My response to Ed Hudgins' "The Atlas Society Policy and the Summer Seminar"

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dragonfly,

You really do have a higher opinion of Perigo than I do. I think he is dumb in addition to vicious. ("Kst, kst." There. I undid it by running it backwards and spelling the word right. )

And you have a much, much lower opinion of Will Thomas than I do.

At any rate, why would I need warning? I (and Kat and OL and all the rest) will be just fine if TAS ends up ruling the world or if TAS gets blown out of existence. I don't think either will happen, but what's there to be afraid of?

I happen to admire TAS's many achievements. Have they stopped being achievments somehow?

That doesn't imply I agree with everything TAS does, as I have well demonstrated.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

I (and Kat and OL and all the rest) will be just fine if TAS gets blown out of existence.

Personally, yes. But it leaves Perigo and ARI in a duopoly, with the odds in favor of SOLO gaining market share. Not discounting or dismissing your ability to compete on the web. Not excluding the possibility of a new market entrant. What worries me is the tenor of the times, an inability to think straight and connect Rand's work to a wired, attention-deficit, cult of personality and 'social networking' scramble for fashion. That's not quite the right term, but it speaks to Perigo's appeal: Objectivist subjectivist pizzaz. Peikoff is finished, and Linz knows it.

W.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wolf,

Most all of that will happen, especially in our remote-control culture where you can change the channel immediately at whim if you don't like who is being shot, bombed, disgraced, etc. You can pretend that this makes the distasteful in reality go away in all respects except entertainment. Some people get really, really surprised when they get hurt and can't change the channel.

The bad guys won't win, though. That also goes for Rand's ideas. I think people are still mostly good at root. Maybe not 90-10, but at least a 51 percent solution.

Not a perfect world, but it's the only one we've got. I, for one, choose to make the most of it.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Wolf,

Most all of that will happen, especially in our remote-control culture where you can change the channel immediately at whim if you don't like who is being shot, bombed, disgraced, etc. You can pretend that this makes the distasteful in reality go away in all respects except entertainment. Some people get really, really surprised when they get hurt and can't change the channel.

The bad guys won't win, though. That also goes for Rand's ideas. I think people are still mostly good at root. Maybe not 90-10, but at least a 51 percent solution.

Not a perfect world, but it's the only one we've got. I, for one, choose to make the most of it.

Michael

I agree , Michael. The bad guys won't win unless we let 'em. Time to push the Pay Pal button again, give you more ammo.

B)

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, I've written you a letter about this, because I don't think it appropriate to discuss it with you on a public forum, but I want to say for the record thzt I strongly protest the accusations -- accusations of willful, deliberate, conscious immorality -- that you have leveled at Will Thomas, a man you do not know, about whom you know only that he took a single action you disapprove of, and with whom you have not discussed the issue.

This is precisely the kind of injustice you have insisted, long and loud, that you will not permit on Objectivist Livimg.

Barbara

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

My intent was not to make an accusation of immorality against Will and I am surprised you are saying this. I specifically wrote: "but these thoughts are only my specualtion..."

I am trying to understand why the man would do something like what he did. After all, this became a public issue. We are discussing it. So I discussed it. From what I understand, Dragonfly was stating that he was intentionally trying to intall Perigo within TAS to betray you and everyone else. I disagree with this.

My own intention was to say I think he is an absent-minded academic, that kind of thing. (And I do think that.) If you object to my wording, I will be glad to change it.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

In one of his emails to me, Will Thomas admitted that Lindsay Perigo has significant negatives. "Shooting from the hip" was one of them.

But he seemed firmly convinced that Mr. Perigo had positives that greatly outweighed them.

I had no idea what these massive positives could be. I still don't.

My hypothesis is not that Will is in league with Lindsay Perigo. For a variety of reasons, I consider this highly unlikely. Rather, for whatever reason, Will has never realized how fundamentally mean-spirited Mr. Perigo is.

Beyond that, it's clear to me from talking to more than one of the principals at TAS that they tend to look down on online forums, and don't take what appears on such forums nearly as seriously as they ought. This is not the only reason that Ed Hudgins and Robert Bidinotto slammed many of the participants here--but I am convinced that it is a reason.

