Making a Difference

Why I Love Pamela Gay

Stephanie Zvan8 Comments

A few years ago, there were two Pamelas for me. One was a friend of friends, known by reputation through the physics education community. She was the person who made a trip to SIUE or an AAPT conference more complete by hanging out for an evening. She was both relaxing and inspiring to talk to, one of this world’s incredibly pleasant people, despite being put through a lot in her professional situation.

The other Pamela was this kick-ass astronomer and skeptic who did…well, everything. She was constantly traveling, talking, recording podcasts, getting people involved in citizen science, starting new programs, working for grants–everything. She was a little bit intimidating, though admirable, in her iron will and the energy she spent getting things done.

Then I discovered these two Pamelas were the same person. Continue reading “Why I Love Pamela Gay” →

Why I Love Pamela Gay
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Things to Do This Weekend

Stephanie Zvan2 Comments

Me? I’m just going to sit here and cough some more, but there are a number of things you should be doing if you’re feeling better than I am.

First, if you’re in or near the Twin Cities (or don’t mind a bit of travel), sign up for the American Atheists Regional Conference in Saint Paul August 11.

Join us for an all-day Regional Atheist Conference at the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel in downtown St. Paul. Confirmed speakers so far are: Hector Avalos, Teresa MacBain, PZ Myers, Robert Price, Dave Silverman, Andy Thomson, and Ayanna Watson.

In addition to the conference speakers, there will be a room with books, shirts, and other merchandise. Two delicious meals are available for purchase (see below). That evening, after the end of the conference, we will have a pub crawl in downtown St. Paul.

Purchase conference and meal tickets below. Book your room reservations directly with the hotel, at the special link provided below.

Jessica Ahlquist has also been added to the lineup. There are a few tickets left at our special rate for the Saint Paul Saints game the night before, during which time they will be renamed the Mr. Paul Aints. Jerseys worn during the game will be auctioned off as a fundraiser for Minnesota Atheists after the game, and custom jerseys can be ordered by email before the game for $69.00.

While you’re thinking about the Minnesota Atheists, consider donating to keep Atheists Talk radio on the air. Those of us who work on the show donate our time, but we do pay for the airtime. On our show, we interview secular activists, atheist and humanist writers, scientists in politicized fields, and artists who inspire awe in the natural world. We offer an alternative to religious Sunday-morning radio programming. We raise the profile of atheists and atheism. And we really want to keep doing all of that, even if it does mean getting up early on weekend mornings.

Then, if you haven’t yet, sign up to walk for the Light the Night event benefiting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Today is the last day in the push to add 5,000 walkers that will result in Todd Stiefel getting a mohawk (in addition to his matching donations up to $500,000) and PZ and Hemant getting tattoos.

Then it’s time to pick a team in this year’s battle to raise funds for Camp Quest. PZ used some dirty tricks to lose last year. JT and others have put together a team this year that may be able to do it fair and square, depending on where you decide to throw your support.

Then go do something fun outside, while I take a nap.

Things to Do This Weekend

Committing to Marriage Equality

Stephanie Zvan3 Comments

November is marching ever closer. We have two noxious amendments on the ballot here in Minnesota, one requiring voter ID and one denying marriage equality. I am starting to be a little more hopeful that Minnesota might be the first state to defeat an amendment that enshrines a discriminatory definition of marriage in our constitution.

First, there were the good poll results in the wake of Obama’s support for marriage equality.

Public Policy Polling (PPP) today released results from its latest survey that showed 49 percent of Minnesotans oppose amending the state constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, while 43 percent support it. A January PPP poll showed 44 percent opposed amending the constitution, while 48 percent supported (-5 support; +5 oppose). This represents a 10-point swing in just four months. Meanwhile, 47 percent of Minnesotans said they believe that marriage for same-sex couples should be legal.

Then there are the resolutions from rural parts of the state condemning the amendment.

