TAM 5.5 Debrief

Hello everyone that went to TAM 5.5 spill the beans.

I know of four people that went please give us a recap. How were the presentations? What is the JREF like? etc.

Much of the general stuff can be read on the forums: http://forums.randi.o...

As for me, I was one of the scripted hecklers during Mark Robert's 9/11 talk. My line delivered while standing up and pointing at Roberts was "That man, is worse than Hitler, worse than Mao and worse than Stalin. And that is no exaggeration!" To my pleasant surprise it got a huge laugh.

I dared to wear the pink unicorn shirt... http://flickr.com/pho... and had a blast at the parties.

As for talks, most were relevant and engaging. In particular, I found Stackpole's the most informative, with lots of practical advice about winning over the hearts and minds of media people and their audiences.
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Yeah...Reed and Graydon, they were quite the attention getters, in a good way :-). They represent us well.

For me, it was mostly the social thing. It's like a family reunion, except that you like everyone. As Nitor would say, these are my people.

And to finally meet Kelly, a personal hero of mine. And to catch up with Robert Lancaster and Rebecca... And to develop two new crushes...Mark Roberts and Micheal Stackpole (yes, Hal knows).
And lest we forget...GREAT JOB emceeing, Phil!!!!!

The talks were about activism. These weren't given by the more well known skeptics and scientists and magicians in the field. They were given by regular folks, who for one reason or another, were motivated to do something about those who prey on the more vulnerable and the hopeful among us; Sylvia Brownes, Kaz deMilles, other psychics, ghost busters. Those who either intentionally or not, spread misinformation, like the conspiracy theorists. The talks were given by those who just love critical thinking and explore how to utilize it in all areas of our lives, and how to communicate skepticism to others.

If you weren't familiar with the line up, here are some links to the speakers websites.

Kelly Jolkowski - www.projectjason.org. Her main focus is missing persons. Her son, Jason who would be 25 by now, has been missing for 6 years. Kelly became involved with JREF, when she decided to do a blog series on the damage "psychic detectives" do to families of the missing. This was a particularly difficult talk for Kelly. While she often speaks about Jason, it was the first time she spoke in public, about a particularly brutal reading she received from one such psychic. I remember when Kelly blogged about it. It was so difficult to share it, she had to take a couple of days away from blogging.

I encourage you to read her site. Let me know if you can't find the link to the series on psychics.

Rebecca Watson - probably needs no introduction - www.skepchick.org. Spoke about the process of winning the NPR contest with the new show Curiosity Aroused.

Robert Lancaster - Got really ticked off, when his mom and her church was conned by this woman. http://www.stopkaz.co... as a result, well, he stopped her. With the encouragement from those of us on the JREF forum, Robert is taking on bigger fish these days. http://www.stopsylvia...
Robert has motivated other folks on the forum. Now, the domain names, stop (insert favorite big fish here) are now owned by Robert.

to be continued.......