multiple choice quiz

[Roger Bissell]

To whom does the following recently posted phrase refer: "Those dishonest bastards"

1. The Bush Administration (as written by Hillary Clinton)

2. The Republican Party (as written by Nancy Pelosi)

3. Kat and Michael (as written by someone whose compulsion for bashing David Kelley and the Brandens is the verbal equivalent of eating Krispy Kreme donuts, who seems more unable than ever to turn her focus to offering positive contributions to philosophy, and whose name will not be remembered by anyone 100, no, 50 years from now)

[Jody Gomez]

Roger,

You should never be a professor, your tests are way too easy. ;)

Now of course, ask it in 50 years are so, when said person is forgotten, and you've got yourself a tricky question.

[Kat]

Did somebody actually call us that or are you just stirring up trouble? Well, if they did, then bottoms up to them too! (see humor).

Kat

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

Actually the "dishonesty" kneejerk is so predictable by Rand-personality-worshippers (a type of Objectivist) that you can set it up and it becomes very funny slapstick.

Have you ever seen a comedian say that he can walk on water? He goes up a ladder to a tank and you know he is going to fall in. But after a huge build-up, he steps out on the water and sinks. And for some reason, it is funny as all get out. (Probably the Rand-personality-worshipper would call the people who laugh "dishonest" about something or the other for that reaction...)

There is an infamous episode - the "Hellen affair" - where NB set up that particular Rand-personality-deifier. He did the "dishonest" thing whole-hog, even having a person post over there under a false name.

He gave the situation three chances before an accusation of "dishonest" popped out.

If you read that passage, you get the feeling that you are looking at the comedian who will walk on water. For as "objective" as the Rand-personality-deifier wished to be, you know that she (or another of her ilk) will have to sink. She claims that she will be objective (or metaphorically, walk on water for that kind of mentality), and she even tests the waters. But sink on time she does. Out pops the accusation of "dishonest" (and she even called NB a "prick" later - and, of course, the ever damning "dishonest").

btw - How she found out was that he fessed up at the end.

I still crack up at that goof...

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Kat, you wrote:

Did somebody actually call us that or are you just stirring up trouble?

The two aren't mutually exclusive, Kat. It really happened, and I really am being a provocateur. :evil:

In response to a guy named Joe Steele (you'd almost think his name was an Anglicization of Josef Stalin :-), the following was written this Wednesday past by Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, or the third (unnamed, but well described) person:

I was already planning to comment on that absurd charge against Robert Mayhew's _Ayn Rand Answers_ in a regular blog post, simply because it's SO COMPLETELY FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS to accuse him of dishonest airbrushing of any sort. It's simply amazing to me what kind of malicious, sloppy, irresponsible half-truths people -- like you, I suppose -- will sling simply in order to denigrate ARI and its affiliated scholars.

And by what kind of ludicrous standard is *not repeating material already in print* in a book like _The Art of Fiction_ a "reprehensible practice"?

And don't EVER EVER repost material from ObjectivistLiving in these comments again. It's revolting to even contemplate, given the owners' undying adulatory love for the Brandens. Those dishonest bastards wouldn't be allowed to post here, so you don't get to be their conduit.

I think you can see by the context that you and Michael were the ones being referred to as "those dishonest bastards." Of course, given the out-of-control rant nature of the comments, it's possible that she was referring to all of us who post here -- but I'd like to think it was a form of professional jealousy of one forum-owner to another. :-)

Since we've been concerned here at Objectivist Living with all the "airbrushing" by ARI et al of the Brandens et al, you and our other friends might be amused to see the following response to the above feverish remarks. It was posted by Carla Marks (any relation to the author of Das Kapital?):

your point is well taken about some of "airbrushing" Joe Steele referred to. E.g., "I was already planning to comment on that absurd charge against Robert Mayhew's _Ayn Rand Answers_ in a regular blog post, simply because it's SO COMPLETELY FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS to accuse him of dishonest airbrushing of any sort." And "by what kind of ludicrous standard is *not repeating material already in print* in a book like _The Art of Fiction_ a "reprehensible practice"?"

However, I'm a little puzzled why you glossed over (heck, you *ignored*) Joe's two other examples. One -- the Esthetic Vacuum Q&A session where Barbara Branden is deleted (cutting the recording from 60 minutes down to 40) and John Hospers is a disembodied voice with no identity. Two -- the deletion of Nathaniel and Barbara's voices from the recorded versions of the Fiction Writing lectures.

