Weekend sendoff: Skeptacular Skeptacular

Today at 6pm MST (which is 5pm in California and 8pm in New York and that should help cover it), I’ll be on the radio show Skeptically Speaking. It’s on public radio in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and you can watch (the host, Desiree Schell, not me) and chat live on Ustream. My spot is at the beginning of the show and is called “Speaking Up,” for which anyone is invited to submit topics. My post about remaining skeptical despite chronic illness is the basis for what I’ll be talking about, and I’ve been paired with a main guest, Nancy Walton, who will be discussing human research ethics. I may be too busy hyperventilating after I’m on to listen to the rest of the show, but I really look forward to hearing what she has to say. You can send in questions to her, but my segment is interview-only, for any jokers who had ideas.

I’ve liked this show ever since the first episode I heard. (The show is available to download the following week on the website and iTunes). There are a lot of skeptical podcasts out there, and they all fulfill various niches, but I particularly like the breadth of topics on this show, and the depths to which they’re explored. You learn that skeptical thinking isn’t limited to debunking scams but can be applied in all kinds of ways. Also, my favorite station, KCRW, is public radio run through Santa Monica College, plus the first college to employ me as an interpreter had a good station, so I’m biased in favor of campus radio. I’m tickled that it’s Friday the 13th, the perfect date for a recovering superstitious person to appear on a show about skepticism.

In addition, you might have noticed that shiny new ad down there in the lower right for gift subscriptions to Skeptic magazine. As I’ve written about before, after I read Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole. Between that and subscribing to Skeptic, a new world opened up for me, one about which I try to continue my education every day. So I’m happy to give back however I can. I don’t get any revenue from the ad; it’s simply a link to the store where you can gift, buy, or renew a subscription. Also, beginning with the above link to Shermer’s book, a small portion of any Amazon purchases made through this site will benefit Skeptic.

As you can see from the widget, I’ve been dutifully churning out atrocious NaNoWriMoProse on schedule, so Monday I’m excited to have another guest post, from a woman who has performed Humanist funerals in the U.K. for twenty years. And next Friday, if you’re very lucky, I might read you some more of my poetry novel. I send you off with a kid with serious chops doing “Hotel California” on the uke.