(note: A version of this article appears at The Atlanta Examiner)

What: Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids
Where: Fernbank Museum
When: through August 14, 2011

Blake is the one on the left.

Since I host a podcast & radio show about monsters, I felt obliged to go check out Fernbank museum’s newest exhibit, “Mythic Creatures.”  It was a treat, not a chore.  Partnering with the American Museum of Natural History, the exhibit contains many exhibits on well known popular culture monsters such as the chupacabra, bigfoot and the kraken.  But it also explores many of the science elements behind such myths.
» Continue reading “Fernbank exhibit not to be mythed”

It’s time once again for Skepticamp Atlanta! Skepticamp 2011 will be the third Skepticamp in Atlanta. If you haven’t attended before, you really should consider it – it’s a great time and we always have fantastic speakers and and great time. Not sure what Skepticamp is? Learn more here.

Want to help out or just have some fun? Our next meetup will be a LIVE Amateur Scientist podcast featuring Brian Thompson, the Amateur Scientist. Lots of fun and we’ll be using it to raise funds for Skepticamp. You won’t want to miss it!

As for Skepticamp itself, get the key details here:

» Continue reading “Skepticamp 2011 is coming!”

I hate to quote the Moonie Times as much as anybody does, but this article attracted my attention on a Google Alert. Please read the article, and I’d appreciate any input from our Atlantans Vindaloo, and from any other Indians or people familiar with Indian politics. I also have to admit that I am relying entirely on the account of this speech and its aftermath from the Washington Times, which is probably foolhardy of me.

In February (in typical wingnut fashion, the article is very light on facts/dates and verifiable sources, a hard habit to break) Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar spoke at Emory University’s Emerging India Summit in Atlanta. Her speech was about the political, ethnic, and religious diversity of India. As part of this speech, she mentioned that Sonia Gandhi, leader of the Congress Party (the largest party in India), is Christian.

In trying to avoid the toxic effects of religion in southwest Asia, India tends to entirely eliminate any comment or attention on political leaders’ religious beliefs and practices. In keeping with that, when the Indian Embassy published Mrs. Shankar’s speech, it censored any mention of Gandhi’s religion from the speech.

This offended certain forces in the Indian Press, since her speech was about religious diversity. I only know about one or two sources in India from the Washington Times article. I don’t know anything about their political/religious leanings, if they’re as crazy as the Times, nor do I know this about any of the two or three other sources that turn up on a GoogleNews search.

What do you think? Is it healthier in India to avoid mention of religion about politicians? Would that be healthier in the Middle East? Would that be healthier in Georgia? It should go without saying that part of this avoidance of discussing religion of politicians in India includes the politicians themselves avoiding the subject. I don’t think we have a hope of that in US politics, especially not in Georgia. I do fully support the idea of censoring any public mention of a politician’s religion, though most of those would be censoring the politician him/herself.