CVAAS meets on the first Sunday of every month from 5PM to 7PM. We meet at the Fresno Center for Nonviolence. (See Map)
You can contact CVAAS by sending an email to info@cvaas.org, or by calling (559) 892-0102.
| Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics Upcoming Events Calendar |
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Information about this calendar: CVAAS events are now managed via Google Calendar. This web application creates cross-platform calendar files so that you can use your own calendar software to synchronize with CVAAS events. You can also get CVAAS event updates through your cell phone, either via text message, or through your phone's web browser. Google calendar also tracks event RSVPs. If you have a Google Gmail account, and would like to add your event to the CVAAS calendar, then add it first to your own Google calendar and then send CVAAS an email with a link to your own calendar. Send the link to info@cvaas.org. You can learn more about Google Calendar from the Google Calendar overview (link), or by clicking on the "Google Calendar" button on the bottom right of the above calendar. |
Are you interested in what is going on around the Central Valley? Would you like to help CVAAS investigate science, secular and religious topics, and how they affect everyone who lives in the Valley?
Have you always wanted to be a "cub reporter"?
Now is your chance!
CVAAS is looking for people in the South Valley to report on local happenings from a skeptical and / or secular viewpoint. Reports should be within the geographic boundaries of the South Valley; from as far North as Stockton to the Tejon Pass to the South, and from the Western coastal mountains to the Sierra Nevadas to the East.
Reports can be in written form, or photo essays, or in audio format. If you wish, we can even interview you for your report. Written reports should be between 300 and 700 words. However a longer report can be broken into several pieces and serialized.
So, what kinds of subjects should you report about?
- Science topics
- Local professors on campus are always interesting. Ask them what they find fascinating.
- What sort of scientific research is happening in the South Valley?
- Are there interesting intersections of science and ethics?
- Skeptical topics
- Ever notice how many palm readers and psychics are advertised around Fresno? Who are these people, and how's business?
- Astrology, Homeopathy, Reiki, healing touch, "Law of Attraction", and others practice in the Central Valley.
- What sort of pseudoscience and junk science is being sold in mainstream stores? For example, the "Fuel Master Gas Saver" is a special magnet being sold as "science" at Harbor Freight. Homeopathy is sold at all of the local drugstores and at Wal-Mart.
- The Central Valley has both UFO and Bigfoot hunters. Wouldn't it be interesting to know what they think?
- Secular topics
- There are several organizations in the South Valley that hold discussions on the intersection of science and religion. All of these are from a religious viewpoint. What are they saying, and how will it impact California?
- Church and state issues are always interesting. Mayor Alan Autry spoke about the religous sanctity of marriage on the steps of the Fresno City Hall. Are other mayors in the South Valley blurring the line between church and state?
- Are churches in the South Valley politicking from the pulpit? There are several churches that preach against evolution - what are they saying about it?
These are just general guidelines. However, if you want actual "assignments" then send an email to info@cvaas.org and ask for a reporting assignment. You'll receive a list of possible topics that you can investigate.
Written reports and photo essays will appear in our monthly newsletter, and audio reports and interviews will appear in the "Rational Horizon" podcast.
Have fun, and be safe out there!
04/26/2009 - 17:00
04/26/2009 - 19:00
Etc/GMT
CVAAS has been loaned a copy of the AE911Truth.org video on the 9/11 WTC conpiracy (or so they claim). We will showing this movie on April 26th at 5:00 pm for our monthly movie night. Bring your skepticism as we analyze the video's "evidence" against the actual NIST report on the tragedy.
In a surprising move, the website "Free Republic" has given it's hearty support for the Central Valley Alliance of Atheists and Skeptics.
Even more surprising, this support was given in a forum thread about recent UFO sightings in the Central Valley.
Instead of a UFO, one of the images (shown here) demonstrates the Free Republic's love for CVAAS.
To be fair, this image may have come about by hot-linking to the CVAAS website, but we will give the citizens of the Free Republic the benefit of the doubt, and assume that they are all really closeted atheists.
Come on out soon guys, the water's fine!
To see the original thread (hurry, while it's still there) go here: (link to thread)
You can see the screen cap here.
Fossil Collecting – the 515 Million Year Road Trip
The trip to Amboy California is still on for April 11th and 12th. If you need a refresher on everything, check the CVAAS website. (Link to other Amboy pages).
