(Pee-yoo!)

('Course, deepest apologies to you, Ma'am, we don't likely countenance none such ungenteel talk as that, here back East, specially in our more cosmopolitan towns and cities.  Regrets if you've been at all put out, Ma'am.)

(Your deal, Ma'am.)

Dear Maywa,

you are onto something of great importance.

"An Inconvenient Truth" is not the name merely of a movie, or of a movie-plus-book.  It is the name of a so-far ill-defined cultural phenomenon.

Al Gore has hidden nothing.  He said all along that it all started out with his slide show, and then with his hope to get volunteers to continue doing his slide show.

Knowing the book best by far of all these manifestations of Gore's concept, I am curious to follow up on what we know about this volunteer program.

Have volunteers already been going around the country, doing the slide show?  If so, what has their training been like?  Have any of them shared their accounts of their experiences?

It strikes me that new volunteers would find such accounts very helpful.

And, so far as presenting the slide show goes, new presenters would need to know very well not only the contents of the show itself, but also something about any new, up-to-date scientific data on related subjects, plus any new relevant political data.

Plus, not least important, new presenters should be trained to deal with some particularly difficult members of the audience: doubters, deniers, and foes.

Encounters with the last bunch in particular, especially as they beef up for the fight, striving to embarrass and disrupt, surely require serious advance training.

So you need to be shrewd.  Sure, you have got plenty of cojones, that goes without saying.  But you need to do a lot of work anticipating what the foes may throw out at you.  And I am not at all convinced that the "program description" does anything to prepare you for that.

Well, Al Gore's people surely are not naive (surely!: ha ha).  No doubt all that serious instruction comes further down the line, once you have been accepted into the program.  (No doubt!)

Whatever: keep a really good log, and let us all know what is what, sooner or later.

Sabes, estoy rezando para ti.