Here are excerpts from the bios of the production team for TEDx’s execrable April Event. Cringe-makingly named “Brother can you spare a paradigm? Making the quantum leap”, it will be forever be known as “WooFest” (see my posts here and here).
These come from a comment by alert reader Jon H, and include half of the eight people involved in organizing the TEDx event. Their “qualifications” are perfect!
TEDx West Hollywood “Coordinator” bio: ” I was on camera for the pledge drive showing of my crop circle documentary, What On Earth?, on a Colorado PBS station”. [JAC note: the “documentary” suggests that crop circles are made not by humans, but by some advanced technology, e.g., aliens.]
“Co-coordinator and web designer” bio: “I am the author of The Miracle Makers Club – Live The Prosperous and Soul-Filled Life That You Deserve Today, Make Your Life A Miracle, and Keys To Building an Amazing Practice for Chiropractors.”
“Broadcast Technical Producer/Director” bio: “She produced and directed Flipping the Joy Switch, Teaching Corporate America the Law of Attraction, and Vermont Bio Fuels, spotlighting cutting edge research on corn.”
Cyrene produced and sound engineered Multi-Dimensional You: Exploring Energetic Evolution, an audio book, and currently is working on an audio book series, Elliot: The Return to Roswell.”
“Team Member” bio: “Currently she is with Evolve the Planet Foundation as its event coordinator and curriculum specialist. Paramahansa Jagadish, The Master of Spiritual Transformation and Healing, founded the organization to raise consciousness around the world and to heal the planet and all living beings.”
Crop circles made by aliens? Chiropractic? Roswell? Master of Spiritual Transformation?
With organizers like that, is it any wonder that TEDx West Hollywood is a parade of New Age-y woomeisters and spiritual cheerleaders? Quantum leap, my tuchus!
Somebody at TEDx should start looking at what their affiliates are producing—fast.
Shouldn’t that be “cutting *ear* research”?
Too funny.
I was giving watercolor lessons to some ladies once and was explaining about stretching watercolor paper to keep it from buckling. I used the word “physics” and a cherub-faced lady popped up, all excited, and said she knew all about physics — metaphysics! It turns out she channels spirits and has a big woo business out in the woods.
One of my faults may be that I am too polite a person and live in too small a community to identify her website here, but you would get a real kick out of it. Suffice it to say that, like the bios of the people you have mentioned here, the site has a little something for everyone. 🙂
And how do you strecth watercolor paper? I am looking for a good, sound technique.
I have tried tape, staples, and clips to keep the paper straped after wetting it in water, but I don’t really like the results in neither case. Tape is not good enough to keep the paper in place, and staples leave a nasty mark on the paper.
What’s your technique?
Staples. But when it’s dry run drafting tape around the edges (and over the staples) before you paint. Pat it down firmly so paint won’t run underneath. Later, carefully pull this tape off the finished product and you’ll have a clean edge. Cut off the staple-marked part.
Canada Jack said, “It’s morally wrong to let suckers to keep their money.” 😉
Sad that is what a capitalist society leads to. Mitt Romney would applaud I’m sure. Trust and good will are suckered by greed, deception, and lies.
April
.
I think this is the key detail.
Except it isn’t on the 1st.
Either TED has to start requiring people to apply to run TEDx groups, and scrutinize the hell out of their backgrounds and interests, or else end TEDx and replace them with a smaller number of regional fully-vetted TED events.
They could try requiring that TEDx groups be chaired by working scientists, hoping that will provide adult content supervision.
But that is unlikely to be sufficient, given how often even trained scientists can fall into woo outside their field, or misuse their credentials to push woo.
TED itself has gone down considerably in quality. When it first started I was amazed by the quality of the talks. It had people like Dawkins, David Deutsch, Sam Harris, Dennett.
Welp, doggone shae but that settles it; /TEDx comes out of my list of reliably science-compatible Internet sources of provocative thought and goes onto my list of woosites, and TED Talks (ted.com itself) goes on probation as a reliably science-compatible Internet source of provocative thought while I look for a while to see if woo back-contamination seeps into the parent host…
lol.
TEDx. The Woomeister’s Paradise.