Re: Another View (Was Review of AMNH Lost World Exhibit)

[dunn1@IDT.NET]

> From:          jamolnar@juno.com

> On Tue, 5 Aug 1997 22:38:38 +0000 dunn1@IDT.NET writes:
> > How would you like it if your kids were taking a class on Classical 
> > Mythology and 
> >you discovered that their teacher's sole method of instruction was to 
> >show the kids an episode of "Hercules" every class?
> 
> What if this led the kids to the library to learn more? And they found
> out the TV episodes the teacher showed were full of errors? 

Kids do not question everything they learn in school, especially at 
the pre-college level.  I submit that they question very little 
of it.  Even many colleges today do not teach students to think 
critically. 

> >Would you like it any more if you found out that UPN was helping sponsor
>> the school?  Was providing free vacations to the staff?
 
> So what? 

The school is taking money from the network so that the
network can turn the students into good little consumer zombies.  
This should not be the goal of the school.   The Lost World exhibit 
is selling Mercedes cars and Spielberg movies at the American Museum 
of Natural History.  This should not be the goal of the museum.

> I work for a non-profit, and all that means is that tourists,
> local school systems, philanthropists, generous business and corporate
> sponsors and {a little bit} local and state taxpayers pay my salary. 
> Does that mean that if one of the corporate sponsors is a major polluter,
> that we shouldn't solicit their generosity?  

(snip of taking polluter's money)

Take as much of the pollutor's money for your museum as you can fit 
in your pockets.  That's not a compromise of your mission. Let 
them affect the way you teach whatever it is you teach, and you've 
compromised your mission. Correct?  Or would you take their 
money if they required that you put their logo all over your exhibits 
and that you equivocate on environmental displays to represent their 
own form of polluting in a more positive light? 

> I applaud your high standards, but life is full of compromises, Larry. 
> Live with it.

No.  Because you've chosen to live with it does not mean we all have 
to.  I can choose to keep away, and keep my son away, from 
Hollywood-product-masquarading-as-dinofact exhibits, and I 
can give others my opinion to spare them the $12.00-a-head for such 
"exhibits" if they are so inclined to miss them (and will continue to 
do so). 

Larry

"Atheism: a non-prophet organization"