Casa An Montecarlo: è di Giancarlo Tulliani, cognato di Fini, conferma da Santa Lucia

Well, given the circumstances, I tguhhot Anthony did a good job of making the major points regarding how the money was obtained, where it was going (4 students for 2 years plus preserving jobs for those companies supplying materials needed to upgrade the collection) and why insect collections are important (protecting agricultural plants from insects to feed and clothe society). Granted Anthony is not a slick PR marketing guy that is well prepared to entertain a minimally educated audience on this subject when interviewed by an experienced journalist tasked by his boss to vilify and denigrate the stimulus program. Fox was uninterested in documenting whether Anthonys NSF grant was a good investment for society or not and Anthony’s answers on the spur of the moment were informative and on target, and then largely ignored in the Carlson/Hannity focus on stimulus bashing tinged with entomophobia. I was particularly disappointed that these experienced journalists did not recognize the value received for the taxpayer dollar by the employment of 4 students for two years to aid upgrading the collection while at the same time these students were pursuing an education. This is equivalent to supporting one student for 8 years. Where, I might ask, can the public make a better contribution to bettering society than in employing students to perform a needed service that also is embedded in their obtaining a higher education that they are likely to use to obtain higher paying jobs and deliver more skilled services (and taxes) to society for the rest of their lives? These journalists were the ones unprepared to pounce on the story they were presented and effectively communicate it to their audience. I suggest they revisit this issue after thinking through some of the facts they were provided and also provide Anthony an opportunity to actually document the facts he provided if they are truly interested in how this particular stimulus money impacted society in the short and long term. Their hatchet job agenda fizzled and they could not deal with the facts Anthony provided so they crept away with crawly skin ignoring the meat they had uncovered. A shallow journalistic treatment of the subject, but not atypical of the craft by any network when pursuing an agenda rather than uncovering facts and following up to develop the real story that is there to be told. Scientists are not entertainers by and large except when cast in an egghead role by experienced journalists motivated by an ancillary agenda and then most of us unaccustomed to impromptu formation of elegantly crafted answers play the egghead role in response to carefully crafted agenda laden questions rather well. Anthony, to his credit and that of the rest of us scientists communicated the facts simply and well. Those in the audience able to analyze those facts would recognize immediately that the real eggheads here were the journalists that presumably seek to find the truth and communicate it to the public they found the truth and then proceeded to ignore and dismiss it. Too bad for them and hooray for Anthony.