Dream of the Dragon

A former acting teacher once shared a quotation, to illustrate some truth about believing in an action on stage, that went something like this: the first and most essential ingredient in any venture is a belief in its potential success. I am confident the original makes a better aphorism, but this still illustrates the point. It seems obvious, but a lot of times people begin things without ever suspecting the eventual success and the subsequent failure is self-fulfilling. Or the success is the product of some serendipity or something utterly outside the person. Point is: why lay your life on the line, championing a cause you deeply believe in, when the gambit absolutely cannot pay off? Mad fanaticism? Stupidity?

A strange thing happened just outside of the nation’s capitol today, an eruption of radical activism unrelated to the mania of extreme conservativism. The opposite extreme, really: it came from an individual inspired by the writings of Daniel Quinn, if you can believe it. Here’s the quick breakdown:

Earlier today James J. Lee visited the headquarters of his longtime adversary in Silver Springs, MD: The Discovery Channel. Mr. Lee took three hostages and held them for roughly four hours, claiming to have bombs strapped to his person and a gun at hand. This seems to have been an escalation of a multi-year history of picketing the education network, according to the NY Times, on the grounds of their interests in profit over elucidation. Yep. A history of protesting The Discovery Channel for its failure to correct the planet’s ills. Read the rest of this entry »