Month: August 2013

A Past President of a State-Level Humanist Group in the U.S.

Stephanie Zvan36 Comments

It’s time, once again, to return to Tim Farley’s list of people on The Block Bot with credentials. [Update: See the comments. Farley has retracted the list.] In case you need a refresher on that list (now with links to past posts):

  • A Research Fellow for a U.S. think-tank who is also deputy editor of a national magazine, and author of numerous books
  • A Consultant for Educational Programs for a U.S. national non-profit
  • A long-time volunteer for the same national non-profit
  • An organizer for a state-level skeptic group in the US
  • A past president of a state-level humanist group in the US
  • A former director of a state-level atheist group in the US
  • An Emmy and Golden Globe award winning comedian
  • A TED Fellow
  • Co-founder of a well known magazine of philosophy and author of several books
  • A philosopher, writer and critic who has authored several books

Tom Foss has a follow-up to Farley’s follow-up that was supposed to clarify why he created such a list. I’m not sure it makes the situation any more clear, but it does still suggest that light should be shone on why people might just want to not see anything from these people on Twitter.

EllenBeth Wachs has a complicated history with the secular movement that is, almost certainly, not entirely her fault. Her problems with the Atheists of Florida is well-known, if not always easy to follow. She is a recent past president of the Florida Humanists Association. Following an nasty argument on Pharyngula earlier this year, she left the Secular Woman private Facebook members’ group and made allegations about the group that didn’t hold up in the light of day. Continue reading “A Past President of a State-Level Humanist Group in the U.S.” →

A Past President of a State-Level Humanist Group in the U.S.
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Or, Male Atheists Have Small Penises

Stephanie Zvan23 Comments

Oh, look. The same old, old, old, bad data is being passed around again. We’re going to be a little slower to jump up and claim it this time, right? Consider this repost an incentive.

Ah, what one misses by having lots of social commitments over the holidays. A prime example would be this chart that Hemant posted on Friendly Atheist.

IQ Increases as Religiosity Decreases

Cute, huh? Go, us smart atheists! Yay!

Except for one little thing. Continue reading “Or, Male Atheists Have Small Penises” →

Or, Male Atheists Have Small Penises

What Is Not in Dispute

Stephanie Zvan31 Comments

Ron Lindsay has challenged Karen Stollznow’s account of being subject to sexual harassment by Ben Radford and the Center for Inquiry’s response to that harassment. In response, Scientific American has taken the post down.

Having been on the receiving end of one of Lindsay’s letters demanding “correction”, I’m not overly impressed by SciAm’s response. I simply told him that if facts were in dispute, I wasn’t going to just publish his account. I gave him a choice between getting together with the person who supplied the information he didn’t want to have published and come to an agreement about what had happened and having both sides of the story posted. He opted to do nothing.

Still, at least his letter is some kind of response to Stollznow’s post and the public outcry. It is far better than the non-response previously posted at their site in that it provides information on the situation. That is to say, there is a good deal of Stollznow’s original post that has not required a correction. Let us take a look at what that is. Continue reading “What Is Not in Dispute” →

What Is Not in Dispute

Thoughts on a Conference

Stephanie Zvan11 Comments

Yesterday was Minnesota Atheists’ regional conference, the first conference our group has run on its own. (Though American Atheists provided some sponsorship for this conference, they did not get involved in the planning as they did last year.) Friday night was the Mr. Paul Aints game. Although I can’t yet say how they did financially, because we worked hard to keep prices down, I hereby declare both big successes as events.

Some thoughts from the two days: Continue reading “Thoughts on a Conference” →

Thoughts on a Conference

Saturday Storytime: All Kinds to Make a World

Stephanie Zvan

Sometimes the horror isn’t quite where you think it is. Georgina Bruce is a horror writer who builds her stories out of vivid images.

It’s not like we didn’t try. A little tentatively at first, a little too gently, I’ll admit. We’d never done it before. We hadn’t even seen one, only heard them scratching around in the bushes at night. But we understood what we had to do–it’s our duty as citizens and all that. And after a while, we really got into it. I had the big stone mallet from the shed, Bridget had the kitchen knife, and we got into a rhythm. Smack, stab, smack, stab. And Bridge went a bit crazy, going stabstabstabstabstab, and then I took over with the mallet, gave it a good going over. It was brutal, honestly. So it should have died right there and then.

But–and this is what I’m trying to explain–it didn’t. Wouldn’t. It lay there for a bit, twitching the one spiny leg, rippling its wings in a feeble kind of way. It sucked in a tiny, pathetic breath, and we thought it was definitely about to expire. But when it breathed out, it opened its eyes. Looked right at us.

Bridget was screaming, die you fucker, and other stuff, but I held her back. I wanted to see what it would do, if there was really anything it could do. The table was covered in blood and slime and bits of fur and stuff, you know, like tripe or something. I mean, it looked like we’d smacked and stabbed all the insides out of it. Seemed impossible for anything to carry on after taking a beating like that. We even felt a bit sorry for it–well I did, anyway. But the tough little thing, it put out its two tiny flippers–put them against the window and pulled itself upright. Well, I assume upright, it was hard to tell. And its face was so comical, with the big watery eyes looking up at us.

Keep reading.

Saturday Storytime: All Kinds to Make a World

If You Won't Shut Up… (Update)

Stephanie Zvan39 Comments

Update: The terms of service portion of this post has been updated below.

I mean, when it’s one person speaking out about being harassed and assaulted and receiving no satisfaction for reporting it, that you can ignore. It will blow over soon, right? But man, what a day–for you.

