Lenny Skutnik and Norman Mayer (Two Opposites of Human Character) considers two current events from 1982, both in Washington DC. In January of 1982, Skutnik jumped into the freezing Potomac River to save the life of a drowning woman. Contrasting against Skutnik's selflessness, Brown presents the case of Norman Mayer, a domestic terrorist who in December of 1982 would threaten to destroy the Washington Monument with a van full of dynamite. Brown doesn't relate any causal significance to the two events, but instead, considers their proximity in time and space as illustrative of the breadth of human experience, and that attempting to paint a whole culture as having a single moral character is a foolish oversimplification. The piece foregrounds itself against a pivotal time in American history, Reagan's America bolstering a new sense of patriotism while the Cold War escalated. This context necessarily informs the two men described by the painting: Skutnik being honored personally by Reagan during the State of the Union, his name becoming synonymous with civilians invited to such events. Conversely, Norman Mayer while misguided was chiefly motivated towards terrorism out of paranoia regarding nuclear holocaust; an avid activist for nuclear disarmament, Mayer's chief demand was that a national dialog start about the banning of nuclear weapons. While this does not justify his actions, it illustrates the tense political concern over the Cold War heating up.