None of those people mentioned ever had "persistence" that's wasted thirty-five hundred lives (and counting), though...

The "persistence" being advocated here is that of one who has a hundred monkeys typing madly on a hundred typewriters, just KNOWING that eventually the Gettysburg Address will be produced.

"wasted thirty-five hundred lives"

I don't know about that. How many people died because of the invention of the airplane? How about getting a little too much electricity? Talking on the phone while driving?

;)

Frank, why not state what you really mean instead of trying to hide the party rhetoric/partisanship!

I believe it is fully known what the intent of letters such as that of A. O. Brown, because it was stated. I wish the same could be said for your's!

Shalom

"Fortunately, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Christopher Columbus and the Wright brothers felt differently."

Umm...these guys didn't do the same things over and over again. They varied experiments by changing time,delay, quantity and so forth.

Get a clue dude. Seriously.

We've used the "Give it time to work" argument. How much more time should we give it? 1 year? 5 years? 50 years?

Brian – your observation is exactly right. The famous people listed achieved their successes through persistence. Bush has achieved his failures through obstinance.

I don’t think anyone would include George Bush in the same breath with any of the great men referred to in the LTE.

I suggest the creation of a new award for choice examples of astounding, mind-boggling ignorance and stupidity demonstrated by an otherwise seemingly intelligent person (that latter qualification excludes otherwise sure winners like George Bush, but we can't all be winners, can we?).
The winner will be presented a statuette of an ape dressed in a tuxedo, that being a fair representation of the now famous "monkey in pants" comment by one of the lesser political lights to grace the ranks of presidential wannabes, and the ape will be sitting sur la toilette with his pants still up to his waist, the act of soiling one's pants best representing the winner's ability to prove the opposite of his intentions. We can call the statuette the "Frankie" in honor of Mr Freeman.
Need it be said that all the worthies Mr Freeman listed produced different results precisely by doing new things in a carefully controlled manner (as Mr Harper notes), rather than by keeping on keeping on and just hoping the next repetition of the same old deed would produce some difference by magic? If Freeman knew anything worth knowing about Ford, Edison, and Bell, he'd have written a far different letter. If he knew more than the legendary 1492 bit about Columbus, he'd know the pitfalls of keeping on doing the same thing and expecting a different result. If he knew anything at all about Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, he might have had the wit not to write his own lte and just nod in agreement when he read Mr Brown's.

I, too, have been disappointed by many of letters and blog posts, but I hope that I've not made a fool of myself saying so. I have ended my subscription to the N&R because it's editors insist that I be content with daily rehashes of local nonsense and "human interest" maudlin garbage rather than any semblance of statewide, national and international news. The only place, it seems, that the N&R has room for news is in the sports secction, and one supposes that that space will evaporate when the other sections are full of prayers, miracles, sob stories and pets. I guess the so much too much news caused the 41 layoffs last week.
At any rate, with the end of my subscription I will leave this blog to those who have served it so long. So long.

Chris ... here's a secret: I don't subscribe either - never have - although I used to pick up a 50 cent version to read during lunch. Since these days I seem to be working around the clock - literally a sandwich in one hand as I type this - I buy many fewer paper copies.

So I hope you still check in occassionally.

You tell them Frank! And don't forget that Hitler feller and the Russian Eastern Front. He never gave up. He was willing to fight to the last dead German.

And O.J. is never going to give up looking for them real killers. If he has to search every golf course in Florida he'll do it!

Persistence is all we need. Common sense is sooooo overrated.