Hi, all! I have two pieces of kind of monumental news, I'm ridiculously excited about both of them, and I wanted to let y'all know.
Piece of News #1: Do you all know about the Reason Rally? The atheist/ secular March on Washington, set for March 24, 2012? It's kind of a big freaking deal: they're saying it's going to be the largest gathering of the secular movement in world history. There's going to be music, comedy, general fun and hanging out... and, of course, speakers.
And I'm going to be one of the speakers.
No shit. Check out the speakers list. I'm on it -- along with Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, Jamila Bey, Hemant Mehta, James Randi, Taslima Nasrin, David Silverman, and a list that keeps on growing.
The Reason Rally is being put together by a kind of incredible coalition of secularist organizations, joining their efforts to make it as huge and inclusive as possible. As of this writing, the march is being sponsored by (take a deep breath): American Atheists, American Humanist Association, Atheist Alliance of America, Camp Quest, Center for Inquiry, Freethought Society, Military Atheists and Freethinkers, Secular Coalition for America, Secular Student Alliance, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Stiefel Freethought Foundation, The Brights, The James Randi Educational Foundation, The Richard Dawkins Foundation, and United COR. Who says you can't herd cats?
I am more excited and proud to be part of this than I can possibly say. This event should be entirely made of 100% Awesomnium, and if you possibly can make it, you should. Make your travel plans to DC now! And spread the word among your godless friends and colleagues -- the more people who know about this, the more awesome it's going to be!
Piece of News #2: Do you all know about the new Freethought Blogs network? The new network of atheist/ freethought/ godless bloggers, started by PZ Myers of Pharyngula and Ed Brayton of Dispatches from the Culture Wars?
I'm going to be one of the bloggers.
No shit. The network has been launched with an initial core of bloggers -- PZ and Ed as mentioned above, plus Comradde PhysioProffe, Digital Cuttlefish, This Week in Christian Nationalism, and Zingularity -- and they're currently working out the usual technical glitches associated with the launch of a big new Interweb project. They'll soon be expanding that initial core of bloggers... and I'm going to be one of them.
So be prepared. This blog will be moving. I don't yet know the exact date; I'll keep you all in the loop as soon as I know. I'll keep the Typepad blog up for archival purposes, to keep old links from getting broken, etc. ... but once I switch over to Freethought Blogs, this blog will essentially just be for storage, and Freethought Blogs will be my new home. So be prepared to switch your bookmarks/ blogrolls/ RSS feeds/ carrier pigeons/ Pony Express lines/ etc. to the new site.
I am tickled pink about this, and I keep jumping out of my seat to do a little happy dance whenever I think about it. Freethought Blogs is going to be a major nexus of atheist thought and conversation and community on the 'Net, and I am proud beyond words to have been invited to be part of it. And I am grateful beyond words to every reader of this blog who decided they liked my ideas enough to follow them and spread them. I love you guys. And I love being part of this movement. Seriously.
I'll keep you all posted about the move as soon as I know what's what. Woo-freaking-hoo!
Congrats! I think FTB is really going to take off!
Posted by: TheDudeDiogenes | August 09, 2011 at 02:04 PM
Congrats! Don't forget about the Women in Secularism Conference 2012: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/women_in_secularism/ :-)
Posted by: Simon | August 09, 2011 at 02:12 PM
Note freethoughtblogs is still broken. Codero, their new host provider, is still pointing the name freethoughtblogs.com back to bluehost, their old, completely inadequate host provider. The links to freethoughtblogs.com will not work unless either (a) you have a proper entry in your hosts file, or (b) the nameservers you are using are ignoring codero. You can try www.freethoughtblogs.com instead, but once you get to the website, most of the internal links use freethoughtblogs.com , and thus don't work.
Also, the freethoughtblogs system administrator has made a number of serious mistakes, starting with the choice of bluehost, and following up by not making codero properly update their DNS records for freethoughtblogs.com . They are in desperate need of someone with some experience doing system administration for a large blog network.
(I should note that Ed's vague remark that he had spent "thousands" on the new site indicates the system administrator is almost certainly a volunteer, and one who has a day job at that, so I don't want to be too hard on the system administrator, but clearly that person has taken on a task bigger than their current abilities.)
Posted by: llewelly | August 09, 2011 at 02:27 PM
Freethought Blogs is going to be a major nexus of atheist thought and conversation and community on the 'Net[.]
And motherfucken risotto!!! BTW, the DNS troubles appear to be resolved.
Posted by: Comrade PhysioProf | August 09, 2011 at 05:22 PM
Anyone else have nightmares about how this whole thing will be covered by the media? We all know Fox News will either ignore it or slam it. But Jon Stewart is the one i'm most worried about. His response to atheism in general has been pretty much of the "But some people need faith! Don't take that away from them!" variety. I'm probably over thinking it.
Posted by: Brice Gilbert | August 09, 2011 at 06:53 PM
This is the coolest thing I've heard today - no shit...
Posted by: starskeptic | August 09, 2011 at 07:46 PM
Congratulations, but their blog NEEDS to stop trying to give me a pop-up every time I click anywhere in the white space. Kick them about this, wouldja?
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 10, 2011 at 03:31 AM
Awesome. Now I only need one link to my favourite blogs. Then problems on FTB have been sorted out mostly. Every new undertaking has glitches. They will be resolved and then FTB will be a force to be reckoned with in the blogosphere. More so because Greta is on there.
Posted by: rainy | August 10, 2011 at 04:33 AM
That's wonderful! I'm so excited to have a nexus of freethought blogs.
Posted by: Doug Kirk | August 11, 2011 at 05:58 AM
This is awesome. I really look forward to seeing you over there.
Posted by: Aquaria | August 11, 2011 at 03:08 PM
Are you getting out of sex-blogging altogether? The atheism stuff is interesting, but I wanna see more of those posts that you warn your family not to read.
Posted by: Can't think of a clever name | August 11, 2011 at 06:25 PM
Hell, no! Freethought Blogs is fine with me doing sex blogging. I've been doing less of it lately, since the Blowfish Blog closed down and I'm not getting paid for it; but I definitely plan to keep my hand in the game. As it were.
Posted by: Greta Christina | August 11, 2011 at 07:23 PM
glad to hear it :)
Posted by: Can't think of a clever name | August 14, 2011 at 08:13 PM
This news makes me very happy.
Posted by: William Post | August 15, 2011 at 01:57 AM
FtB is lucky to have you. It's already awesome, and your presence there is going to make it considerably awesomer.
Your blog is a blinding example of clear thought and incisive argument expressed in inspirational writing.
Shorter version: yay! :)
/de-lurk; re-lurking
Posted by: opposablethumbs | August 21, 2011 at 03:32 AM