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caroljane

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My mother always proclaimed herself to be academically stupid, and demonstrably she was. She had to repeat a grade in school,, I forget which one, and graduated dead last in her class at business school. She was gleeful that she had married a man who was smart, and delighted in his cleverness and the general intelligence of his whole extended family.

My father would have become an architect or archaeologist, preferably both, if his life circumstances had allowed it..He was an expert draughtsman. I recently came across a drawing of a font he made at age 10 in some Sunday school assignment. I have no eye for art, but I have seen a lot of fonts, and this drawing is a font, with perfect proportions, and something more , which probably I am just readiing into it. He worked as a carpenter, and some of the furniture he made I have now, and every drawer opens on its edges every time, almost eerily, while the brand-new kitchen drawers regularly stick. He built his own house, adapting standard plans, oversaw and did a lot of the construction. He installed an electric heat system which nobody had in town at the time, and nobody understands including me and my cousin who lives in the house now, but it works great and is cheap.

He didn't get to live to landscape his yard, or build the greenhouse with his neighbour Harry which would have produced pumpkins to astonish the world. But he did get to eat the corn of that same Harry, fresh picked and boiled right there in the field, and so did I, and I am here to tell you that no corn, ever, ever tasted better..

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The Committee is pleased to announce that they have a new category in which to announce a winner: Best Whistleblower Award.

This goes to Solo for "Ron Paul is a Traitorous, Libertarian Idiot." Who knew Ron Paul was a citizen of New Zealand? What use his enemies will make of this explosive revelation? Ours not to reason why, but to keep our heads while all about are losing theirs, as some are doing on Solo as we speak.

The staff have demanded requested that we make the following statement on their behalf, and we have graciously acceded.

"Listen up you mouth breathers, the rape scene in Fountainhead is a fictional scene in a novel, it is a fantasy rape scene, it is erotica and damn good erotica too, don't you think Rand noticed the rape scene in Gone with the Wind hit the G-spot with audiences We're talking to you, Leonard P. of Irwin, CA.

"Back-peddling is selling stuff from a backpack door-to-door. Back-pedalling is the act of distancing oneself from one's mistakes.

It's ad nauseAm. We know you think it should be like museum but it shouldn't.

We agree that the Committee will pay for our lunches on Fridays as long as we order the specials."

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  • 4 weeks later...

Another new category, and a shoo-in for a winner -- the Wah'habist Award (big shout-out to our new sponsors!)

The front runner is Thomas M. Miovas Jr of Oonline, the guy who put the Fun back in Fundamentalism, and revitalized the flagging cause of Respect for Respect's Sake. TMM, or Al-Hominem as he's known in the intellectual trenches, brings to mind the greatest figures of Western civilization,, such as PG Wodehouse, and causes us to ask ourselves: If this is Thomas M. Miovas Jr., what on earth can Thomas M. Miovas Senior be like?.

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My mother always proclaimed herself to be academically stupid, and demonstrably she was. She had to repeat a grade in school,, I forget which one, and graduated dead last in her class at business school. She was gleeful that she had married a man who was smart, and delighted in his cleverness and the general intelligence of his whole extended family.

My father would have become an architect or archaeologist, preferably both, if his life circumstances had allowed it..He was an expert draughtsman. I recently came across a drawing of a font he made at age 10 in some Sunday school assignment. I have no eye for art, but I have seen a lot of fonts, and this drawing is a font, with perfect proportions, and something more , which probably I am just readiing into it. He worked as a carpenter, and some of the furniture he made I have now, and every drawer opens on its edges every time, almost eerily, while the brand-new kitchen drawers regularly stick. He built his own house, adapting standard plans, oversaw and did a lot of the construction. He installed an electric heat system which nobody had in town at the time, and nobody understands including me and my cousin who lives in the house now, but it works great and is cheap.

He didn't get to live to landscape his yard, or build the greenhouse with his neighbour Harry which would have produced pumpkins to astonish the world. But he did get to eat the corn of that same Harry, fresh picked and boiled right there in the field, and so did I, and I am here to tell you that no corn, ever, ever tasted better..

There's a flavor element in all fresh food that dissipates in 24 hours--that's why fresh caught fish can taste so good compared to what comes out of the store--

--Brant

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Another new category, and a shoo-in for a winner -- the Wah'habist Award (big shout-out to our new sponsors!)

The front runner is Thomas M. Miovas Jr of Oonline, the guy who put the Fun back in Fundamentalism, and revitalized the flagging cause of Respect for Respect's Sake. TMM, or Al-Hominem as he's known in the intellectual trenches, brings to mind the greatest figures of Western civilization,, such as PG Wodehouse, and causes us to ask ourselves: If this is Thomas M. Miovas Jr., what on earth can Thomas M. Miovas Senior be like?.

