Introducing myself

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

George,

Does she wallop you?

All right, all right...

I get it...

There's nothing worse than an overextended thingie that should stop.

Michael

[william.scherk]

I don't know who is more excited to see another woman here... me or all these dudes.

Me. It isn't that I want to go all Trudeau about gender balance, but it is my impression that discussion always improves when women are in the room. Ladies, women, gals, broads -- without the female perspective, we are sometimes crippled when discussing Women. There is a majesty to an intelligent, educated individual, but an added majesty when it is a woman; perhaps this is why Perigo fawned mawkishly over Barbara by dubbing her 'Majesty,' having discovered an adjective that applied outside mawkishmess.

When I look back on my gay life, I realized exactly half the lessons in life are delivered by females. In a good life, anyway. It always depressed me how many gay men lived separately from women. It was not monastic, but libertine. Women too can choose to live separately from men, and in some cases featuring abuse, violence and intimidation, I don't blame them. I have met a few single mothers who became single mothers after being punched in the face.

If I sound sombre, it is that death has stalked my family this month. It makes me appreciative of fine people, and full of wishes.

A close relative by marriage is scheduled to die this Sunday, when life-support is removed after five months in hospital. A younger man than I. We memorialize a family friend who died after a lunch. Also a younger man.

Back to the topic, yeah. Great to have women on board, even if a minority. My OL experience is always brightened by Deana, for example, and I expect it to be brightened by Marilyn.

Welcome aboard, Marilyn! Join the august company of sailors and acronyms Reb!, WSS, MSK, Ghs, MEM, etc.

Marilyn Moore

I just joined Objectivist Living

George H. Smith

Is my dear friend and partner in life

For years George has told me about the people involved with OL, their

Intelligence

Perspicacity

Sense of humor

He considers you his friends

I teach composition at Triton College

In River Grove, Illinois

I am

An avid gardener

Reader

Co-editor of a book with George,

Individualism: A Reader

George has assured me

No one will attack me

For at least a month

It will take at least three months

Before I get dragged

Into a pointless flamewar

Plenty of time to adapt

Poetry!

Marilyn,

What an honor!

btw - If you didn't bring one, I can loan you an extra chainsaw.

I don't think Marilyn will need a chainsaw. She is an excellent writer, skilled in the art of zingers, and can employ her acid wit, when needed. Marilyn has put me in my place more than once. And if she can back me down, I doubt if she will have a problem with anyone else on this list.

Zingers, acid wit, excellent command of the written language, with individual style and panache. What is not to love? Varied bad-tempered front-porch spitters and hawkers will be struck mute in apprehension, no doubt. I am thinking of such wit going up against Wolf, should he return from his moratorium.

About my fee: I insist on American dollars. If I am not going to get paid for something, I prefer not to get paid in something that has value. That way, I can dream of the things I won't able to buy.

B-b-b-b-but you don't vote.

How dare you insist on the script of a country you refuse to vote in?

I have a perfectly good Monopoly game and it comes with all the dollars you will ever need. I can even throw in a tip.

Since you won't be paying me, I think I should have the choice of the currency in which I'm not paid. But I would be willing to agree on a gift certificate from Amazon. That way, when I don't get the Amazon credit, I won't be able to buy books that I like. Deal?

I am suggesting this arrangement because Marilyn is very sharp in financial matters, and I want to impress her.

I think the circle needs closing, and that the Bank of MSK should hold a large deposit against future yearnings. Five hundred US dollars in reserve. In metaphor and in practice. It is a better way of accounting than Sumerian tokens or crows.

Marilyn,

I'm glad that you took my advice and joined OL. You will be a welcome addition to this gathering of heretical Objectivists, philosophical mavericks, and social nonconformists. I have belonged to many e-lists and online forums over the past 15 years, and I regard OL as the gold standard for serious intellectuals, writers, and troublemakers.

Ghs

fresh meat

Yes, meat. Ordinarily fresh meat here is treated with suspicion. It is a syndrome of a ten-year old forum. Most times newcomers flame out spectacularly if and when the Front Porch inspects their arguments for rot and fat and grass and sinkholes. Our newcomer Arkadi has beat the odds, but the number of entrants who have fallen or been gored is frightfully large, looking back over the last three years. Many are called, few are chosen to 'belong.'