Leading the way on the Iron Range, the city council of Mountain Iron became the 11th city to vote to publicly oppose the proposed constitutional amendment that would limit the freedom to marry for committed, same-sex couples in Minnesota and the first to join the coalition comprising Minnesotans United for All Families, the official campaign to defeat the freedom-limiting amendment.

The council voted 3-to-1 to adopt the resolution, which states the proposed amendment is “contrary to the purpose of our State Constitution to protect the rights, privileges and freedom of conscience of all citizens” by excluding same-sex couples from the freedom to marry. The resolution urges Mountain Iron residents to vote no in November.

Poll numbers are good, and rural rejection of the amendment is critical, but of course that isn’t enough. People have to keep working on this if we’re going to defeat the amendment. A year or two from now? Sure, then we wouldn’t have to work so hard. That’s why the amendment is on the ballot now.

To help make sure the amended loses, Minnesotans United for All Families has adopted a new variation on their broader strategy. In addition to volunteers calling voters to tell them why it is so personally important to the volunteers that the amendment be defeated, they are asking Minnesotans who support marriage equality to take these conversations to their friends and family. And if these volunteers can talk to strangers, you can talk to your friends.

Sixty-seven percent of people with gay and lesbian friends VOTE NO if we talk to them about marriage.

This means that the single most important action you can take to defeat this hurtful amendment is to start conversations about the freedom to marry with your friends, family, and the people you see every day.

Even if you’re not gay or bisexual, you know people who are. Maybe they are your friends and colleagues. Maybe they’re too scared to tell you about their sexual orientation. Whatever the situation, you know people whose relationships this amendment would declare to be worth less than mine. As much as I think the world of mine, that’s just not right.

We need to have these conversations, now and into November. Won’t you pledge to have some of these conversations?

Committing to Marriage Equality

Let's Talk About CISPA

Stephanie Zvan5 Comments

Everything Facebook has done with regard to your privacy is nothing as compared to their support for this bill. So long, Facebook, until this thing is killed dead. Friends, I’ll miss you.

I just left that message on Facebook before signing off. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it? That’s because Facebook stripped off the link that went to this infographic on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act. That link also identifies Facebook as one of the supporters of the bill, the only one with which I was doing any business. I’m not anymore.

Is it a coincidence that Facebook stripped my link? Maybe. I was able to post it again underneath my status. It isn’t important. What is important is that this bill, which is breathtaking in its scope, be stopped.

Continue reading “Let's Talk About CISPA” →

Let's Talk About CISPA

Supporting Rape Crisis Centers

Stephanie Zvan

Last Saturday, I mentioned that Jim Hines is one of the good guys in the F&SF community. He is also a former rape crisis counselor who writes very well on the topic.

With April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Jim is providing some incentives for people to donate to rape crisis centers, either local centers or RAINN, which offers a single toll-free phone number that will connect victims to local counselors. RAINN also offers online counseling, and it supports both male and female victims.

So, if you have a few bucks you can spare, chip in where it will do some excellent work. Then head on over to Jim’s blog and check out the line-up of F&SF authors he’s persuaded to offer signed copies of their work as incentives for donation. Send him some information on your donation, and you could be the proud owner of one of these. Donate enough (collectively–about $2,000 has been raised in the two days this has been going on so far), and Jim will have to find more great authors and more great books.

This sort of thing is a win for everyone involved. Why not be one of them?

Supporting Rape Crisis Centers

Teaching Psychology Like the Science It Is

Stephanie Zvan10 Comments

As you may or may not know, my undergraduate degree is in psychology. What you probably don’t know, unless we know each other in person and it happened to come up, is that I went through an odd process to get that degree. I essentially double-majored in psychology.

The short version of the story is that I transferred from a small private university to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in the middle of my college career. I’d also just switched majors from physics, so I had many of my breadth requirements down. After I settled in and knocked down most of my required psychology courses, I got a letter from the university.

They thought I should graduate with honors. I wasn’t going to argue with the idea, since I wanted to go to grad school to pursue counseling. However, it did mean all but starting over with my major. The requirements for an honors degree had almost no overlap with the requirements for a “normal” psychology major.

