9thdoctor

You haven’t read AS 12 times? I thought you wrote that you had, maybe I mixed up a post by you with one by Dragonfly.

In the first sentence did you mean “irrelevant”? I don’t understand “ignoring”, hope you didn't mean ignorant! Anyway, I wasn’t trying to spark debate about which shit-sandwich tasted worse. Last thing I want to do is reread these articles, and I’d have to in order to defend my (admittedly less than rigorous) assertion.

Witness the latest mugging: http://www.slate.com/id/2233966/ The figure Ayn Rand most resembles in American life is L. Ron Hubbard, another crazed, pitiable charlatan who used trashy potboilers to whip up a cult. Unfortunately, Rand's cult isn't confined to Tom Cruise and a rash of Hollywood dimwits. No, its ideas and its impulses have, by drilling into the basest human instincts, captured one of America's major political parties. I still stand by my (premature) comment that it doesn’t get worse than the GQ article.

Are you sure that's not just benevolence? The way you phrase it sounds like something the GQ reviewer would write. In the 1976 Peikoff course a similar question was asked, and Peikoff started to answer it, and Rand called out that he was wrong, and went up later and gave her answer. A memorable moment. Her example was a witness in a criminal trial not disclosing something exculpatory, I don’t remember Peikoff’s example, but his answer was fine given the context he applied it to. I don’t remember which lecture it was, its been a long time since I took that course.

This will be broadcast on the BBC November 7 & 8. It’ll probably hit youtube soon after. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewmcfbrown/100014133/intelligence-squared-debate-catholics-humiliated-by-christopher-hitchens-and-stephen-fry/

Funny, good one. To define our terms, from Wikipedia: In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages in an online community…with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response, or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. ... Application of the term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often used as an ad hominem strategy to discredit an opposing position by attacking its proponent. Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives. Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities. Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding tends to encourage trolls to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning: "Please do not feed the trolls". My thoughts: Jonathan’s no Troll (sorry Phil, you just hate each other). Stryder certainly was. Xray, well, the jury’s still out. One thing I don’t get is how you could have read AS 12 times and have such a low opinion of it. The prospect of reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance another 11 ½ times strikes me as completely insane. And then seeking out a Robert Pirsig forum to debate how bad it is. Did Xray like AS at least the first time or two?

It kind of looks like the USMC bulldog. Jeff S. Filthy, tricksy Hobbits! They stole it from us! Binny actually came from here: http://www.gifs.net/gif/index.php3?n=image.php3&image_id=1697&image_name=Angry_dog I sought him out yesterday because I wanted to use the PG Wodehouse line "will cast out on ear and set dogs on". The line's in one of the Jeeves books, part of a telegram so I had to tinker with it. I think it’s going to get annoying as an Avatar, BTW. This seemingly conflicts with the Objectivist view of the role of ideas in history. That they are the prime driver. Or maybe its just the way you phrased it: "merely" and "nothing more".

Now that’s what I call self-knowledge! Seriously Phil , have a drink , or meditate , just don’t lose sleep over these tempestous teapots. Hey, you swiped my dog! He answers to Binny (short for Binswanger), look out he's a biter.

The rising tide should lift all boats, even PARC. When it’s available for $.01 plus shipping I may finally buy it. I’m sure its pages can be safely converted to cat litter.

Try stating 1,2,5,6 or 7 at a gathering of ARIans, and you’ll be cast out on your ear, and then they’ll release the hounds. And be careful how you concretize 4, it doesn't apply to any of them. 3 just means you haven't listened to enough Peikoff tapes. You must do a comprehensive comparison between the formulations in the 1976 course and OPAR to grok the fullness. Crap, I just mixed up authors.

I pulled out my copy of PAR, hit the index, and on page 45 find: "an older cousin said to her, grinning with a touch of malice, 'Here is someone you should read, because he beat you to all your ideas.' Curious, Alice began reading Thus Spake Zarathustra." Maybe Heller spins this tale differently, but if not the NYT reviewer is just being dishonest. Unprecedented!

Here's the new NYT review. Pretty foul. Not GQ level though. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/books/review/Kirsch-t.html Rand, typically, denied any influence, saying only that Nie­tzsche “beat me to all my ideas”. Where'd that come from?

JR’s post #75 on the Peron thread seemed to be what set Ted off, though his fury was directed at you. I stand by my prod vs. poke comment above, but I’ll be missing JR too, my post above wasn’t too clear on that.