As I mentioned way back near the beginning of the hullabaloo over the speaking invitation, one consequence of disparaging online forums is a near-complete failure to understand what Jim Valliant is about, or why Mr. Perigo and Mr. Valliant have become allies. Of Mr. Valliant's effort to Satanize "the Brandens," Will asked, in all seriousness, "aren't we over that yet?"

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

Michael, [...] I want to say for the record thzt I strongly protest the accusations -- accusations of willful, deliberate, conscious immorality -- that you have leveled at Will Thomas, a man you do not know, about whom you know only that he took a single action you disapprove of, and with whom you have not discussed the issue.

Barbara,

Michael's already expressed surprise at your interpretation of his comments about Will. I'm surprised also, and I'm wondering where you got the interpretation. Did you misread and attribute these remarks by Dragonfly to Michael?

[....] I'm sure [Thomas] now knows very well who Perigo is and what he stands for, and I have a strong suspicion that he has known that all along. The picture of a naive Thomas inviting Perigo without knowing what that would entail is itself a naive picture. There is something rotten in the club of TAS. You have been warned.

Ellen

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

I softened the wording of that phrase a little bit to make it not so "James Taggart" (which was not my intent). I also removed the word "blankout" from my speculation about Will's perception (or lack thereof) of Perigo's nastiness and meanness of spirit since it is a loaded term. I keep forgetting that this is a cuss word in Objectivism. I did not mean blankout in the sense of James Taggart's willful evasions where he knew he should think about something, but more in the sense of literally coming up zero.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Michael, I owe you an apology. When I read your post in answer to mine, I could see that you were hurt, and so I reread my own post to see if I had said something to cause it. I had. I was harsh when I had not meant to be. I had wanted to state my objection as briefly and simply as possible, with a minimum of explanation, and that was a mistake. The harshness was unintentional; you did not deserve it, and I'm truly sorry for it.

So let me start again.

You wrote that you think Will Thomas "simply refuses to look at the emotional excesses and nastiness (blankout to be frank), imagining that he (Will) is engaged in some kind of "high-road" approach or something like that, or maybe he does see them and thinks Perigo can be cured over time, but these thoughts are only my speculation.

"By the fact that the invitation was made in the first place, I see a strong propensity for Will to refuse to accept Perigo for what he is, and insist on what he thinks Perigo should be. He replaces the "should be" in his head for the reality ("is") out there. That kind of error in thinking—replacing cognitive fact with normative evaluation instead of building evaluation on fact, or all the facts—happens a lot with Objectivists. In layman's terms, this is wishful thinking taken to the extreme."

I think it's a mistake, unless there is a powerful reason to do so, to speculate about someone's psychology on a public forum. On such a forum, what one might say to a couple of friends will instead be read by hundreds, even thousands of people, possibly for many years. It becomes, in effect, set in stone. I don't mean that one can't speculate about someone's reasons for an action, but that is quite different than attempting to analyze his psychology or describe his thinking process -- or lack of -- by saying that he is "engaged in some kind of 'high-road' approach" -- that he is "refusing tø accept facts," "refusing to look," that he is ""replacing cognitive fact with normative evaluation." You can't know what was in Will's mind and how he was functioning mentally, (particularly when you scarcely know the man, and cannot say that he has a history of questionable actions that might lead an observer to a particular interpretation). You can only know what he did. And what he did, especially because it directly affected you, is of course fair game for discussion and analysis.

I don't want to be understood as saying that certain paths you have been following recently in trying to understand -- understand psychologically -- what I call "fundamentalist Objectivists" is a mistake. Anything but. I think it's important to do, and that speculation is legitimate, even necessary. But it's a different thing to apply such speculation to a particular person whom you don't know, about whom you have only a single example of a certain kind of action, and to publish it on a public forum and in terms that surely would deeply offend him.

