Response to my letter to the editor

First time ever I had a response to one of my letters published in Sunday Mail. It was in support of the letter I wrote about in my last post:

Psychics should be registered
I agree with Braydan Wilson (Your Say, SM, Dec 26) on psychics. People who advise others for a fee - solicitors, doctors and accountants, for example - have to be registered by law. Yet anyone can claim to be a psychic, charge high fees and give people advice.
This is fraud and should be made illegal with harsh penalities.
The more upset and desperate people are, the easier prey they make for these heartless thieves.
In 1976, I made a $10,000 challenge to any psychic or clairvoyant to accept a very simple 10-point test to prove their worth. Despite  being publicised many times, nobody has accepted because they realise they would fail.
Arthur Coghlan,
Tallebudgera Valley

It was heartening to hear that I'm not the only one who thinks psychics are nasty people, and obviously Arthur has been at this a lot longer than me, so props to him. What I'd really like to see is more letters in the major papers along these lines. We complain that media uncrtitically promotes these charlatans and deluded do-gooders, but we don't effectively use the same media to promote an alternative view.

Missed the Woodford Folk Festival because of rain and laziness. Have decided to work on a calendar of skeptical events I can attend and investigate. Will also collect and respond to stories in varous papers. I don't want to go too heavy on the skpetical investigation stuff since that is already well-covered by existing skeptical groups, but I do think there is room for increased coverage, and I'm debating if militant skeptivism would be justified. The idea conflicts with my goal for positive skeptivisim and skeptical charity, but I am somewhat frustrated by the limited postive coverage outside of the skeptical community.

Hoping to attend QLD Skeptics events this year, although I think Humanists are more aligned with my activisim ideas. Not sure what the relationship is between the state skeptical organisations, but surely Australian Skeptics should be an umbrella to the other groups. From what I can tell the Australian Skeptics could more accurately be called NSW Skeptics. Must investigate their structures, committees, AGMs and such.