House of Eratosthenes

The play that I’m in right now, making my Broadway debut, “The Miracle Worker,” is very much a story about communication. At first, you might think it’s a story about a student and a teacher, Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan. In a bigger sense, the story is about all of us being deaf and blind. And the struggle that Helen Keller has with her teacher is a struggle that all of us face when we don’t understand another person. When we find somebody or we have somebody in our lives in our families that don’t hear us, we have to find a different way to communicate to them so that they can hear us. You know, the miracle in “The Miracle Worker” is that Annie Sullivan found a way to put letters into Helen Keller’s hands and open up a world to her of communication so that she could speak finally. But we have to do that all the time in different ways with our children or with people who see things differently than us. Imagine if somebody were to really sit down with Osama Bin Ladin and say, “Listen man, what is it that you’re so angry at me about that you’re willing to have people strap bombs to themselves, or get inside of airplanes and fly them into buildings?” That would be the miracle if we can get, sit down and talk to our enemies and have a fine way for them to hear us.

Historical examples, please. What human conflict was ended because people took the time to form a greater understanding of each other?

In fact, who ever formed more positive thoughts about a culture of people by learning more about how they see things? I mean, it’s fascinating and all, but learning by itself isn’t going to put in positive feeling that wasn’t there before, and it certainly won’t get you to drop a grudge. If Osama bin Laden thinks we’re like Nazis, for example — well Good Lord, you can tell me all kinds of arcane bullshit trivia about Nazis all day long, lecture me on how they saw things, I’m pretty sure you’re not going to sell me on learning to like them.

I can think of one group of people who learned how another culture of people saw things, and formed some actual affection as a direct result of this: Tourists. And that’s just because they dropped three grand into the experience and want to make the most of the investment.

This notion that we can stop fighting by “sitting down and talking” is just the biggest crock that’s ever been sold, or among the biggest. It rates right up there with “Republicans and democrats both have the same goals in mind, just different ideas about how to get there.” Mindless pablum injected into the conversation by people who have no idea what they’re talking about, and like to listen to themselves.

Begone, court jester. Do your juggling, and then leave the stage. Know your place.

The fact that Mr. Bin Laden is not interested in communicating is precisely why he convinces people to strap bombs on themselves or use the airplanes they’re riding in as bombs and blow people up.

We can communicate until we’re blue in the face and beyond, and while we communicate he’ll stroke his beard and nod while he sends fifty suicide bombers out back and slips a few more cells in Dubuque.

As I recall, Miss Keller wasn’t plotting to kill others, nor were people plotting to kill her. She badly wanted to communicate but had no way to until Miss Sullivan figured out a way to bootstrap her into a way to learn.

Mr. Bin Laden long ago decided we need to submit or die. And it appears that one is not necessarily safe from the reach of his bombs even if one submits.
- philmon | 04/01/2010 @ 07:15
I’ve often wondered who the people are that send their bank account numbers to a stranger in Nigeria or attend physic fairs or believe government controlled health care will SAVE us billions…now I know.

For a future post, Morgan, could you please tell me how the freak people get to be this dumb, ‘cause I really need to know. I want to avoid any chance that it could happen to anyone I care about.

“The Broadway revival of “The Miracle Worker” is to close April 4”

Bummer.
- tim | 04/01/2010 @ 09:26
Even if it were possible to find out what bin Laden’s motivations are, or even if I thought it were somehow possible to get him and his pals to listen to reason, I wouldn’t be particularly interested in trying.

Why? Because….I don’t care. All I know is that he and his henchmen – and the hideous bigotry that they sponsor – are directly responsible for the deaths of 3,000 innocent people on a single day alone, and scores of additional deaths over at least a ten-year period prior to that.

Bin Laden once claimed that he launched his jihad against us because he was upset by the presence of American troops on the sacred sands of Saudi Arabia. What I wanted to ask the man was, “Do you have any fracking clue at all as to WHY those troops were stationed there? Uhm, maybe to protect the kingdom against the designs of the genocidal madman living next door in Iraq…the ones whose troops were already occupying Kuwait? Is that observation completely lost on you? Would you prefer that the Saudis were left to the tender mercies of the Republican Guard? What is it about the United States protecting YOUR home country – at our own expense – that you find so insulting?”

That episode right there forever cured me of any notion I might have had about talking any sense into Bin Laden. I knew that no man on Earth, however well-intentioned and eloquent, would be able to get through to him. Either it was a bunch of bull thrown out for consumption by his fellow terrorists, or else he’s crazy enough to really think that…and in the end it doesn’t really matter.

If Bin Laden had a real grievance against our country, there were forums and avenues available to him in which to air those complaints. He ignored that and instead chose to slaughter a bunch of our people, in repayment for our protecting his. He repaid our kindness with murder.

I don’t care in the least about understanding the motivations of men such as Bin Laden. I just want to make them die.
- cylarz | 04/02/2010 @ 00:35

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Why is bin Laden Mad At Us?Thursday, April 1st, 2010

Why is bin Laden Mad At Us?
Thursday, April 1st, 2010