When you're speaking of an Objectivist and to Objectivists, to speculate that he "refuses to look," and "refuses to accept," is taken as self-evidently a charge of immorality. of conscious and willful dishonesty. In the language of Objectivism, it is the cardinal sin. I don't doubt that that's how Will would hear it, and I think you will grant that he'd have reason to do so. It doesn't really help that you were only speculating. If I were to publicly speculate that you were guilty of a crime, I don't think you'd decide that was okay because I wasn't hurling charges at you.

As you know, this is a issue I feel very strongly about, which is why it was the subject of my "Objectivism and Rage" article. (Which is not to say that I haven't at times dived head first into the muddy waters I was tryig drain out of Objectivism. But I haven't liked myself when I've done it.) My strong feeling is part of the reason why I came across in my original post as much more judgmental than I should have been. I hope you will accept my apology.

Barbara

[Ellen Stuttle]

[This is a duplicate of a post I just made on the PARC_II thread. I'm repeating it here where it's more likely to be seen by the SOLOists who are following this current thread.]

A thread has been started on SOLO titled "Famous amphetamine addict" - thanks, Barbara" (See).

The title refers to Valliant's suggestion that Barbara herself, in the guise of laying rumors to rest, was the source of the idea that Rand was addicted to speed. According to things I've heard, the rumors Barbara speaks of indeed were in circulation, especially amongst West Coast libertarian-oriented folk, before her biography appeared.

In any event, her biography isn't the only published source for the report that Ayn took diet pills for many years. Roy Childs, in his (posthumously published) Liberty interview, told a more extreme version:

"Ayn Rand, Objectivism and All That"

Roy A. Childs, Jr, interviewed by Jeff Walker

Liberty

Volume 6, Number 4, April 1993, pg. 33

Childs: [....] An awful lot of the Objectivists I knew were people in transition to libertarianism. And a lot of them scuttled the morality and got into rock music and all sorts of drugs. You know, the first time they used marijuana, got high and listened to Led Zeppelin or The Moody Blues.

Walker: You mean they got unfocused? God, Ayn Rand would have gone crazy if she'd known that any of her followers were into marijuana and Led Zeppelin.

Childs: This is something I fought with the Blumenthals about. I know that she took Dexadrine every day for forty years.

Walker: But low dosages, according to Barbara Branden.

Childs: Her secretary told me that she'd take a couple of five milligrams, and if nothing happened in an hour, she'd take another two, or three, or four. She was taking this on top of pots of coffee. I took Dex as a diet pill, so I know this stuff, for two years. I know the effects of the thing. Dexadrine does produce things like paranoia, suspicion of other peolple and nervousness, and a lot of things that became traits of her character.

Walker: She was taking this for forty years?

Childs: She started taking it as a diet pill back in the '30s.

Walker: So you think that might have had more to do with how her personality developed than Barbara Branden says?

Childs: Do you remember that picture of her with her Napoleon hat and her cigarette holder at the House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings? Doesn't she look like a speed freak in that picture? She looks like a cobra ready to strike, extremely high and high-powered and intense and tense. I think there's a lot more than meets the eye there.

All of which is a digression on the issue of drugs. Rand and her group liked certain drugs. They liked nicotine and they liked caffeine and they liked uppers. I imagine she would have gone for coke. I'm not sure if she ever did, but she was hanging around Hollywood in the '20s and '30s, and it was very big then in the movie and music industry.

Walker: How did they deal with alcohol at these parties? Were people allowed to drink? Get drunk?

Childs: Not drunk, but she didn't censor it. She herself didn't drink much. She didn't like it. [....]

.

___

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

There is no need for an apology, but of course I accept it. Catching a ride on the same train, I should probably apologize to Will Thomas for insinuating that he was dishonest. I did not mean to do that, but since that is how my words have been understood, let this be my unconditional apology to Will. I regret that. I did not mean that Will Thomas is dishonest and I do not think that. I never have thought that.

I just reread an email I sent to you last night, and it contains ideas that I believe need to be discussed on an Objectivist forum, since they so seldom are. I am expanding on it below (with some additions and changes).