I think we can agree to disagree, rather than get into an extended debate on Wagner. However another point I’d like to make is that Branden didn’t lower the tenor of the debate with his comment, he was standing above the drivel of his adversaries. Wagner didn’t do that, not with Hanslick or with any of his enemies generally. He fought dirty, and he would throw the first sucker punch and groin kick. Also, Wagner had pretensions of being much more than a musician, he wanted to change the world. He wanted to be remembered as a philosopher, and even had Nietzsche to egg him on for a while. His bad behaviour has worked against that goal. Of course there’s also the fact that what he wrote (qua philosopher) is now regarded as junk (an essay against Vivisection, and some other things). So we could go on and on about this, he’s just a bad example (broken record syndrome kicking in). I think you meant “doesn’t have”; Cubans, Columbians, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Jamaicans, and some others have signifigant presence, even their own neighborhoods, Mexicans are the big nationality that don’t, not that I’m aware of. I’ve seen FGO put on a world class Aida, and a very respectable Boris Godunov. Expensive and ambitious works to put on. 3 Wagner productions in 60-70 years is certainly out of proportion, and only one of those qualified as a major production. I hasten to add that I don’t think there’s a Jewish cabal working to prevent Wagner performances here, but I do think the powers that be want to avoid controversy. This will sound utterly insane to anyone who doesn’t live here, but you must know why there’s NEVER been a production of Fidelio here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thMDOok-Jcs

JR usually dishes out, but I’m surprised his skin is so thin. He’s the one who ticked off Ted, and there was the bigger loss. I was thinking earlier that when a mild poke in the ribs is called for, JR uses a cattle prod on full charge. It has to stay fun for everyone, otherwise what are you doing here? See ya around Jeff, ciao... Now how do we get Ted back?

Now here I must differ. Wagner’s mission was to create Gesamtkunstwerk, “Total Artwork”, a perfect marriage of drama, poetry, music, and visual arts. He wrote the texts, and you have to count those too. 125 years after his death his work is derided as coded anti-Semitism, meaning the ideas he was trying to get across are still misrepresented. Nowadays his work gets wildly reinterpreted, it’s a joke if you see the productions in Europe. His real cultural messages get lost, and his own foul mouth/pen, though misappropriated by Nazis, deserves plenty of blame. Where I live, South Florida, there are lots of Jews, a higher percentage than most places in the US. And our opera company has produced 2 Dutchmans and 1 Walkure in 60-70 years. That’s it, no other Wagner productions. Mozart, Verdi, Puccini (a actual fascist toadie), are done every year. In Israel, when Barenboim tried to do an unprogrammed Wagner encore, people shouted and some got up and showed off their concentration camp tattoos (wait, that might have been a Mehta concert). I know you singled out his pissing contest with Hanslick, but even that contained all the elements of Wagner at his worst, including his playing the Jew-card. So, as I said before, bad example. Hojotoho! Hojotoho! Heiaha!

MSK, your point is good but your example is bad. From the ban on performing Wagner in Israel, to the classic Woody Allen joke “I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland”, Wagner’s bad behavior haunts his reputation. Critics still try to claim anti-Semitic themes are part of his actual work. I’ve seen Jews wince at the very mention of his name. If you look into it though, you’ll find that his anti-Semitism was almost entirely opportunistic, for example he trashed Meyerbeer (qua Jew) while remaining friendly with Halevy. He’d step on anyone to get his way, and not just to get his work performed, but have luxuries like his all-silk wardrobe. Compared to him, Rand bore the burden of genius with considerable grace.

Oh Jesus, think of the kittens! Genocidal maniac! Well, Phil’s ascended his high-horse again, time to put him on time out.

Sorry Phil, but I’m going to attack the subject again. First of all, I wouldn’t care one jot if AR herself was a falling over drunk. Christopher Hitchens does public debates while sauced and manages pretty well. The content is what matters. Determining whether Frank O’Connor was a drunk is a he said she said, the integrity of the witnesses is key, and I don’t see how any of us can have a final word on the subject. And to me it doesn’t matter, so I find myself writing about it and then stop and say 'Oh the hell with this!' However, to give a better idea of my thoughts on the matter, I propose a thought experiment. Imagine if Barbara and Nathaniel Branden had both died in a plane crash in late 1968. Would we have ever learned about The Affair? I’m not going to prejudice the reader, think about it and work through the implications.

If you have an hour of your life you don't mind wasting, here he digs into his bag of tricks for C-SPAN. This one's more about religion, I think you'll conclude his "Secular Jew" line is just a marketing gimmick. http://www.c-spanvid...rogram/204696-1 Can't resist sharing the classic: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>This is NOT a parody. What the hell, here's another great one: <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value=" name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src=" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

This feels like a dumb question, but why wouldn’t Frank throw away the empty bottles himself? Was he leaving them out as a cry for help? Was he too drunk to walk them over to the garbage chute? It’s hard to form a consistent image of him. The mixing paints line naturally leads to the question of how so many bottles got emptied in the first place. But how many where there? God what a stupid subject this is, sorry. Good thread though.

Nauseating, but obviously fake Shocking, but not fake

It doesn't get worse than this. http://www.gq.com/entertainment/books/200911/ayn-rand-dick-books-fountainhead

What's this doing in the Burns thread? We're all doing fine watching Phil & Dragonfly duke it out over there, why drift this thread? I think the weight class is wide open to argument in that post, but more importantly, where did you get the cool icon? Adam I lurk all over, and when I see something good I right-click and save, so I don't know where any one emoticon came from. Uploading them to OL takes a couple steps, so I don't do it too much, but since this is a special request, here's a few I haven't used around here before: With love to Linz: Conversations with Xray: How I really feel about Phil: For when Phil gets all cranky and full of himself: For when Phil finally goes postal:

What's this doing in the Burns thread? We're all doing fine watching Phil & Dragonfly duke it out over there, why drift this thread?