Indeed, and at this point I'm not sure how many posts critical of him I've had deleted. Here's one:

This sort of "armchair xxxxx scientist" is what will make Objectivists look like crackpots... It's actually quite parallel to the LP intellectual myopia that we're discussing here...

http://forum.objecti...ndpost&p=283344

Indeed' date=' this was the subject of my first interaction with Thomas Miovas, when I tried to politely correct a couple misstatements of fact he was making. First he said the CRA was passed under Clinton, I said no, it was Carter, then he fires back that Clinton added the “heavy fines”, um no again, fines are not part of the way the CRA worked. It’s ridiculous how easy this is to check, but reality testing is simply not part of Thomas’s MO; in Objectivist parlance this is called rationalism. Yet here he is to chide others about being “objective”.

Crackpot? Yeah, pretty much, that's the shoe that fits. Now just get him started on Kant, oh boy!!

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

H. L. Mencken[/quote']

This was on the same thread with the Beaker video that was pulled down, and later restored. TMM responded to this by quoting an ignorant rant from Michele Bachmann, but you can't see what he's replying to.

Here's another beauty, this time from Amy Peikoff's blog (page down to the comments).

http://dontletitgo.c...be-bryant-case/

But at least he keeps that plumage preened!

Peikoffparrotsandmyna.jpg

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But at least he keeps that plumage preened!

Peikoffparrotsandmyna.jpg

Jonathan used 3 parrots and a myna for this, but I've come across another avian that ought to be in there, for its name if for nothing else. It's the Southern Red Bishop.

http://en.wikipedia....hern_Red_Bishop

410px-Euplectes_sp_PLW_crop.jpg

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That bishop be too hot for the archdiocese!

I was thinking of Cardinal Richelieu, the Red Eminence. I should have found a picture of one with less of that orange tint.

Southern+red+bishop+male+-+ms+%25287%2529.jpg

449px-Richelieu_La_Rochelle_1881_Henri_Motte_1847_1922.jpg

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That bishop be too hot for the archdiocese!

I was thinking of Cardinal Richelieu, the Red Eminence. I should have found a picture of one with less of that orange tint.

Southern+red+bishop+male+-+ms+%25287%2529.jpg

449px-Richelieu_La_Rochelle_1881_Henri_Motte_1847_1922.jpg

ah, l'eminence grise - yet hot hot hot!

Don't you guys feel resentful that you don't get to dress like that these days?

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ah, l'eminence grise - yet hot hot hot!

Alright, now I'm confused. Grise is grey, not red. Even with a morning head (brew coffee, brew!!) I know that. You're testing your fellow OLers, aren't you? Then you're probably going to some other site and making fun of how ignorant we all are. I'm on to you!

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The story is told of Tallulah Bankhead that she once attended a solemn high mass in St. Patrick's. Cardinal Spellman made an entry up the aisle carrying the monstrance and surrounded by deacons swinging censers. She leaned out to the deacon nearest her and whispered so that everyone in the cathedral could hear, "love the dress, darling, but did you know your purse is on fire?"

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ah, l'eminence grise - yet hot hot hot!

Alright, now I'm confused. Grise is grey, not red. Even with a morning head (brew coffee, brew!!) I know that. You're testing your fellow OLers, aren't you? Then you're probably going to some other site and making fun of how ignorant we all are. I'm on to you!

Actually, grise was what they also called beige in Richie's day. I thought Richilieu was the eminence grise (behind the king) but it was was the Cardinal's drably-clad henchpriest LeClerc who was called the eminence grise behind Richilieu.So yes! you all failed the test ,but so did I . I shall retire to a dark corner and dolefully lick my scraggly plumage back into shape.

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  • 1 month later...

Another new category, and a shoo-in for a winner -- the Wah'habist Award (big shout-out to our new sponsors!)

The front runner is Thomas M. Miovas Jr of Oonline, the guy who put the Fun back in Fundamentalism, and revitalized the flagging cause of Respect for Respect's Sake. TMM, or Al-Hominem as he's known in the intellectual trenches, brings to mind the greatest figures of Western civilization,, such as PG Wodehouse, and causes us to ask ourselves: If this is Thomas M. Miovas Jr., what on earth can Thomas M. Miovas Senior be like?.

Here’s my latest deleted OO post. The moderator claims that the scarecrow video violates the policy: "Healthy debate is encouraged, but participants agree not resort to personal attacks, and do not belittle someone else's argument. Instead of making it personal, participants agree to use rational, persuasive skills to make a point or criticize another’s." This peculiar claim led me make another post today:

http://forum.objecti...100#entry292242

Here’s a link to what I was replying to below:

http://forum.objecti...25

Right...if I haven't listened to Brandon, then I can't possibly know if OPAR is a masterful integration or not. Where do you come up with this stuff?

