I’m sure you have read enough letters and emails complaining about the “Living Exponentially” strapline. Well, here is yet another. I’ve yet to read a good reason to use such a bizzare and vague slogan when we have at least one really good one on the entrance of town: “Where Discoveries Are Made”. Plenty of other good ones have been offered that are better than “Living Exponentially”. We certainly are a city different, but unfortunately, that one is taken.

Los Alamos is only here as a community larger than it was in 1942 because the Federal Government brought together a collection of scientists and engineers to solve a difficult problem that would help to win a brutal and deadly war. We continue to exist as a community not due to some vague notion of living exponentially, but because we continue to serve the public with science dedicated to national security. Like most defense related science, ours also has made peaceful discoveries. Let’s continue to proclaim our strengths rather than evade them. Let’s also stop throwing good money after bad.