To start with, my own context is practically as a newbie to the Objectivist subcommunity. I have been around for 3 years or so. I was in Brazil 32 years and a long ways away from all the schisms and infighting. So I keep forgetting that Objectivists have been accusing each other of this kind of thing (refusing to see, refusing to think)) all during the time I was gone as if it were some grave unforgivable sin—and that this grew into a subculture bludgeon.

I was using the term "refuse to see" in a more colloquial sense. Here is an example.

Would anyone outside of Objectivism-land call a mother immoral when she refuses to see criminal behavior in her son? The rest of the world says she is biased from love. A mother watches her son grow up from infancy. She feeds him, changes his diapers and watches enthralled as he learns to walk and speak. There is a lot of love and living accumulated in her heart. Is it any wonder she finds it inconceivable that her dear little boy now kills and steals even when faced with unmistakable clues that this is going on?

Go to any police station on earth and you can hear cops talking about a "mother's love" when a woman appears to defend her son in jail, even when her son is guilty of a most horrendous crime and caught in the act. What's more, you will see the cops treating the mother with great respect and tenderness. This is universal. They will not treat her as an evil, evading, dishonest, intrinsicist, subjectivist, emotionalist, nonthinking, subhuman whim-worshipper. That honor is reserved for Objectivism to bestow on her for loving her son so much it blinds her.

There is something really wrong and really important here.

What would you say about a man who is so enamored with a lofty ideal that he refuses to look at the obvious negative behavior of a person involved in his plans? He doesn't believe a person can intentionally stoop as low as he seems to be stooping. Is our thinker immoral or does he have his head in the clouds so much he can't see the ground?

I don't really know what a blind spot means when Objectivists use this term, anyway. Some people insist on keeping their blind spot even when people point out where the blindness is. Is that immoral or is it just plain stubborn? Or does it depend on context and motivation? The more I think about this, the more I think a contextless charge of blankout as pure evil is a gross oversimplification that leaves out some fundamentals.

The main one is the value being sought. Commitment to a lofty ideal is so different than wanting to destroy someone out of spite and mean-spiritedness that it is master-of-the-obvious level to point it out. Even though both involve refusing to see, one is befuddlement and the other is naked evil.

For instance, I don't think any of the cases above (the mother and the head-in-the-clouds thinker) are guilty of a sin in the same sense as Perigo, who is consciously devoted to malice and spite as demonstrated by his acts. Do you think Perigo really believes everything in PARC because he is merely blinded by love of Rand or some noble commitment to truth, or do you think his is lying to everyone (and possibly to himself) about his wholesale trunaround because he hates you and your rejection of him so much that truth simply does not matter?

That last case is certainly what I think. I have had close approximation to this over months as my credentials. I was even once on his side (before the falling out). Looking at this through the lens of his blind hatred, PARC sounds too good to be true for the purpose of spiteful retaliation. It bashes you and Nathaniel to the point of being childishly ridiculous and it fools some people with a litany of blatant misleading rhetorical devices like I have never seen strung together in one tome before. So why not use it to attack you? What has truth got to do with it? None of the proven errors, misquotes, shoddy scholarshio, etc., are important to him so long as it has the aura of authority he can lean on to bash you.

All one has to do is compare the writings of Perigo before, during and after the falling out with you to see that this was much more than an intellecutual change of concept. It was a declaration of war about non-PARC related issues (Peron, temper-tantrums, alcohol, etc.).

I see this as something completely different from Will refusing to see the bad side of Perigo (in the colloquial sense). Maybe I am psychologizing, but I think Will is (or was) motivated from a general belief that anyone as familiar with Rand's works as Perigo has shown to be could not be such a lowlife. I honestly think Will doesn't believe that is possible, and this explains to me why he has refused to consider the possibility, even when it stared him in the face.

There is only one other reason that could make sense to me as to why he made the invitation for Perigo to speak on Objectivism at TAS: he read PARC, became a Valliant convert and hates you in the manner that Bill Perry does. But that just does not sound right to me. It contradicts the impressions I have had of him, both in his writings and during the times I talked with him.