It looks like MLM is 'pre-belonged' ... she doesn't have to fight for a rocker on the porch, so to speak. That is a good thing.

Reading these comments makes me wish I had stayed up a little later, but as a composition teacher, I lead by example, which means I have to be awake during the day. Many students don't understand this, and it is an uphill battle. Do I get a share of George's finders fee?

Fresh mete?

You are not overdrawn on the Bank of MSK, let's put it that way. Most newcomers come in owing bigtime.

I sure look forward to new topics you may introduce, and also to the spice you will add to topics that interest you. Beware of the Trump thread, It is full of sinkholes.

Edited February 3, 2016 by william.scherk

[George H. Smith]

I am posting (possibly reposting) this video so people can view the short introduction by Marilyn. Her laughter will tell you more about her than I could possibly do in words.

Around 3 years ago Marilyn did a number of interviews with me on atheism, which we taped for YouTube. Marilyn did terrific introductions for those videos, but one in particular is among my favorites. In the introduction for Part 2 of "Happiness in a Godless World," she flubbed a line and laughed. Although we went on to film the complete introduction free from errors, after reviewing the takes I suggested to Marilyn that we use this outtake. After all, what could be a better introduction to a theory of happiness than spontaneous laughter? Marilyn readily agreed. The interview itself is unimportant for my purpose here (unless you are interested in my discussion of Rand's theory of happiness, beginning at around 8 minutes) Just watch the introduction.

Ghs

[Roger Bissell]

George,

Does she wallop you?

All right, all right...

I get it...

There's nothing worse than an overextended thingie that should stop.

Michael

Michael is so right about this. But almost as bad is the problem of getting an *under*extended thingie to *not* stop. And in general, it's a challenge to get thingies to extend just the right amount and to stop at just the right time.

Reb!

[George H. Smith]

George,

Does she wallop you?

All right, all right...

I get it...

There's nothing worse than an overextended thingie that should stop.

Michael

Michael is so right about this. But almost as bad is the problem of getting an *under*extended thingie to *not* stop. And in general, it's a challenge to get thingies to extend just the right amount and to stop at just the right time.

Reb!

I should mention that the theme music in the video I just posted was composed by Roger. (Marilyn and I used that theme in all of our YouTube videos.) Roger sent the music file within a few days after my initial email, and his price was very reasonable--considerably less, actually, than I expected. The music file was ready to use; all I had to do was insert it into the video editor.

I am mentioning this in case other OLers plan on making their own videos. To use original music adds class to any video and gives it a more professional feel. So I encourage other potential video makers to ask Roger what he can do for them. His asking price will probably be more affordable than you might think, and he will send the music for your approval, so you won't be stuck with music that you don't care for.

Ghs

[MLM]

George,

Does she wallop you?

All right, all right...

I get it...

There's nothing worse than an overextended thingie that should stop.

Michael

Michael is so right about this. But almost as bad is the problem of getting an *under*extended thingie to *not* stop. And in general, it's a challenge to get thingies to extend just the right amount and to stop at just the right time.

Reb!

I should mention that the theme music in the video I just posted was composed by Roger. (Marilyn and I used that theme in all of our YouTube videos.) Roger sent the music file within a few days after my initial email, and his price was very reasonable--considerably less, actually, than I expected. The music file was ready to use; all I had to do was insert it into the video editor.

I am mentioning this in case other OLers plan on making their own videos. To use original music adds class to any video and gives it a more professional feel. So I encourage other potential video makers to ask Roger what he can do for them. His asking price will probably be more affordable than you might think, and he will send the music for your approval, so you won't be stuck with music that you don't care for.

Ghs

​That music has been in my head the last few days. Maybe it's time to make another video, George. We could talk about the new ATCAG. MLM

(I had to go back and edit in my signature. So much for witty repartee. Obviously, it is going to take a little while for me to move in and get comfortable here, but I'm looking forward to it. )

[anthony]

Marilyn: Welcome! My manners ...

A great chuckle and a lovely mind, what more is there? Ah, a woman and individualist too!

[Peter]

Welcome again to Ms. Moore. I was just trying to be friendly. Thanks a lot George for being so mean, walloping me and uttering some brilliant, phony slurs against Saint Ayn. Now I will show Ms Moore how I like to strike back. Tora tora tora! Oh. I get it. George wants me to demonstrate some of my tomfoolery.

