Wolf DeVoon

To be brash in romance, brave in combat, bold in ventures that risk one's reputation are backed by something far deeper than "values."

The universe is not a statement.

The totality of existence and its iron indifference to particular statements of fact or allegation of intent is a metaphysical principle. How can you not know this?

Uh, it seems evident to me that Dems and community organizers are the ones throwing bombs, clamoring for war on a fairly ordinary President. Republicans are crumbling. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-charlottesville-republicans-remain-stymied-over-what-to-do-about-trump/2017/08/19/774bddd4-81d4-11e7-ab27-1a21a8e006ab_story.html

Nope, primary cause of the Civil War was tariffs on foreign manufactured goods to protect Northern manufactures. England responded with tariff on cotton. South Carolina seceded when higher U.S. tariffs were mooted and the South lost control of the House of Representatives. When he ran for president, Lincoln said he had no legal authority to free the slaves, it would be unconstitutional. He planned to deport them to Liberia, and Congress appropriated $600,000 ($15 million today) to ship 100,000 free Northern blacks back to Africa. Could have saved everybody a lot of grief. 600,000 dead whites, 5 x GNP of 1860, income tax, paper money, welfare dependency, ruination of Detroit, endless gang wars. New York Mayor Fernando Wood was opposed to war: "Let the erring sisters [slave-holding South] go in peace!"

Love is a very elusive business, so let's talk about that first. I've only actually seen it once (in 1964) and I believe that I may be personally incapable of love. Great passion, sure. Admiration freely felt for a great many people who I know or knew personally and/or the result of looking and listening in the public square, absolutely, routinely. Lots of positive regard for pioneers of all kinds in history. I still believe 'hate' is a smear, especially in the current political drama. I don't recall it being hurled so freely ever before. US Sup Ct has pretty much consistently held that 'hate speech' does not exist as a matter of constitutional law. Nor do most people actually feel hatred, no matter how deeply harmed they may have been, with the sole exception of American blacks since the 1960s. Many of my black acquaintances seethe with anger, ill concealed at times, a projection of self-hate, I would say. Yet this, too, is a slipshod mischaracterization. Resentment is not hate. Anguish is not hate.

Trivia about bears. They are almost impossible to kill, skull impervious to anything shy of .44 magnum or .45 FMJ

I think the term "hate" as in "hate speech" etc is just a plain smear, except many blacks do genuinely resent whites.

My best work was inspired by music: Jimmy Page and John Bonham, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix

Since it came up in conversation, here's a little essay about Fitzgerald. I'll begin with an aside, a detour. There are three typos in my latest, not too shabby in over 103,000 words, about the same rate of goofs as Atlas Shrugged in Signet paperback 50 years ago. I wrote to Kalberman and stuck my tongue out, promptly blackballed for it. As much as I enjoy tall tales, I wasn't inspired by Rand or RLS. Who's inspired by hamburger and pickles? The author of first rank in my heart without second or third was Scott Fitzgerald, which should not require explanation. But since you haven't read him, I'll idle a while on the subject. His third novel, The Great Gatsby, was not representative; a little commercial ditty in the opened bleeding vein -- a thundering condemnation of the rich -- most compelling in his second novel, The Beautiful And Damned, the story of Anthony Patch, heir to a vast pile of wealth, far more than a thousand men could waste in a thousand lifetimes. Anthony Patch came to luxury early in life on a small allotment of bond coupons, until his grandfather should die and make Anthony a baron of truly global rank. The elder Patch lived too long, and his estate was tied up in court for a decade, time enough for Anthony to marry, drink himself into a useless stupor, and to lose what little mind he had. THAT was the power Fitzgerald possessed, not only in subject but a truly unique writing style no one could touch, then or since. His last novel, Tender Is The Night, took ten years to write. Wealth repulses, then attracts and destroys a youthful, charismatic medical doctor specializing in the emerging art of psychiatry. It was written with all of Fitzgerald's heartache in full focus -- again, with incomparable text that no on else could begin to impersonate. I gave up trying, had to make do with far simpler work. Some are born to write. Others do it in good faith with blunt instruments. Hemingway was one of those, a carpenter with foolish grammar and shabby concerns. Fitzgerald gave him an introduction to Max Perkins, launched the lesser Hemingway, who subsequently ridiculed the man who gave him life. I think it made him insane and explains why Hemingway refused recognition and killed himself. He could not forgive or forget the wrong he did to far greater talent, the man who wrote "from God's point of view" as awed, literate Fitzgerald readers remarked. They were few, of course. Most agreed with Hemingway's sneering slander, that Fitzgerald was a pansy, a Jazz Age lightweight, a smear that succeeded splendidly. The Roaring 20s were unlike anything America had seen before or since, and Fitzgerald was more than a documentarian, although he had tremendous gifts of observation and rendered Naturalistic reality in all its crudity, incredibly penetrating to the ultimate meaning of it. He showed us Hollywood, New York, Paris and the Riviera, of course, but also rural Georgia and Minnesota, Switzerland, Italy, a tropical paradise ("The Offshore Pirate") and an impossibly hilarious mountain redoubt ("A Diamond As Big As The Ritz"). Many of his Saturday Evening Post stories traveled in time, told parables of cruelty and redemption and lost innocence. I could have ignored it all, I suppose, but for the character of Anthony Patch -- beautiful, lazy, incompetent, vain, drunken heir to an immense Wall Street fortune hoarded by a cutthroat who ruined dozens of good men. Filthy money that damned everyone who touched it. I could have ignored it, but for the power of Fitzgerald as a master of excellence. Meh. Who needs excellence nowadays? No one alive to read it, in a world of viral pix, two sentences misspelled, bitching about tweets written for ten-year-olds. "May Day" and "The Rich Boy" would be wasted on tweeters and chatters, The Beautiful And Damned a boring slog from an alien land where people were stunned by x-ray vision in the written word. Hamburger and pickles is plenty, thanks, munched in 16x9 with a beer and a burp. Let's talk about Garp... Robin Williams, right? Nanu nanu!

For entertainment, a collection of his short stories, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli. His masterwork was Tender Is The Night.

Some are inept survivors. Thinking of the incomparable literary talent of Scott Fitzgerald, suffered miserably, dead age at age 44.

Copernicus? Galileo? Kepler? Your own account of experiences in SE Asia? or with Branden? Personally, I like documents and instrumentation, stuff that makes flying an aircraft or driving a car less haphazard.

Sure there is, Bob. RGB values in digital displays, CYMK in printing, angularity and number of points in geometric figures, proportional scaling.

Back on the topic of standards, it seems to me that I wrote that standards are uniform units of measurement. Emphasis on units.

I appreciate the above comments. I'm probably misquoting Rand by saying the only direct knowledge we have of man is our own experience

I've been reluctant to comment recently because MSK takes a literal reading of Ellsworth Toohey's statements as honest and reliable. Now we come to another strange bit of the Rand canon, a metaphysical abstraction instead of self-directed choice. "Man's life" cuts no ice, if the man in question thirsts for something else, willing to gamble his life to get it, right or wrong, win lose or draw. Too tired to quote The 51% Solution. Just have to take my word for it. Life isn't the standard that powers art or valor.

Anthony says defeated. MSK thinks Toohey wanted to enslave. Good men find it hard to see. He wanted Roark dead.

Anthony, that's quite brilliant, never heard it explained that way before. Excellent. Explains everything. EDIT: with your permission I'd like to quote that elsewhere.

shakes head

whoa, not my take on Toohey at all. He learned early in life how to manipulate and gain power, and since he had no power to create anything, he devoted his life to killing, a sort of jackal or hyena who ran with the pack -- Jules, Lois, Alvah, Gus

Certainly gratifying to know that the Estate is being cared for so lovingly. Reminds me of Cousin Leonard's selfless devotion.

Uh-huh. First cause (Unmoved Mover) was plain enough in Aristotle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmoved_mover#Aristotle.27s_theology Final cause (teleos) did more damage, because you could make up any insane "end" to justify brutality and ritual. Why am I discussing this with a horn player?

Aristotle was more concerned with causation, and he named four types, of which First and Final became a two-headed monster that ate whole civilizations.

Explains why football, basketball, baseball, and hockey are universally shunned and ridiculed.