Maybe you regard these not as "airbrushing," but instead *major surgery*? Seems kinda like there's some butchering going on over at the AR Bookstore, or by whoever prepares these things for our consumption. Don't you find that the *least* bit dishonest? Is that why you didn't comment on those examples? Or perhaps they were just PARTIALLY FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS? Please clarify.

Screaming with capital letters can be irritating, but it can also show just how over the top emotionally someone has become. Too bad all that energy isn't put to constructive use, eh? :-s

REB

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

Aw, come on. Since when were you ever so modest?

You know full well that you deserve to be a full-fledged "dishonest bastard" too.

It's in your nature...

(Ya think trombone has something to do with it?)

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

OK, Michael, no more false modesty. Yes, I'm a bastard, too.

But hey, I've already gotten 235 Atlas points for this joke over on Rebirth of Reason!

Oh...uh...well, sorry, I lied. :---) It's just 28 Atlas points.

Guess that makes me a dishonest bastard. (Please don't tell my mom I found out about the last part.)

REB

P.S. -- It may have something to do with being a trombone player. I learned early on how to play "false tones" in the low register. Back when I was single and would play false tones, women would fall into a rage and tell me "THAT IS SO TOTALLY FUCKING OUTRAGEOUS WHEN YOU DO THAT! YOU LYING BASTARD!" Once they cooled down, I would show them how I was able to play in 7 positions, and they would usually melt into my arms, heh-heh. :-)

[Dragonfly]

It's downright comical! How hysterical can you get? And this is supposed to be the voice of reason and rationality? :green :green :green

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Let's be absolutely clear on definitions.

Honest = Anyone who agrees with anything I say is true.

Dishonest = Anyone who disagrees.

O:)

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

btw - How she found out [re the "Hellen" affair] was that he fessed up at the end.

I still crack up at that goof...

She found out when he fessed up after he fucked up. He forgot to change the "From" setting and posted under his own name. I'm unsure which "goof" you're speaking of: Diana's in falling for the pseudonym to start with (I suspected immediately -- as it happened the incident occurred on a day when I checked her blog); or Nathaniel's in slipping so soon. NB was foolish to try that stunt, given how careless he is with email procedures. He was guaranteed to slip -- and in one respect slipped even with the first post, since the spelling in the "From" line and the signature on the post weren't the same. (One was spelled "Hellen"; the other "Helen.") What I wonder is if he got the "Helen" name from remembrances of Helena Handbasket (the all-time funniest email spoof I recall, a fake poster in the early days of Old Atlantis).

Ellen

__

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Ellen,

For some reason that makes it even funnier to me. Talk about slapstick! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL...

Dayaamm!

A wonderful opportunity for a good-natured poking in the ribs was completely wasted. The pouting that went on after that reminded me of kids in grade school or kindergarten.

I don't know Nathaniel all that well yet, but from the banter that is now going on in emails with him, I get the impression that he has a sense of humor that is vastly different than the Randroid brigade. He is very playful.

My own experience with hardcore Rand-personality-worshippers is that they only laugh when they can find something morally contemptuous to laugh at, so even a chuckle from them comes off as derisive. And they get really pissed by belly-laughs from others. (I have a theory that they are really, really envious of the good time and sheer joy another expresses when he cuts loose with a belly-laugh because they are spiritually plugged up, but more on that later.) Apparently they take the Toohey description so much to heart (that you destroy the good by laughing at it) that they forget that you actually can laugh at something good that is funny and still love and respect it. You know, the old idea of laughing with someone and not at them. You can do that with things too.

There was an entry awhile back from the Rand-personality-worshipper of the hour - about Plato and a sense of humor or something like that - where she explained that she needed to "program her subconscious" in order to get rid of the impulse to laugh at funny things when such things were "inappropriate," thus she could become a better little Randroid. I got goosebumps of creepy-crawly reading that one.

So why do I even read her? Probably for the same reason we all read each other. She sometimes posts some really good stuff. But also for the knuckle-headed stuff too. In the words of Roger Rabbit, "She makes me laugh."

Michael

[Jody Gomez]

Someone needs to fill me in on this little incident, or direct to where I can fill myself in. Sounds like something hillarious happened.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Belly-laughing might be verboten to Objectivists. I don't recall ever hearing Rand laugh in a style which could plausibly be described as "belly-laughing." Her laughter (on those occasions when I heard her laugh) was describable as falling into either category A or B in a quantumized world (nothing in between): every now and then (charmingly, I felt), a childlike gay pleasure; much more often, a brief sarcastic "snort." Now, granted, I didn't frequent the degree of close proximity wherein I might have heard a wider range. I avoided that degree of close proximateness, anticipating the clash of personalities almost sure to result (and soon) if I circled too close. So I suppose it's possible that others had opportunities to hear a greater variety in her styles of laughing. But I think it might be fair to say that "belly laugh" and "Objectivist" are near contradictions in terms. ;-)

Ellen

PS: Jody, I don't have the URL to hand where Diana posted the whole sequence, or I'd provide it for you. I'd need to search, and I'm afraid I wouldn't find what I was looking for in less than an hour or so. But maybe one of the others can assist.

