It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
Charles M. Province
The best presentations I have ever seen were usually TED talks. There was Elizabeth Pisani about sex, drugs and HIV, Carl Honore about slowness, Steven Levitt about crack cocaine and the structure of inner-city gangs, Dan Gilbert about ”synthetic” happiness and Barry Schwartz about the paradox of choice, or Seth Godin about “ideas that spread win” and bringing “remarkable” to the point by “worth making a remark about”. Great talks that deal with impressive topics. There were personal ones like Elizabeth Gilbert about the pressure of a previous success and dealing with it, JD Schramm’s breaking the silence for suicide attempt survivors or Sherwin Nuland about depression and electroshock treatment. I’ve just seen the following TED talk which is similar to Thomas Barnett’s talk about the US in future Wars and Peace as it deals with war and peace, but it works on a completely different level. Peter van Uhm is the Netherlands’ chief of defense and he talks about why he choose the gun as the tool to work with. By making his story accessible and by his way of presenting … I think he changed a few minds, which, in the light of a TED audience and this topic, is quite a feat.
Brilliantly done and very worth watching. A beautiful example of the ways you can convey a very, very hard idea to a lot of people.