longer.blue

A friend of mine is a retired captain in the Airforce. He write this recently. It's bone chilling: "Trump/Musk draconian cuts to our Federal research and educational institutions are causing researchers, teachers, and students to question careers they entered to make the world a better place. These government actions don't make us better; they make us less competitive, less resilient, and less empathetic. I don't care what kind of financial math you think you are using; Trump and Musk are destroying real value at a rate we have never seen before. These actions will leave a damaging wake lasting decades. Every day, I think about how to counter these unconscionable actions. I've volunteered to help CU Institutes develop strategies to keep the doors open and help researchers and students continue to pursue their noble goals. We met yesterday with Swedish multinational LM Ericsson for their annual tour of CU labs, which they contribute modestly to support. The head of consumer research flew in from Stockholm and the head of Silicon Valley research from California. They were met by students and researchers who demonstrated their innovations and talked about the work Ericsson supports at CU. At one point, the Swedes looked around the room and asked where the students were from. Out of 10, only one was born in the US. The Ericsson representatives remarked that was what they valued in their relationship with CU. They told the students that Ericsson is a global company and the breakthroughs they support don't stop at borders. The students asked the Swedes if they were frightened by what is happening here. They looked at each other and said, "Of course, we are frightened. We had to scrub our social media posts for fear that we'd have our visas revoked and be imprisoned." These are dark times. Think about that. Think hard about that. We live in a country where Sweden - one of our staunchest allies and newest member of NATO fears imprisonment for its citizens speaking openly if they travel to the United States. The US, long the global beacon of freedom, has turned into a worldwide censor of voices that speak out in support of freedom, diversity, and fairness. What have we allowed to be done to our country?"