When another person comes out and reveals serious problems at the top of an organization asked to deal with the assault? Maybe you chatter a bit more about unrelated things. I mean, really, how long can this last? AND WHY WON’T PEOPLE IGNORE THIS LIKE THEY USED TO?

But when this stuff keeps coming out, when people keep telling us they’ve been ignored when they tried to report abuse? Well, then there’s only one thing to do: attack. Yep. Ad hominem for the…win? Continue reading “If You Won't Shut Up… (Update)” →

If You Won't Shut Up… (Update)

"FFRF 2013 Convention" Annie Laurie Gaylor on Atheists Talk

Stephanie Zvan1 Comment

This weekend is a busy one for Minnesota Atheists. After an incredible amount of work and planning, the 2013 Weekend of Unbelievable Fun: The Second Coming is here! Tonight we kick things off with the Mr. Paul Aints baseball game at Midway Stadium in St. Paul, and then on Saturday we have the American Atheists/Minnesota Atheists Regional Conference. And leave it to the wonderful producers of this show: they managed to secure an interview with the conference’s keynote speaker, Annie Laurie Gaylor!

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is hosting their own convention in September, with guests like Julia Sweeney, Jill Sobule, Sara Paretsky, and Dan Savage, along with many freethought favorites. The convention is in Madison, so it’s easier for those of us in the Midwest to reach. Prepare for Gaylor to make you want to take a roadtrip.

Annie Laurie Gaylor is the co-founder and current co-president of the FFRF, an organization devoted to addressing violations of state and church, and educating the public in matters related to non-theism. Annie Laurie is the author of the Woe to Women: For the Bible Tells Me So and Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuses of Children, as well as the anthology Women Without Superstition: No Gods, No Masters. She is the editor of the only freethought newspaper in the United States, Freethought Today.

We are excited and honored to have Annie Laurie Gaylor join us for this weekend’s show, and to paraphrase the John Lennon classic that the FFRF uses for its weekly podcast intro and outro music: “We hope Sunday you will join us!”

Related Links:

Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.

Follow Atheists Talk on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates. If you like the show, consider supporting us with a one-time or sustaining donation.

"FFRF 2013 Convention" Annie Laurie Gaylor on Atheists Talk

Gender Equality in the Secular Movement

Stephanie Zvan4 Comments

More video out from Women in Secularism 2! This one even includes me. I don’t remember very much of what I said. Shortly before the panel started, I’d been lying down in a quiet room hoping the migraine meds would kick in. What I do remember is that this is the panel that had Richard Dawkins subtweeting about the meaning of the word “cranky”. So there’s that.

If that’s not enough of a tease for you, this panel was also moderated by Greta Christina and featured Ophelia Benson, Elizabeth Cornwell, and Debbie Goddard.

Gender Equality in the Secular Movement

On Anonymous Accusations

Stephanie Zvan26 Comments

When I woke up today, I discovered a new Tumblr. By that, I mean I was notified of it in at least six different ways (I lost count) by people of varying opinions on it. The Tumblr seems to be an attempt to quickly put my post from yesterday into effect, to see names named. To that end, it allows anonymous submissions, like this one.

This is causing some consternation. Rightly so, but I’m less up in arms about the possibility than a lot of people. This isn’t what I would have done, but I think it may have been inevitable, and I’m not screaming about it. Here’s why.

  • The people named are unlikely to be hurt by anonymous accusations. Right off the bat, I saw people I know and like saying, “Oh, I bet X is on there because of this innocuous thing.” They were corrected quite quickly by someone with more knowledge. But it goes to show where we–even people who takes these issues seriously–are on this topic. We collectively withhold judgment even when we don’t take that extra step to dismiss the idea.
  • This Tumblr can’t do much to make the situation for people who have been harassed or assaulted worse. Things are pretty ugly here at the moment. There are still people trying to suggest that Rebecca Watson couldn’t have been propositioned in an elevator. We’ve seen the reactions of organizations to formal harassment charges lodged with them. This isn’t pretty.
  • Targets of harassment stand to gain something from seeing that other people know and believe that their harassers harass and that they aren’t alone in what happened to them. For a lot of them, seeing that there is support out there will be a necessary step to speaking up. When they do, that is what will actually make a difference. Anonymous complaints can’t do it–shouldn’t do it. It takes people with faces and names, friends and reputations in our community to do that. At least it does when we don’t trust organizations to enforce their own policies.

So if you’re reading the Tumblr and that’s all the information you have, for fuck’s sake, don’t take any of it as the last word. It’s exactly the opposite.

If you want to stop the Tumblr, and you should whether you think it’s a good idea or not, give people better places to be heard about what’s happened to them.

On Anonymous Accusations

More Names Will Be Named

Stephanie Zvan34 Comments

Oh, I really should have finished writing this post on Sunday. My reputation as a seer would have been made. At least Twitter has time stamps.

In 2010, the behavior of Jim Frenkel, editor at Tor, was the cause of much chatter in the F&SF world. Jim Hines provided information on how to report him and other professionals who engage in sexual harassment while representing their companies to their employers. Some F&SF conventions took a look at their own anti-harassment policies (or their lack) and made changes.

Frenkel wasn’t named publicly.

In 2013, Frenkel harassed Elise Matthesen at WisCon in front of witnesses. Matthesen reported Frenkel, with help and encouragement from her friends, to both Tor and WisCon. She was told by Tor that this was the first time Frenkel had been “formally” reported. She wrote up procedures for reporting with comprehensive detail on how it felt to report. Her signal was boosted significantly by several friends and others who take sexual harassment in F&SF very seriously.

This time, Frenkel was named publicly. Why?
Continue reading “More Names Will Be Named” →

More Names Will Be Named