There is no monopoly on common sense On either side of the political fence We share the same biology Regardless of ideology Believe me when I say to you I hope the Russians love their children too ( stanza 2 )
This song is concerned with the untenable positions of the U . S . and the U . S . S . R . to be forever divided in their competition to out-threaten and out-stockpile one another . Sting refers to shared humanity as “ biology ,” despite differences in political “ ideology .” Yet he points to Oppenheimer as a source of the deadly tension between the two unions , referring to the Manhattan Project and suggesting that it was the entertaining pastime of a scientist playing with atomic energy , in the vein of a child playing baseball and unintentionally breaking a window . As I read “ How can I save my little boy / From Oppenheimer ’ s deadly toy ,” I must put aside any defensiveness I might experience at the correlation between naively destructive play-experiments and my grandfather , in favor of observing Sting ’ s suggestion that the effects of the Manhattan Project extend into the future at the macro political level and the micro individual level . “ Russians ” offers an excellent example of the evolving pattern of how popular culture acknowledges and processes , in fractallike artistic form , the chaotic power harnessed during the Manhattan Project .
Finally , the modern punk-indie band Titus Andronicus ’ s Local Business album cover offers a particularly poignant illustration of the outcome of the Manhattan Project . The band originally selected for its album cover the graphic shown in Figure 3 , similar to the landscape style of 18 th century painter Thomas Gainsborough ( particularly his
35