___

[Barbara Branden]

Ellen: "remembrances of Helena Handbasket (the all-time funniest email spoof I recall, a fake poster in the early days of Old Atlantis)."

It was hilarious! If you remember any of the details, please do post them.

Barbara

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ellen: "remembrances of Helena Handbasket (the all-time funniest email spoof I recall, a fake poster in the early days of Old Atlantis)."

It was hilarious! If you remember any of the details, please do post them.

Barbara

Barbara,

I have the whole set of posts, but not the time to dig them out just now. Besides, would anyone else here find them so rib-cracking as you, I, Roger, and Jonathan would? Doesn't one have to have some familiarity with Ellen Moore to quite get it? But I'll try to see what I can do this next week, re finding the HH stuff. (I'm afraid that my personal archives have become lamentably disorganized.)

Ellen

___

[Ellen Stuttle]

Folks, I'm up late again -- me and my night-owl habits (aggravated by my afore-described problem these days with light setting off the polio-related muscle twitches; thus I've become even more night-owlish than I've always been).

I thought of something which Larry and I find very funny, a take-off on "The Jewish Dilemma." (Keep in mind that Larry comes from Jewish ancestry; this isn't meant as a racial slur; indeed the biggest purveyors of Jewish jokes are persons who know from first-hand experience that to which the jokes refer.) The Jewish Dilemma is: "Ham at half-price."

Well, one late night when Larry and I were snuggling and happened to be reminiscing re AR, he said, "The AR dilemma: Frank comes home with flowers and says 'Surprise!'" ("I don't like surprises," she's expected to reply, but what's she to do when it's her husband bringing her flowers?) Another is about the florist messenger. This was told to us years ago by Dave Dawson, who claimed to have been there. (Dave Dawson was Joan Kennedy Taylor's husband.) An AT&T florist delivery person appeared in the hallway of the apartment building when Dave was in the hallway about to pay a visit to AR and Frank. As was characteristic in those days, the messenger was dressed to look like the Mercury/Hermes logo symbol. AR became upset: Hermes was a god in Greek times; he was a messenger; he was important; you shouldn't be mocking him! Etc., she told the hapless delivery person. Dave Dawson, I'll add, is the intrepid soul of whom it's said that he invited AR to a performance of an opera at the Met, I think it was La Boheme. People were scared to accompany her to public performances because of her proclivity for stating her opinions out loud and loudly.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jody,

Here are two links to the Hellen affair.

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2004/08/unn...y-evidence.html

http://angermanagement.mu.nu/archives/040701.html

On rereading it, it is as Ellen said - NB kinda slipped on a banana peel. Still his last words to the Rand-personality-worshipper were:

Go ahead, my dear old friend, attack away!

I still say what I have said to you before: one day Leonard P. and his associates will be too much, even for you, and your natural intelligence will reassert itself, and you will leave the ARI world (if you are not excommunicated first)...and then all these exchanges will be understood in a different light.

With all good wishes,

Nathaniel

And her last words on that topic were:

As of this morning, I did not need any further confirmation that Nathaniel Branden is a dishonest prick. But I got it anyway.

If you check out the comments (or "Noodles" as may be the case) to both links above, you will find some highly amusing parts. One poster mentioned that in Judgment Day NB changed his "voice" to different subpersonalities along the narration, most especially to an adolescent subpersonality during the incest passages. When questioned about what "incest passages" he was referring to, he mentioned "... the juxtaposition of NB's 'To my father - Ayn Rand' with passages expressing adolescent angst about his sexual relationship with Rand."

Another poster claimed "He has an ego the size of a small country and no ability to keep his pants on."

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL...

Reading through the comments, though, is actually a bit irritating. I just skimmed them again and they reminded me way too much of the "heavy" atmosphere of certain recent anti-Branden debates on other forums. Our own Roger Bissell weighed in back then with highly intelligent comments (as is his norm), but he discussed other subjects.

What is particularly funny is the complete inability of these people to see a practical joke as merely that - and the zealous fanatical moralizing over a goof that was played on them, even if the cigar did blow up in NB's face because of automatic email functions. But the cigar blew up in their faces as well, and THAT IS NOT SOMETHING YOU DO TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF RANDLAND!

