I’m leaving tomorrow to go to the Reason for Change conference in Amherst (outside Buffalo). Things will be slow here.

If any of y’all have something you want to say in a guest post, send it to me in the next few hours and I’ll schedule it for while I’m gone (unless it’s no good, but how likely is that?).

Also, go to the conference!

Critical thinking is not an end in itself. It is a means to effect positive change, to transform our world for the better. At “Reason for Change,” the Center for Inquiry’s 2015 international conference, we’ll bring the skeptic and humanist communities together to do just that.

And we’ll do it in a place that many consider to be “home” to the skeptic and humanist movements: Western New York and CFI’s headquarters in Buffalo. Fittingly, 2015 will be the 35th anniversary of Free Inquiry and the 39th anniversary (last party before 40!) of Skeptical Inquirer, the two foundational publications that helped start it all.

This conference will be truly special. It will be both a celebration of our accomplishments and a robust examination of the challenges we still face. It will be an invaluable opportunity to connect and collaborate with thinkers, activists, researchers, and other luminaries from around the world. It will honor the individuals who have made transformative contributions to the advancement of science, reason, and free inquiry while also highlighting the next wave of up-and-coming activists.

That’s a great theme, and one I take a sharp interest in. It’s a meme among the little knot of people who make a hobby of complaining about me (and others) that I used to be skeptical and good but I’ve done a complete 180. Nope. I haven’t. I was a feminist then; I gave a shit about rights and equality and justice then. I’m very interested in how humanism and critical thinking intersect.