Fortress Hays

This evening (Monday, 4/30/07) Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary film An Inconvenient Truth will be shown at the Fox Theater in Hays. There are two free screenings, at 5:30pm and 8:00pm, courtesy of CPV Wind Hays LLC, the company seeking to establish a wind farm west of Hays.

I’m glad to have the opportunity to see this movie in a theater, since it’s quite infrequently that the Dickinson Mall Hays theaters get movies I’m interested in seeing (though I did enjoy Grindhouse there recently).

Mainly I’m interested in seeing and evaluating the science and policy recommendations of the movie, but the opportunity to meet some of the principals in the wind farm debate will be an interesting sidelight. I’d personally be eager to see the wind farm development go ahead, if the reasonable concerns of adjacent landowners can be adequately addressed.

Two weeks from today, on Thursday evening April 12, 2007 at 7:00pm, at the Sternberg Museum there will be a free showing of the award-winning documentary Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Inteligent Design Circus. The event is sponsored by the FHSU Science and Mathematics Education Center as part of its Science Talks series.

The film examines the issues surrounding the Kansas School Board political debate about amending science standards. Although the film ultimately recognizes the scientific merits of evolution, it rightly holds scientists accountable for their potential extinction as a result of their failure to effectively communicate their findings to the general public.

It will be interesting to see how the film is received in this part of the world…