- Photo found @: PRI
"Iranian Scientist Who Accepted Oscar Says US is Turning Away The Best and Brightest"
"Naderi and fellow scientist Anousheh Ansari were tapped by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi to accept the Oscar for best foreign language film in his honor. Farhadi, who won the award for his movie "The Salesman," boycotted the ceremony in protest of President Donald Trump's immigration and refugee ban against travelers from seven countries, including Iran.
Naderi says he agreed to go to the Academy Awards because of his own opposition to the immigration order, and particularly, to the disruption it caused to students. The ban is currently suspended, although difficulties at US borders have persisted for some travelers.
Naderi wonders why he and Ansari were chosen to accept the award. "I don't know Farhadi personally. And neither did Anousheh Ansari. We know of each other because of our work." Naderi said they never even had a phone conversation before this.
"Possibly, the reason is, once you go away from the Earth into space, and you look back at the Earth, you see it as a single blue marble. You see no borders, no lines, separating people. Maybe because [Farhadi] wanted to express his opposition to the travel ban, he thought that would be a powerful metaphor..."
Read entire article @: PRI
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With all the negative statements about America by Asghar Farhadi, Naderi and Ansari you wonder why they live here and NOT in Iran? You wonder why Iran would want to give up the best and brightest students and minds? Why not use them for their nuclear agenda, or to enhance their productiveness and innovation within Iran? Are they really the best and brightest, or have they been fooling Americans and stealing their secrets, technology, innovation ideas, scientific ideas... because they are best and brightest second handers?
Second Handers
Isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison . . . . They’re second-handers . . . .
They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They’re concerned only with people. They don’t ask: “Is this true?” They ask: “Is this what others think is true?” Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull. What would happen to the world without those who do, think, work, produce? Those are the egoists. You don’t think through another’s brain and you don’t work through another’s hands. When you suspend your faculty of independent judgment, you suspend consciousness. To stop consciousness is to stop life. Second-handers have no sense of reality. Their reality is not within them, but somewhere in that space which divides one human body from another. Not an entity, but a relation—anchored to nothing. That’s the emptiness I couldn’t understand in people. That’s what stopped me whenever I faced a committee. Men without an ego. Opinion without a rational process. Motion without brakes or motor. Power without responsibility. The second-hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person. It’s everywhere and nowhere and you can’t reason with him. He’s not open to reason.
Learn more about second handers @: Ayn Rand Lexicon
