Merry Christmas? Can Skeptics actually say that with a straight face? We ask James Randi, of the James Randi Educational Foundation about his thoughts on the holiday season.

This week Skepticality features Michael Adelson, a staff conductor for the New York Philharmonic, and conductor of the Auros Group for New Music in Boston. Mr. Adelson had the good fortune to study with the late Rabbi Sherwin Wine. Rabbi Wine founded Humanistic Judaism, a secular movement which provides atheistic and ignostic Jews around the world with a means for organization, mobilization, and a sense of community. Speaking to Swoopy as a skeptic, Mr. Adelson shares insights from his lecture series, the “Forum for New Thinking� (inspired by Rabbi Wine). He also takes a critical look at music history, dispelling some false beliefs about artists — creative humans who are often painted with the brush of divine inspiration. Building on the musical theme, Swoopy talks to Canadian blue grass trio The Dirty Dishes about their new rendition of “Lily The Pink�, an ode to the late 1800’s “queen� of patent medicine Lydia Pinkham.