video, but after watching it, I still remain confused as to the meaning of this blog post title: “Horrible, Horrible Warnings”.
Des used the phrase very early in the talk. It’s so very much how she speaks that I had to use it.
I LOVE DESIREE SCHELL! <3
Oh, whoops, I didn’t catch that. There it is at 1:40-1:46. 🙂
James, everyone loves Des. This is so universally true that I think not loving Des (presuming you’ve met her) suggests some sort of embarassing secret or personality defect. 😀
Standing ovation!
Thanks for this. She really made me think!
That she was reading it off a script and still delivered the goods was also pretty impressive.
She is a skeptical hero of mine. I was so pleased to get to meet her when she was in Seattle for GeekGirlCon, and she even allowed me the great privilege of an interview while she was here. A truly awesome woman.