That ponytail of George’s? Is he growing it to be in the Broadway Rap Muzical “Hamilton” (or should the Z be an X in a non - musical, musical?) I think the rapping would grow old after ten minutes into the play but it still looks interesting. The writer and star appeared on a very good episode of House (in the loony bin) and the actor was a rapper in that too.

My second choice for the ponytail look would be George playing a clairvoyant Alexander Hamilton at Williamsburg, Virginia. Hey, it’s 15 bucks an hour and a chance to play dress up. I don't think I could write rap dialogue anyway.

Ghs as Hamilton: The Anti-federalists were right, I tell ya. It was a bad idea to make the Constitution supreme law of the land, made worse by inverting the doctrine of enumerated powers in exchange for meaningless "protections" of the Bill of Rights that were ignored and interpreted away to nothing. Let me read the future. Move back away from the rope little girl, ya bother me. What did the Constitution and Bill of Rights achieve? -- Civil War, conscription, paper money, railroad land grants.

The costumed James Madison replies: I suggest the failure to find a "general right of freedom" in the Constitution is connected to a general inability to understand the ninth amendment's declaration that: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Ghs as Hamilton: Sigh. You are right James. We would still be a colony of England if we did not have a Constitution. Or if anarchy persisted, France might have taken over the whole continent. I am cloudy about so many eventualities.

How is that for an example? I see Rand Paul has dropped out. Will his supporters shift to Ted Cruz?
Peter

[MLM]

​That's a good example. I think George would be a brilliant Hamilton on the stage. He knows federalist types so well, having countered every argument they've ever made.

I have a number of thoughts on the presidential race, but topiary is what I really have on my mind. For many years I have been a member of a garden club. We meet monthly from September to June. The Garden Club met today and we discussed topiary; in particular, the practice of shaping and pruning plants around metal forms so that they look like animals, people, buildings, and the like. I bring it up here because at least two philosophers have found topiary alarming enough to argue against. Alexander Pope wrote a letter to The Guardian (September 29, 1713) specifically to ridicule the practice as perverse. He wrote: "We seem to make it our study to recede from Nature, not only in the various tonsure of greens into the most regular and formal hopes, but even in monstrous attempts beyond the reach of art itself; we run into sculpture, and are yet better to have our trees in the most awkward figures of men and animals, than in the most regular of their own." Pope goes on to say that "persons of genius, and those who are most capable of art, are always most fond of Nature; as such are chiefly sensible that all art consists in the imitation and study of Nature."

In his essay "On Liberty," John Stuart Mill also takes aim at topiary: "In some such insidious form there is at present a strong tendency to this narrow theory of life [i.e., Calvinism], and to the pinched and hidebound type of human character which it patronizes. Many persons, no doubt sincerely think that human beings thus cramped and dwarfed, are as their Maker designed them to be; just as many have thought that trees are a much finer thing when clipped into pollards, or cut out into figures of animals, than as nature made them."

Would Rand have dismissed topiary as decorative, or would she have argued explicitly against it? Does she mention it anywhere? One of the things I admire most about her is her willingness to weigh in on everything. Frank O'Conner liked to garden. They must have discussed it. MLM

[Selene]

FYI OL:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topiary

OL - ongoing learning...

A...

[Brant Gaede]

Oh, oh. This thread has gone above and beyond my pay grade.

--Brant

[Peter]

I have never tried topiary though a few times I have trimmed our maybe ten shrubs in different ways.

When I lived in Japan at age 18 I inherited a small bonsai tree from an expat who was leaving (and a small three wheeled truck from a sailor who was going home) I tried to trim the mini tree as little as possible since I knew little about the custom and I gave it too much fertilizer. It was fascinating to become so involved with a plant. When I left Japan I gave it a good home.

I occasionally vegetable garden but the beauty of the outside of our house I owe to my wife. This year I may grow some herbs to go with the veggies.

Peter

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

In life, I don't know re Rand and topiary. But in death...

From Goddess of the Market by Jennifer Burns, p. 278:

Her funeral was an event to rival the great Objectivist gatherings of the past. Close to a thousand mourners paid her final tribute, waiting for hours outside the funeral home on Madison Avenue. Her last battles, breakups, and flights of inspiration behind her, Rand lay facing the world in an open casket. Next to her coffin was an enormous topiary, shaped into the sign of the dollar.

Michael