You claim OPAR is such a great achievement, great enough that Peikoff has earned (in perpetuity?) an extraordinary level of respect and deference. My point was that without studying Branden you can’t judge OPAR’s originality, and further, you presumably have nothing else to compare it to, unless you try to count some other Peikoff course as an alternative.

And, no, I am not talking about non-consensual sex. I'm talking about the man initiating the sexual act, such as foreplay or cuddling in the appropriate context, like a date specifically engaged in to have sex with a woman one loves. As LP pointed out in his retraction podcast, one cannot say that it is rape if the man did not get specific written permission beforehand. Of course, the woman can say NO, I don't want to go any further, and the man would have to back off; but this doesn't mean that the man cannot initiate the physical contact without direct permission.

Peikoff talked about sex, “penile penetration” (his words), not cuddling or foreplay. As already discussed on the date rape thread, rape is sexual battery, non-consensual “cuddling” would be simple battery, not rape. That is, depending on what body parts are being touched, here you’re bringing in "foreplay" too, so it sounds like you’re going to confuse the issue. Peikoff did ramble on at one point about whether a kiss is rape and so on, and if he took the time to look up the meaning of the term “rape” before running his mouth he could have lopped a minute or two off the time he spent. If I touch your shoulder with my finger, it's simple battery. If I touch your vagina with my finger (yes, even with panties on), it's sexual battery.

Do you agree with Peikoff's revised view on withdrawal of consent? Once it's in, too late?

I think that Straw Man presented earlier must have been to your replies.

As presented it’s rather ambiguous, maybe he’ll spell out who he thinks is doing the straw stuffing. There’s certainly no precedent for him sniping at me, we’ve had multiple, agreeable exchanges; not that I mind an intelligent, barbed critique. I’d have put up the Scarecrow’s song from The Wizard of Oz, but that’s just me.

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ND,

Kudos to your yeoman service in checking the premises of the Unmioved Miover. I see that most recently he has combined backpedalling with further lobs of misinformation, such as predating Pope Leonard's "End Enemy States" bull by ten years. Yours is a lonely, thankless job, but someone's got to do it.

It is heartening to see however, that he would not have imprisoned "all people of Japanese decent" in camps in WWII. Ah so! All people of Japanese indecent go to jail must have would put!

In randomly related news, our old friend Seymour, who as we know delights in urging everyone to read the entire oeuvres of top writers as defined by top experts such as herself, recently recommended the works of John Fowles to Soloists. His best novel, she says, was Daniel Deronda.

At this rate, there might soon come another week worth have a Best Of.

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Kudos to your yeoman service in checking the premises of the Unmioved Miover.

I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m afraid something disturbing has happened. Why do I give a crap about what this Miovas moron spews? I fear the answer is that I’ve developed a taste for taunting pseudo-Objectivist schoolmarms, and without Phil around I’m drawn to lesser targets to feed on. Here’s what I wrote in reply to the moderator who was explaining that the post was deleted because of the scarecrow song:

“The scarecrow's song wasn't directed at Thomas. Not necessarily anyway; it did occur to me that he might take it that way, so I was careful to avoid suggesting that it was my way of saying he (or anyone else) lacks a brain and ought to be seeking out the Wizard. I actually do find myself whistling that tune often when I read certain people's posts. He threw the straw man business at me, and he gets to say "may you all be damned" or whatever it was (on the Kant thread). I know he's beyond reachable, but I like the idea that someone's answering him, so newbies and even future generations can see that this crap didn't go unopposed. Imagine if we had writings from 1st century Christians telling St. Paul (Peikoff) and St. Luke (Miovas) to go jump off a cliff. Shit, now I'm starting to sound like a loon too.”

Now I’d had a beer or two, alright at least two, when I wrote that, so clarity may lack but in vino veritas also applies.

None of the above should be construed as me expressing a desire that Phil return to OL.

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But Phil's preachings were at least on behalf of himself and his own vision of ideal Objectivist behaviour. Miovas is a zealous disciple of the Word of Peikoff which is the only Path to True Objectivism. Strait is the gate and narrow is the way...

At least you must have the guilty pleasure of knowing you're sending him round the twist.

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There are some strange mental antics at work with some Objectivists. It looks like a kind

of "zero-sum" game to me:

"If I can convince myself that O'ist 'A' is completely without integrity, then it must follow that 'B' is of total integrity (and vice-versa). Again, if it can be shown that Dr Y is intellectually in error, then Dr Z has to be 100% right."

An admission to oneself that L. Peikoff has something wrong - or did something

wrongly - would be tantamount to accepting D. Kelley is not "a traitor" but an excellent

academic; or, Heaven forbid!

