Mr. President,
We chose to go because you challenged us. I was barely a month on the planet when you spoke this dandelion seed into the wind. It culminated with a chemistry set, science kits, interrupted cartoons and "one small step for mankind." That seed of science made its landing on me in an urban neighborhood in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a degree in physics and a career in science.
Sadly, you didn't live to see its fulfillment, as is equally sad those that have reduced this technological achievement that set the modern electronics age; an accomplishment that riveted the WORLD'S attention into conspiracy theory in line with your own assassination, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot.
Sadly, your successors have looked at science as anathema to national prosperity; they have clouded facts; created faux "controversies" tainting K-12 education to cater to the myopic view of a dwindling few who's choice of living in the darkness of ignorance is threatened by Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, Galileo, Hawking, Hubble, Krauss, Raizen, Sagan, Susskind, Tyson, Weinberg. Depressingly, this ignorance is foisted upon us by elected officials more interested in their personal enrichment and retirements than doing the business of the nation.
I will always remember you for this...when your words, your vision for this nation's science sagacity was so clearly set.
You...are...missed...
From the You Tube page this embed originates (part of the speech):
"Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there.' Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked."
-John F. Kennedy, Rice University, Sept. 12, 1962
Dallas News: JFK50
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