Worth defending

Got this as a forward...

From the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, April 17, 1969, regarding the justification for funding the then unbuilt Fermilab:

Senator John Pastore: Is there anything connected with the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country?

Robert Wilson: No sir, I don't believe so.

Pastore: Nothing at all?

Wilson: Nothing at all.

Pastore: It has no value in that respect?

Wilson: It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending.

Are you worth defending? Make your country proud.

Ethically right?

We each have opportunities to choose to do what is right or to do what is wrong. But there is a third choice - to do nothing! Back in the 1700's, Edmund Burke coined a phrase that has been used many times since: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

Wow! What a profound statement! But what does it look like in action?

I think it means that we are willing to be out of step with the majority in order to do what we know is right.

Do you have it in you?

Haloed Brands

I was driving in traffic this morning found everyone avoiding a particular vehicle. There was a 2 feet gap around the vehicle as if there was a hole in the traffic. As I moved on I saw the reason. It was an black Audi A6 with the numbers APxx x 9999. Then I remembered the tag line of Sarkar Raj : Power is holding someone else’s power in your hand and showing it to them! How true!

Some Brands evoke respect, some power and some even fear. Either ways people acknowledge. No one wanted to go anywhere within the touching distance to the Audi as they feared it. May be a dent would cost my Pulsar? Your value is determined by what you have and is visible to others. It was the price tag, the brand that gave the Audi the halo. As my Professor Ray says, “The best thing you would ever sell is YOURSELF”