- that Nathaniel Branden has behaved with impeccable integrity for his entire career.

When will O'ists break out of the tribalism, and admit that the greatest intellects

are still human?

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There are some strange mental antics at work with some Objectivists. It looks like a kind

of "zero-sum" game to me:

"If I can convince myself that O'ist 'A' is completely without integrity, then it must follow that 'B' is of total integrity (and vice-versa). Again, if it can be shown that Dr Y is intellectually in error, then Dr Z has to be 100% right."

An admission to oneself that L. Peikoff has something wrong - or did something

wrongly - would be tantamount to accepting D. Kelley is not "a traitor" but an excellent

academic; or, Heaven forbid!

- that Nathaniel Branden has behaved with impeccable integrity for his entire career.

When will O'ists break out of the tribalism, and admit that the greatest intellects

are still human?

There are some strange mental antics at work with some Objectivists. It looks like a kind

of "zero-sum" game to me:

"If I can convince myself that O'ist 'A' is completely without integrity, then it must follow that 'B' is of total integrity (and vice-versa). Again, if it can be shown that Dr Y is intellectually in error, then Dr Z has to be 100% right."

An admission to oneself that L. Peikoff has something wrong - or did something

wrongly - would be tantamount to accepting D. Kelley is not "a traitor" but an excellent

academic; or, Heaven forbid!

- that Nathaniel Branden has behaved with impeccable integrity for his entire career.

When will O'ists break out of the tribalism, and admit that the greatest intellects

are still human?

But Tony, does not some of this arise from the uncompromising nature of the philosophy's foundations? " A cannot be non-A"===and the numerous black-white alternatives Rand made in her own aphoristic statements? Food or poison (or dirt, I forget which) selfish or altruistic, liberty lover or liberty hater -- this comes down in the minds of such as Valliant, that there can only be a good, and an opposite evil, and good and evil cannot coexist in one human being. It's all or nothing.

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Carol,

That is an endlessly absorbing question that you've laid out well. I'll try.

Reality contains no compromise.

But ideas have, and do.

People hold those compromised ideas.

And sometimes people act on their flawed ideas.

i.e. People may compromise themselves, and so, others.

What I'm getting at is such a hierarchical structure that one should hold clearly in mind,

before leaping to judgment. For example, a bad -> vicious idea, never carried to its conclusion, is only an idea. It can't touch you. The person who holds such thoughts can be open to debate, or when reason fails, walked away from.

Simply, in my opinion, an idea can be evil, but a person might not be. An objectivist becomes expert at identifying concepts, but 1. ideas are mostly highly complex, and mixed 2. People have 'breaches' between their convictions, their characters, and their acts.

All of which means assessment of others and their principles should be VERY deliberate, and lean to benevolence.

The uncompromising nature of Objectivism evolves from reality -yes. Also, from its founder

who saw with unparelleled clarity the effects on humanity of bad ideas. (One can try - as I do sometimes - to put oneself in her head, and see all the tragic consequences probable down the line; it's a sobering experience. To me, it explains in part her intolerant impatience with others - to please, WAKE UP!)

If one begins with a compromise, one will always be compromised, and be open to further compromise.

Start with "black - white", and one can find the greys, the contexts and exceptions.

I do not have AR's vision of the 'whole elephant', and don't know if any do: I can only plod along working things out, as I go. (A tusk, here; a leg, there :))

To swallow whole Rand's (mostly accurate) uncompromising judgments - as some O'ists do - and accuse people of "evil" (especially other O'ists) at every chance, is presumptuous mimicry, I think.

Pardon - this was going to be brief. The subject grows bigger as I write.

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Miovas is simply sweeping the noms as he continues to enlighten and delight the readers of Oonline with his panoramic and insightful knowledge of history. Recently he asserted that the Islamic Renaissance, aka Golden Age, was a minor brief episode, caused by three philosophers, one of whom he thought was named Ibn, but he wasn't sure. When informed that the minor episode lasted longer than the United States has to date, he sagely replied, "I would have to confirm that."

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Tony,

Thank you for your as ever thoughtful and insightful post (I don't dare quote as you would find yourself cloned ,due to my wonky quote function and nonexistent Edit. It was certainly not too long, but a fine exposition of the best that Objectivists can seek, and find, in their philosophy. As you know I never could start the journey; something in me can never feel that my A is your A.

But it is always a pleasure to meet in the grey zone which shimmers with so many beautiful tones of silver, opal , smoke and the occasional misty mirror, through whose glass I see darkly, but you see crystal clear.

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Funny thing is Carol, if one day you met me by chance without that big sign over my head

saying "OBJECTIVIST" you wouldn't think I was too different (OK, my friends think

I'm a bit odd - but the hell with them) - and we'd find a lot to talk about, and

agree on, I suspect.

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