Adapted from the Twitter feed and posted Tuesday night, November 14, 2017.
President John Kennedy (center left) chats with Nobel Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck while First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (center right) shares a smile with poet Robert Frost at a banquet for forty-nine Nobel Laureates at the White House. April 29, 1962. Photo by Robert LeRoy via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
This is one of Pop Mannion’s favorite JFK quotes, probably because it flatters two of his favorite presidents, showing off Kennedy’s wit while highlighting Jefferson’s brilliance. Kennedy said it at a White House dinner in 1962 honoring 49 Nobel Prize winners from the Western Hemisphere:
I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
I don’t know what caused me to think of it.
Who am I kidding. Of course I know.
President Trump will not meet with the American Nobel laureates this year, Stat News reported.
The decision breaks with that of past presidents, who have met with the American Nobel Prize winners nearly every year since 2001…
The White House said Trump wouldn't meet with the recipients in person because of foreign travel. Trump has been traveling through Asia and is expected to return late Tuesday. ---from
I know what you’re thinking. The trip’s going to have him all tuckered out. He’ll be too tired to keep his end up in conversations about chemistry, genetics, and behavioral economics. But that can’t be. Not Our Mr President Trump. His energy is boundless. Not like that low-energy Jeb Bush.
So what is it?
Maybe he’s afraid of being snubbed by the scientists the way he was going to be by Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors if he hadn’t withdrawn the invitation first.
Two American Nobel Prize winners, when contacted by STAT, indicated they would not have attended a White House event even if invited. Columbia biophysicist Joachim Frank, awarded a Nobel in chemistry for his work in microscopy, said in an email he was “very relieved” when he learned there was no chance of an encounter with the president.
“I will not put my foot into the White House as long as Trump, Pence, or Ryan (i.e., the possible succession of impeachments) will occupy it,” Frank said. “I cannot speak for the others; don’t know them personally yet, but I strongly believe that as thinking intelligent people they will have a similar attitude as I.”
Possibly. But know what I think it is?
Too much homework’s required.
He’d have to memorize all their names, learn what fields they’re in, develop a rudimentary understanding of the work that earned them their Nobels.
Heck with that.
Better to dine alone on his Quarter Pounder knock-offs and congratulate himself on being in himself the most extraordinary collection of talent and human knowledge gathered at the White House, with the possible exception of those times when…
Nah. There are no exceptions. He’s a very intelligent person, you know. He went to an Ivy League college. He has a very good brain.
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To read Lev Facher’s whole article, follow the link to Trump, breaking with precedent, will not meet with American Nobel recipients at Stat News
I suspect that the Pr#sident either can not or will not read. Nobel laureates are not chosen for their ability to do pictures or faux news progams on the television set.
Posted by: Theodore Wirth | Thursday, November 16, 2017 at 07:50 PM