As I said before, to me, that just made it funnier. In my mind, I can see the growing realization on the faces of the ones goofed on until the final "Gotcha, you bastard!" moment, then all the scurrying around to slay the dragon. I'm sure the telephone company made out quite well that day...

Dayaamm!

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

If you check out the comments (or "Noodles" as may be the case) to both links above, you will find some highly amusing parts. One poster mentioned that in Judgment Day NB changed his "voice" to different subpersonalities along the narration, most especially to an adolescent subpersonality during the incest passages. When questioned about what "incest passages" he was referring to, he mentioned "... the juxtaposition of NB's 'To my father - Ayn Rand' with passages expressing adolescent angst about his sexual relationship with Rand."

I think it was Adam Reed who said that. I'll check later to be sure if he was the one who did the psychology jargon analysis, but he's done analyses of the sort in other venues. Adam is a smart guy, but he makes these silly diagnoses (he doesn't see them as "silly"; that's my description) using jargon terms. It's a failing of all too many who have some amount of professional training in clinical psych.

ES

___

[Rich Engle]

The best part of these types of soirees is the fallout phase.

It's the equivalent of what I was talking about in a post elsewhere involving the dynamic that goes down when two Baptists run into each other while they're shopping at the liquor store.

rde

I thought the answer was Nathaniel. He always knows what the real deal is. :D/

[John Dailey]

Mike:

Careful when you talk quotes around movie buffs like moi. [-(

In the words of Roger Rabbit, "She makes me laugh"

...uh... [-X [-X

More correct is: 'In the words of JESSICA Rabbit (about Roger), "HE makes me laugh." //;-)) Granted, it might not fit as such in your ref, but, let's keep quotes accurate fer Petey's sakes! P-p-p-p-p-p-l-e-e-e-e-e-e-z-z-z! --- She was the melancholy/blues/torch singer; he was the need-to-be clown/laugh-maker.

I won't go into why, but, this quote had a special type of meaning for me, other than they were obviously made-for-each-other (and, Kathleen Turner's sultry voice-style didn't hurt the 'impact'), ergo, I do remember it accurately. Feel free to re-check, though. (Sheesh, I LOVED that impossible movie!) ;.)

LLAP

J:D

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

John,

Ya got me dude. You're absolutely right. I goofed. (She still makes me laugh, though.)

Why does this quote have meaning to you? Don't tell me you are married to a cartoon character!

//;-))

Michael

[John Dailey]

~ Ah well, so many threads (and forums, and sites, and games, and, oh, and 'life' also)...so little time.

~ Sorry to take so long (a year+ ?) in responding to your question in this near-deceased thread, but, see above. I decided to re-check past threads in your Forum which I missed responding to, and...this is the 1st; it won't be the last! :devil:

~ Feel lucky that I've not drawn attention to this thread for my actual wife to read your speculation above; she's conversant with .357 Magnum handling and has...sometimes...showed a not very-high threshold of anger-management lid-holding (but then, she's a female; aren't they all? ;) ) She'd not take kindly to such a speculation, regardless what I think. (Probably, Jessica wouldn't either.)

~ Oh, about your question...

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ Anyhoo, re your question, my 'personal meaning' was not, as you apparently seem to think, in terms of 'personal relationships' so much as 'personal insights' about views on 'gender/sex'-wars, especially in terms of the bromide "opposites attract."

~ Exceptions nwst, the bromide has a definite seed-of-truth to it (as, really, most bromides do, myopic Rand-wannabees views nwst.) Jessica had a 'need' for a laugh-source showing a worthwhileness in life beyond her Dagneyesque pessimism about it; Roger had a 'need' (ok: 'arguable' here re his 'need'; ntl, here is *my* view) for a 'serious' perspective on tragedies/threats (and, in the movie, he was aware that 'they' were there!) beyond his cavalier and near-pollyanish 13yr-old approach to life ("It really should continue to be all one big 'FUN yuck-yuck'!...but...it isn't; who can I trust to show me how to handle this?")

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

Finally (sheesh, all this for RR? Wait'll I analyze Daffy!)

~Maybe I'm Rorschaching here on Roger's 'need'. So I'll settle for arguing this: Roger found Jessica to be a ready-made (I mean, 'torch-singer' melancholy soul?) 'audience' that challenged him...continually and chronically. How's that? :poke:

~ They were 'complementary' to each other IN their differences, which is what 'soul-mates' are really all about: their similarities are inherently necessary, yes; this movie stressed however, their useful-to-each-other differences. --- There's more to their 'relationship', psychologically, than meets the cartoon-filled eye.

LLAP

J:D