A Washington State school board has imposed restrictions on showing the movie An Inconvenient Truth in science classrooms, unless a creditable opposing viewpoint is also aired. Good luck finding one of those. Here’s the thought process that ruled the day:
The school board imposed the restrictions on viewing the film after Frosty Hardison, a parent who said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old, sent an e-mail to the school board complaining about the film. “Condoms don’t belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He’s not a schoolteacher,” Hardison said. “The information that’s being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn’t in the DVD.”
“From what I’ve seen [of the movie] and what my husband has expressed to me, if [the movie] is going to take the approach of ‘bad America, bad America,’ I don’t think it should be shown at all,” Hardison’s wife, Gayle Hardison, said. “If you’re going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don’t think the video should be shown.”
January 11th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
If these people are so obsessed with the end of the world, can we just round them up and end it for them — say NOW?
January 11th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Oh, okay. If the world is going to burn up anyway, why bother doing anything to fix the mess? It’s people and views like this that often make me think the world is going to “hell in a handbasket.”
(Thanks for this post - I needed to vent today.)
January 11th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
How psyched were you when you realized these people were not southerners?
January 11th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Dr J: You have no idea. While I’d rather that school boards not cave at all to these people, I was heartened that it can happen somewhere other than the South. I would not have predicted that reactionary school boards could be found between Seattle and Tacoma.
January 12th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Frosty? His name is Frosty?!?!
January 12th, 2007 at 9:19 am
Ironic name for a guy who is looking forward to things going up in flame.
January 12th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Before he could get up to speak, they had to put the magic hat on his head.
January 12th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Ha! “…there must have been some Rapture in that old top hat they found…”
January 12th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
“Students should hear the perspective of global-warming skeptics and then make up their minds, he said. After they do, “if they think driving around in cars is going to kill us all, that’s fine, that’s their choice.”
Personally, I thought “Truth” was astonishingly boring, but it was hardly a perspective. Gore’s presentation paints an irrefutable picture of a warming earth and he more than adequately demonstrates that carbon levels are substantially higher than in previous warm periods.
I didn’t realize we still had any “global-warming skeptics,” at least not in the scientific community.
January 12th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
Porch: That’s what I’m saying. Good luck finding a dissenting opinion that is based on credible science. There aren’t any.
Flav: Your song reminds me of this.