Don’t forget, we will be gathering for the convoy at approximately 6 a.m. on Saturday, April 11th, at the Starbucks located at Blackstone and Shields, 2035 E Shields Ave, Fresno, CA 93726 (see map).
Once we’ve gathered up, we will be riding out in convoy at 7 a.m.
This is going to be a fun, and big event. Between 20 and 30 people will be participating. Not only are there trilobites to be found, there is a cinder cone extinct volcano, and the ghost town of Amboy to explore. And there are stars! If you’re a stargazer, bring your binoculars or telescope. Bring a camera too!
The citizens of Amboy (all two of them) have been informed we are coming and have extended their welcome to us.
HOW TO GET THERE
If you don't plan to be part of our convoy, you can follow these directions to get to Amboy. If you are familiar with Google, you can click on the (google map link) which will bring up the google map that you can follow.
Here are the directions, starting from the Starbucks at Blackstone and Shields:
| 1. | Head south toward E Shields Ave |
200 ft
|
| 2. | Turn left at E Shields Ave |
7 ft
|
| 3. | Take the ramp onto CA-41 S |
4.4 mi
|
| 4. | Take exit 126A to merge onto CA-99 S toward Bakersfield/ |
107 mi
|
| 5. | Take exit 24 to merge onto CA-58 E toward Tehachapi/ |
126 mi
|
| 6. | Merge onto I-15 N via the ramp to I-40/ |
4.5 mi
|
| 7. | Slight right at I-40 E (signs for Needles/ |
49.9 mi
|
| 8. | Take the exit toward Ludlow |
0.3 mi
|
| 9. | Turn right at Crucero Rd/ |
364 ft
|
| 10. | Turn left at Historic Route 66 |
25.8 mi
|
How to find the Trilobite Dig site
The dirt road that leads to the dig site is 12.5 miles East of the Roy's Motel Diner in Amboy. Follow that dirt road 400 feet NE, then turn NW and follow the dirt road for approximately 0.71 miles. At that point you'll cross another dirt road, turn right onto that road and follow it NE for 0.86 miles until you get to the base of the ridge of Marble Mountains. The trilobite dig is about a half mile to the NW.
That sounds too complicated to follow? Then download and print out these two handy PDF maps. These maps come with GPS locations too.
There will be a few copies of this map to hand out at the Starbucks gathering point.
How to find the fossils
The fossils are located in the Latham Shale formation, a 60 foot thick formation that lies below a darker formation of brown rocks. The trilobites are found in the pinkish, dark green and light brown shale on the hillside. There are quarry holes that you can explore, or you can inspect and split the shale lying around that other people have quarried.
This page has some good information.
Last night was "Camp Fair" night in Fresno. Sponsored by Parent Magazine, this fair showcased lots of different summer camps that are available for kids (and parents!).
This was a tabling event held in the gymnasium of the People's Church, and when Tegmine and I arrived we saw that the event was set up as a racetrack around the gym, with tables on either side of the "track" to make a great big circle.
We wandered around until we came to the Camp Quest table. It would have been hard to miss - not only did it display the big "Wheel of Science", but it had an even more explosively energetic display - Camp Quest director Chris Lindstrom!
Chris is a delightful person that just radiates good natured cheerfulness and boundless energy. You just can't help but like her.
After some quick introductions and a short training course Chris put us to work spinning the wheel and talking to potential campers. I did my best to act as a carnival barker, and sounded way too much like Thomas Dolby... "C'mon, spin the wheel of SCIENCE!".
Richard and David also dropped by, and we drafted them into helping out too. This gave us enough people to trade off, and allow some of us to go check out what was happening at the other tables.
Chris was kind enough to allow us to display some of the CVAAS literature. We mostly kept it pretty tame, but we did have our "Get out of Hell free" cards on display - and a few people were delighted with them.
CVAAS also made some new friends. Several people expressed interest in CVAAS, and a few said that they want to become members. I hope we see them soon!
I cut out of the event a little early, Richard and Tegmine stayed behind - they took Chris out for some coffee and conversation.
Thank you so much for inviting us along Chris. I hope we can work together!
If you are interested in allowing your child to attend a camp that teaches science and questions everything, you can learn more from the Camp Quest website.