That should have told me something important right there, but I didn’t have the education to appreciate it just yet. That took another year and a half of coursework alongside graduate students, learning much more about statistics, studying research design, acting as a research assistant, doing my own independent experiment with the relevant lit search, and learning how to read a scientific paper instead of just knowing what parts go into one. Reading Martin Gardner and James Randi didn’t hurt either. Nor did a run in with psych prof who indulged in highly subjective grading.

All that was what it took to make me really understand how useless almost all of my psychology classes had been up to that point. Continue reading “Teaching Psychology Like the Science It Is” →

Teaching Psychology Like the Science It Is

Matching Funds for Marriage

Stephanie Zvan

As you probably know by now, Minnesota has a discriminatory “traditional” definition of marriage amendment on the ballot in November (along with, now, a voter ID amendment). Minnesotans United for All Families is doing the important but non-glamorous work of talking to individual voters about the amendment and the importance of voting “No.”

If you’re considering supporting Minnesotans United, today is a good day to do that. They’ve set an ambitious fundraising goal for March, which they still have a ways to go to meet, with a deadline of tonight. They also have a matching grant in effect today, which will double your contribution. So make your contribution today.

Matching Funds for Marriage

Wear Those Scarlet Letters With Pride

Stephanie Zvan6 Comments

As Daniel points out, today starts “A” Week on Facebook. Don’t be shy, though. You can also sport a jaunty “A” on Twitter or Google+ or anywhere you hang out with an avatar. Whatever it takes to make atheists visible and let the atheists around you know they’ve got your support.

To get you in the mood, here’s a brand new trailer for Scarlet Letter, a forthcoming documentary about atheists. I think you’ll recognize some of the faces.

The website for the movie appears to be here, but it’s seriously borked at the moment, at least on my browser. I assume that will be fixed soon.

Wear Those Scarlet Letters With Pride

Hearings on Migraine and Headache Disorders

Stephanie Zvan12 Comments

The Alliance for Headache Disorders Advocacy notes the following (not in order):

  • Chronic headache disorders, including migraine and cluster headache, are among the top 20 causes of disability in the US according to the World Health Organization (WHO)
  • Headache disorders, including migraine, are responsible for more than $31B in economic costs in the US annually.
  • 19% of Americans will experience an attack of some form of migraine this year.
  • Among veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts, 37% of servicemen and 57% of servicewomen reported ongoing migraine if there was a deployment history of concussive injury and any predeployment history of migraine.
  • Migraine results in an increased risk of cardiovascular disease which has been linked to more than 1500 additional deaths in the US annually.
  • The WHO estimates that migraine causes more lost years of healthy life in the US annually than multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, ovarian cancer, and tuberculosis combined…,
  • …whereas in 2010 the combined NIH research funding on these four disorders ($684M) was more than 45 times greater than that for migraine ($15M).

Given all that, public hearings on the topic and how research on causes (still not well determined) and treatment (woefully lagging) are treated by our governmental institutions simply makes sense, right? I happen to think so, but I’m biased. I’m one of those people who regularly loses days to migraines. The treatment options that work are just about as debilitating as the migraines themselves.

Sadly, those hearings are not currently a reality. ADHA is trying to fix that, however, with a petition that contains the facts listed above and more. Head on over there and find out why (if you don’t have your own personal reason) we need to take these disorders seriously as a research topic. Then, please, sign the petition.

Hearings on Migraine and Headache Disorders

For Better For Worse For All

Stephanie Zvan3 Comments

A few days ago, I mentioned that one way to get involved in activism is to lend your professional media skills if you have them. This sort of thing is why:

It’s lovely, it made me sniffly, and it’s exactly the sort of thing that works. It hits prejudice where it lives–in ignorance.

There’s plenty more still to be done to defeat the anti-marriage amendment in Minnesota this November, of course, but getting ads like this out there can only help. Pass it on.

For Better For Worse For All