It would be nice for the second of February to celebrated instead of President's Day
Her fame will grow.Thank you Ayn Rand! Well done!
Full Version: Happy Birthday Ayn Rand
Is there anything more to say.
As I said before...
*RAISES THE ROOF FOR AYN RAND*
Maybe I can have a mixture of an Ayn Rand/Super Bowl party tomorrow. Let's all eat pizza! I'm buyin'!
*RAISES THE ROOF FOR AYN RAND*
Maybe I can have a mixture of an Ayn Rand/Super Bowl party tomorrow. Let's all eat pizza! I'm buyin'!
I love celebrating February 2. It's the day when, if Ayn Rand sees her shadow, we'll have 6 decades of mysticism-altruism-collectivism. 
REB
REB
Happy Birthday Ayn Rand
I'm declaring today a holiday so everyone take the day off and enjoy some pizza and cake.
I don't know how appropriate it is to sing happy birthday considering the birthday girl isn't with us now, but do some celebrating anyway.
Kat & Michael
There's a line in The Big Chill where one of the characters says something about having a great party and you not being able to be there. I think it would alright to do that even if Ayn is not there.
QUOTE(Chris Grieb @ Feb 2 2008, 09:58 AM) 
There's a line in The Big Chill where one of the characters says something about having a great party and you not being able to be there. I think it would alright to do that even if Ayn is not there.
Just don't holler "SURPRISE". You know how she hated that!
REB
QUOTE(Roger Bissell @ Feb 2 2008, 12:59 PM)
Just don't holler "SURPRISE". You know how she hated that!
Roger,
And it would require a complete overhaul of Objectivist metaphysics if she heard it.
Michael
QUOTE(Michael Stuart Kelly @ Feb 2 2008, 11:18 AM)
QUOTE(Roger Bissell @ Feb 2 2008, 12:59 PM)
Just don't holler "SURPRISE". You know how she hated that!
Roger,
And it would require a complete overhaul of Objectivist metaphysics if she heard it.
Michael
You mean, all these years, she's been spontaneously rolling over in her grave, with no sensory input?
Happy 103rd, AR!!!
I just wish that if she could be here today, she would recognize all of the amazingly good things that are happening in the world now, and take heart.
Robert Campbell
I just wish that if she could be here today, she would recognize all of the amazingly good things that are happening in the world now, and take heart.
Robert Campbell
QUOTE(Robert Campbell @ Feb 2 2008, 09:33 PM)
she would recognize all of the amazingly good things that are happening in the world now, and take heart.
Not to quibble, could you remind me what those good things are?
Thanks,
W.
Omygod, she was an Aquarius??? That explains EVERYTHING! 
QUOTE(Wolf DeVoon @ Feb 2 2008, 11:36 PM)
QUOTE(Robert Campbell @ Feb 2 2008, 09:33 PM)
she would recognize all of the amazingly good things that are happening in the world now, and take heart.
Not to quibble, could you remind me what those good things are?
Thanks,
W.
*coughs* *points to herself* *points at Objectivist Living* *points at New England Patriots* *points at Texas*
Oh, and not to mention: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rgqCB8IW-bA
*cough* points to the iMac on which this comment is being written, and the Internet on which it is being sent...
Robert Campbell
Robert Campbell
And... the CD I'm playing on my computer of Marc-André Hamelin playing Alkan's Piano Concerto for Solo Piano (i.e., where one human being with 10 fingers gets to play the orchestral parts and the solo part all at once).
When Charles-Valentin Alkan was on the planet (1813-1888), the only way to hear it would have been to attend a public concert by Alkan (which would have required living in Paris, and waiting a lot longer than fans of Vladimir Horowitz had to wait for him to return to the concert stage).
Oops, except Alkan's concert programs apparently never included this piece. And back then nobody else tried to play it in public, not even Alkan's old friend and rival Franz Liszt.
At a record club this CD put me all of 9 devalued US smackers out of pocket.
