Posted on 12/07/2006 5:04:50 PM PST by aculeus
An offer to distribute Al Gore's movie about the threat of global warming has put the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) on the hot seat.
Producer and environmental activist Laurie David—wife of comedian Larry David—assumed that NSTA would be all too happy to send its members free copies of An Inconvenient Truth, the climate change tutorial by the former vice president that was a surprise hit at the box office. All NSTA had to do was write a cover letter. But NSTA declined the offer, citing a 2001 policy prohibiting endorsements of any product or message by an outside organization.
That's when things heated up. In a sharply worded op-ed in the 26 November Washington Post, David accused NSTA of rejecting her offer of 50,000 DVDs so as not to offend ExxonMobil, which has given NSTA $6 million over the past decade to help it promote science education. Although the money has paid for such motherhood-and-apple-pie reform efforts as creating a network of science contacts at schools around the country, David told Science that she finds it "shocking" that NSTA would have ties to a company "that has spent millions misinforming the public about global warming."
Not surprisingly, NSTA sees things differently. "We don't do mass distributions for anybody; we don't send our members material that they haven't asked for," says NSTA's executive director, Gerald Wheeler. As for the association's corporate ties, Wheeler freely acknowledges that 16% of NSTA's $23 million a year budget comes from businesses, including 3.7% from the oil and gas industry. "We're working hard to get corporate America engaged in reforming STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] education," he says. "And in no case has anybody asked us to say anything [on their behalf], which we would never agree to do, anyway."
Wheeler says NSTA has no desire to suppress information about global warming. Just last month, for example, NSTA's newsletter for middle school teachers ran a five-page article on the topic and mentioned Gore's movie in the first paragraph. He says NSTA has also offered to post a link to the movie on its Web site and to announce the availability of the DVD in a weekly e-mail letter and a monthly publication. In addition, David could put the DVD directly in teachers' hands by buying NSTA's mailing list, at $130 per 1000 names.
David says NSTA's imprimatur was essential and that buying a mailing list is a nonstarter. "You don't want to send out a cold letter, and it costs a lot of money," she says. "There are a thousand reasons why that wouldn't work."
Dear lord; my head just exploded.
You should go to her web site and tell her you heard she's having problems getting her DVD distributed -- and give her your address.
See what happens.
Algore was on Oprah a few days ago. Pretty sure Algore was flown out in a CHARTER JET. Royalty you know. And equally certain his increasingly overfed butt was hauled to the studio in a stretch limo capable of -- what -- 15 MPG. Probably even put up in a 2,000 square foot suite at some posh hotel. Couldn't stay with Oprah, Al?
Fair and balanced it was NOT.
Especially when they dredged up that noted earth scientist, Leonardo diCaprio.
Ya gotta love it.
Right on! Larry David is a card carrying member of the tin foil hat, coolaid drinking, nut job, left wing, liberal fringe. He's funny, but dangerous.
How about abuse of the comedy gene?
I watched it on DVD. You can't believe how boring it is. I mean, the start fidgeting and get up a thousand times to do chores kind of boring. And the charts and graphs....so many charts and graphs!
Done. I'll let you know!
David is pretty much a dickhead himself.
"How could a guy so funny marry such a humorless bitch?"
If you want to look slim marry a fat girl.
I'd rather we averaged out to something reasonable. Meaning, she'd have to be kinda thin.
She's a globalwarmislamist?
Be sure to clean up after yourself.
I think I better keep some HandiWipes close to my monitor; I don't think it's going to get any better anytime soon.
I'd like to see a timeline on the events concerning the NSTA and the dvd distribution situation, so that I can compare it to the Snowe/Rockefeller threat to EXXON. What the people are trying to do to EXXON and the oil industry is nothing short of fascism.
I'm no fan of EXXON, but I would rather have a company that is up front about what it supports than have a company like BP which plays the game with the controlling fascists, pretending to be environmentally concerned, and doing the opposite in actual practice. BP supports the Kyoto treaty, opposes drilling in the ANWR, and places full page ads in newspapers, claiming to be the environmenal oil company, while it drags its feet, and slows expenditures on any enviromental or safety expenditure.
Why doesn't she get BU, or some other school to prostitute their "school of education"?
Heck, Columbia's Teachers College has been screwing up the educational system in this country for years.
Spend some money to get Columbia's "imprimatur".
BP should have spent those ad dollars on plant maintenance.
That would never happen because the money comes from completely different cost centers and transferring some of the profit from PR to operations would spoil their business model.
Well, they say they are sending me a free DVD, and I've been given information on how to buy all sorts of other stuff about global warming.
Now I just need a classroom set of Michael Crichton's book (isn't it being made into a movie too?) or maybe the audio version and I'll be set for next year! ;-)
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