Hey everyone, just an update on Book Club at 3pm: We’re meeting at the same place we met for the last meeting, Conference Room 169 in the Northwest Building at Harvard (52 Oxford St). Directions are here. Andy and I shall be there early to let people in the building.

We’re meeting to discuss Stiff by Mary Roach. Bring a snack if you want (you may want to avoid anything that resembles organs and blood, so save the kidney pie for next time). You shan’t be disappointed!

(This is cross-posted from Harpocrates Speaks.)

Dear Members of Congress,

I recently learned that you passed, overwhelmingly, a resolution (PDF) reaffirming “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States. I am left to wonder, why?

Have you, unbeknown to the rest of the country, implemented legislation to help create jobs? Have you worked to improve health care? Cut down our debt? Eliminate waste?

How much time did you take away from important matters to not only vote on this, but to draft, read, refer to committee, approve and all the steps required to bring this to the full House?

The next book club meeting, to discuss Mary Roach’s Stiff, will be on Saturday, November 5 at 3PM in one of the usual places. See the main post below.

Our next SitP features two special guests (Mark Crislip and Kimball Atwood of Science Based Medicine) at a special time (8 PM) on a special day (Wednesday, October 19 instead of our usual Monday evening), and in a special place (the cozy, intimate basement of Tommy Doyle’s.) Aren’t we special?

Kimball and Mark will make a brief presentation followed by lots of hanging out and talking. For some ideas of the discussion topics, be sure to check out Mark’s podcast QuackCast and Kimball’s Naturowatch site, as well as SBM.

(Be forewarned! Tommy Doyle’s basement doesn’t have the state-of-the-art multimedia recording facilities of their upstairs room, so this may be your only chance to see this dynamic duo. Don’t miss it!)

http://secular.org
http://skather.us/kniefobama

Important Update! Note date and time change.

Our next book club meeting will be on Saturday, November 5 at 5 PM at one of the usual places. (Today, we met indoors in a nice conference room with left-over bagels at the far end of our usual building, due to scheduling conflicts and iffy weather.) Stay tuned for updates.

We decided to change the time to 5 PM date to November 5 so that people could attend both the Granite State Skeptics Skepticamp and the Book Club meeting.

Our book is going to be 3-time winner Mary Roach’s Stiff, in honor of Halloween.

"Everyone was doing it...I just wanted to be popular!"

Come join us tomorrow (Saturday, Sep. 23, at 3pm) for an irreverent discussion on Christopher Moore’s book Lamb and the story of Biff, Jesus’s BFF.

Unfortunately, we can’t meet outside, because as of tonight the forecast is 80% chance of rain. Also, there is some sort of event happening in our normal spot in the Cafeteria of the Northwest building, so Andy, my faithful book club cohort and husband, has booked a conference room in a different spot in the building. (For the regulars, you can just go to the doors of our indoor spot and follow the outdoor path–directions posted below.) I swear it’s easy to get to!

DIRECTIONS TO OUR MEETING SPOT (PDF with pretty pictures)

Don’t let the weather deter you from coming. We always welcome new members, and if you have a biblically-related opinion you’d like to share but haven’t read the book, we welcome you too. As usual, bring a snack if you’re so inclined (most people do, you want to be cool, right?).

Our guest speaker this month is Amanda Knief, Government Relations Manager of the Secular Coalition for America. Amanda will tell us “true tales of working as an atheist on Capitol Hill and with the Obama administration, and also how we need everyone to get involved.”

Could there be a better lead-in to Zombie and Vampire Season than the inside scoop on working in Washington?

We will be meeting at our regular time and place, at 7 PM on Monday, September 26. 2011, upstairs at Tommy Doyle’s, 96 Winthrop St in Harvard Square.

Before I post another word, don’t miss this Monday’s Skeptics in the Pub with Dave Niose (see two posts down for details).

And now – better late than never – video of Jonathan McDowell and last month’s BSitP of those who missed it (or want to see it again). Sorry for the delay. It’s not exactly as I’d intended, but… oh, I’ll shut up now. Here’s Jonathan!

Since John wrote a nice summary last week about the last book we read (The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensics), I’m just going to amend that with information for our next meeting.

We are reading Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore, and we are meeting again on September 24th at 3pm. If it’s nice weather, we’ll meet in our usual spot on Harvard Yard, and if not I’ll give details on our colder weather location.