Kids, if you're between the ages 10 and 13, you can win a free Camp Quest "campership". You could attend Camp Quest for FREE, by designing the winning entry for the official Camp Quest West T-shirt. See the contest webpage for rules and details.
The Tulare County Atheists has met once before in April of 2008. However circumstances put further 
meetings on hold. But Atheists in Tulare County didn't go away, they started to organize online at the Tulare County Atheist Myspace page, hosted by Thomas (aka Starbix).
Yesterday, (22 March 09) the Tulare County Atheists "rebooted" and started over again with their first organizational meeting. Two of us from CVAAS also drove down to attend their meeting and offer encouragement. We were also visited by Gerald Carrol, a reporter from the Visalia Times-Delta newspaper.
It was an interesting meeting - the group spent time introducing themselves, and then spoke a little about what they would like to see this organization do.
The newspaper article can be found here. I encourage everyone to see the comments that are appearing to that article. There are some religious replies to the article.
If you live in Tulare County, and would like to get involved in the group there, you can visit the Tulare County website at www.tularecountyatheists.com. This website is currently under construction, so content may not be immediately available. Until it gets online, you can also visit the Tulare County Atheist Myspace Page at www.myspace.com/tularecountyatheists.
You are also welcome to send an inquiry to Thomas, (aka Starbix) the founder of this group. You can reach Thomas at tularecountyatheists@clearwire.net
03/22/2009 - 14:00
03/22/2009 - 16:00
Etc/GMT
Tulare County Atheists meeting
The Tulare County Atheists is hosting a meeting for all atheists and atheist-friendly people.
This meeting is within a 30 minute drive of the cities of Visalia, Hanford, Porterville, Delano, Selma & Dinuba; so if you live in these areas, or closer, then this is the Atheist group for you.
When:
Sunday, March 22, 2009
2:00 PM to 4:00 PM PDT
Where:
Round Table Pizza
150 E. Cross Ave.
Tulare, CA 93274
(See map)
So you're starting a new Atheist / Skeptic group. You realize that traditional media doesn't generate a lot of new members, you know that social networking gets a lot of people interested very quickly.
Maybe you've found a place to meet, a park, a pizza place that doesn't mind a bunch of skeptical heathens. Maybe a quiet room in a library, or a classroom on the local State University campus.
By now, you realize that showing a face for your group isn't always easy. If it were not for email and websites, you might be invisible.
Now you have another tool in your arsenal... "Google Voice".
Google Voice started as GrandCentral, a VoIP technology that gave people a free phone number that provided call forwarding and voice mail. The new Google Voice provides several more services, like the ability to turn incoming calls into written transcripts, the ability to receive SMS messages, and the ability to place calls from that phone number.
And an Atheist / Skeptic group can use it as a primary phone number. The outgoing message can be used to advertise meeting times and places.
CVAAS used GrandCentral, and has migrated over to Google Voice now. This gives us a better way to show our presence. Better yet, we can filter out unwanted callers. (Very seldom necessary, in my experience.)
There is a waiting list for new subsubscribers to Google Voice, but Google promises to open it up in the coming few weeks. Now is a good time to get on that waiting list by visiting the Google Voice website.
As a GrandCentral subscriber, CVAAS is already in Google Voice. I can tell you now that it is very much worth it.
Please let us know that you are going by RSVPing. You can RSVP for this trip by clicking here to go to the CVAAS website Amboy event page, or you can also RSVP from the CVAAS page on Facebook. You can also RSVP by sending an email to info@cvaas.org - be sure to include your name, and how many people are going. This is an overnight camping trip to a small town with almost NO amenities. There is a bathroom - but you can't drink the water there. We could easily strain the town's resources. We do not want these people to think ill of us, so make sure that you leave the town as you found it. Pack everything out when you leave - including your garbage. What to bring? The CVAAS March Newsletter discusses much of what you need to bring with you on this trip. It focuses mostly on the tools and camping gear that you will need. In addition to the items mentioned in the newsletter, here are some other things you might want to consider bringing:
RSVP for the 515 Million Year Roadtrip
There is a lot of interest among CVAAS membership and their friends in going to Amboy to collect trilobite fossils. We need a more firm headcount from those of you who are planning to go.