Robert Campbell
When Charles-Valentin Alkan was on the planet (1813-1888), the only way to hear it would have been to attend a public concert by Alkan (which would have required living in Paris, and waiting a lot longer than fans of Vladimir Horowitz had to wait for him to return to the concert stage).
Oops, except Alkan's concert programs apparently never included this piece. And back then nobody else tried to play it in public, not even Alkan's old friend and rival Franz Liszt.
At a record club this CD put me all of 9 devalued US smackers out of pocket.
Robert Campbell
Alkan was also Chopin's friend and neighbor in Paris; they played together in concerts and shared piano students. The story goes that he died when his book case fell over him when he reached for a book on a high shelf. Now that would be a glorious death!
QUOTE(Robert Campbell @ Feb 3 2008, 02:33 PM)
*cough* points to the iMac on which this comment is being written, and the Internet on which it is being sent...
Robert Campbell
Robert Campbell
Okay, I see. Thank you.
W.
footnote
I'm not quite done with this topic. A long time ago I wrote:
What bothers me more than a little is the fact that no 'carrier class' intellectual leader emerged to follow in Rand's path and win the battle for reason and justice. Acknowledging her birth and death is sad indeed, for no greater soul has risen up.
I'll be traveling for a couple weeks starting Friday.
W.
QUOTE
To make sense of Rand's private struggle, and to put the issue to rest, I will state the matter in military terms with a little help from C.S. Forester, who wrote The African Queen, The General, Beat to Quarters and the rest of the Hornblower saga. During WWII, Forester sailed in various Royal Navy vessels, including a cruiser in the Mediterranean. No finer account of war heroism exists in literature. Here's how he described a WWII cruiser, with its thin, fast hull and heavy gun turrets: an eggshell armed with sledgehammers.
I am such a critter. I understand Ayn Rand's personal vulnerability and erratic emotional life. We, each of us, are exactly so -- incomplete as moral animals, but capable of professional work. In Rand's case and mine (with no comparison of stature implied), personal life was torn and strewn with wreckage after being hit by half a dozen enemy shells. Like the thin skin of a cruiser, no sensitive, inspired writer/philosopher is designed to take a beating. That's the difference between a battleship and a cruiser. We have virtually no armor, just big guns. If you inquire of a navy strategist, he'll confirm that battleships are no longer important assets. It is the modern cruiser that is relied upon to enforce command of the sea and to protect vulnerable, very costly aircraft carriers. The loss of a cruiser is nothing, compared to a carrier -- a Thomas Jefferson, an Abe Lincoln, a Martin Luther King -- each of whom fought battles and won victories that smaller, more energetic men made possible by their discoveries; i.e., Jefferson followed Paine, Lincoln followed Jackson, King followed Gandhi.
The philosophical-military situation today is that Ayn Rand is gone. We lost our best and fastest cruiser.
I am such a critter. I understand Ayn Rand's personal vulnerability and erratic emotional life. We, each of us, are exactly so -- incomplete as moral animals, but capable of professional work. In Rand's case and mine (with no comparison of stature implied), personal life was torn and strewn with wreckage after being hit by half a dozen enemy shells. Like the thin skin of a cruiser, no sensitive, inspired writer/philosopher is designed to take a beating. That's the difference between a battleship and a cruiser. We have virtually no armor, just big guns. If you inquire of a navy strategist, he'll confirm that battleships are no longer important assets. It is the modern cruiser that is relied upon to enforce command of the sea and to protect vulnerable, very costly aircraft carriers. The loss of a cruiser is nothing, compared to a carrier -- a Thomas Jefferson, an Abe Lincoln, a Martin Luther King -- each of whom fought battles and won victories that smaller, more energetic men made possible by their discoveries; i.e., Jefferson followed Paine, Lincoln followed Jackson, King followed Gandhi.
The philosophical-military situation today is that Ayn Rand is gone. We lost our best and fastest cruiser.
What bothers me more than a little is the fact that no 'carrier class' intellectual leader emerged to follow in Rand's path and win the battle for reason and justice. Acknowledging her birth and death is sad indeed, for no greater soul has risen up.
I'll be traveling for a couple weeks starting Friday.
W.
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