Also, if I believed for one minute that Will Thomas clearly perceived Perigo's rottenness and excused it as a perfectly acceptable form of Objectivism, I really would put him in a James Taggart category and make my thoughts very clear and very loud. But I don't believe it. I respect Will far too much to believe in that kind of lack of moral commitment.

The only alternative left for understanding the invitation is that Will did not perceive Perigo's nastiness, or did not perceive the extent of it, even when faced with unmistakable instances of it. There must be a reason for this. I simply do not believe that he has not seen it at all. Not in this universe.

There is a big honking difference in kind (and not just in degree) in these cases. I intend to think hard about this. I only have a glimpse right now, but I think something very, very important for Objectivism (or at least for my own thinking) is at the root.

Michael

[Wolf DeVoon]

Perigo is consciously devoted to malice and spite

One should not confuse tactics with strategy. Perigo is a professional broadcast/web personality. He was invited by TAS because he has star power. The veneer of 'controversy' is a bonus. Gives everybody something to talk about, good pre-event publicity. TAS high command can posture as reasonable and high-minded, calling for greater civility and general wonderfulness for the unquestionable 501 c (3) public good of 'rallying the troops.'

To be continued...

My wife had to use the computer for an emergency search. Anyway, there is a right way and a wrong way to stage a seminar. Perigo is not the issue, in fact he'd be a positive asset if we consider what might and ought to be done. Put three people on a panel, giving each equal time with some moderated audience Q&A. The goal is to elicit and explicate a range of Objectivist thinking on urgent, debatable matters of concern to the entire world. Music is not urgent, not on the program. Slinging mud is counterproductive, an evasion of responsibility.

SESSION #1 - WHY DID WE CONQUOR IRAQ? HOW DO WE GET OUT?

SESSION #2 - SHOULD ATLAS SHRUG? HAS THE STRIKE ALREADY HAPPENED AND FAILED?

SESSION #3 - IS OBJECTIVISM JEWISH AND ZIONIST?

SESSION #4 - HOMOSEXUALITY: OBJECTIVELY GOOD, EVIL, OR AMORAL?

The idea is to get a debate going, to bring together divergent views of Objectivism and Rand's legacy. There is no point in repeating the failed strategy of staging another beauty pageant of 'lecturers' to puff up their tail feathers. What Objectivism needs is leadership. That means grasping thistles and facing up to the responsibility of leadership. Perigo is a candidate. Let him face two others who can challenge him with radically different interpretations of Objectivist foreign policy, history, society and morality. Invite the wire services: AP, WSJ, AFP, NYT, Al Jazeera.

W.

Edited January 31, 2008 by Wolf DeVoon

[Rich Engle]

Well, I guess there is something to be said for the old "there ain't such thing as bad publicity," but I find that it doesn't necessarily play out that way.

Personally, as someone in the entertainment business on some level (a lot of years, mainly), I do not agree that Lindsay Perigo has "star quality." Please.

That is reserved for the great ones. As much as he may pretend to it, act like one, he is not. He's just not. Not even close, really, anymore so than I am.

But at least I do the work, produce art. He just air-batons it. The man couldn't compose himself out of a pay toilet, from what I've seen. His musical background/credentials are highly limited, mostly to fond memories of school band stuff. That's OK, but don't act like you're more, least of all to intimate that you are in such an informed position as to be able to make, er, "judgments," that have weight outside that of a good, informed listener's. I'll take the latter any day, because they are not poseurs, nor pretenders. If a real shoot 'em up critic or real shoot 'em up artist musician type evaluates my work (or even a robust listener, for that matter), I'll listen with open, learning ears. But not from him. He just hasn't earned that kind of respect.

rde

Edited January 31, 2008 by Rich Engle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wolf,

I once wrote a review of Perigo's bio, "Perigo! Politically Incorrect," by Coddington: The Troublemaker

(btw - As a courtesy, I left out the several mentions of his heavy drinking in that bio, but I might post quotes from it one day just out of orneriness.)

If you were talking about Perigo's heyday decades ago for star power, I would agree with you. But his biggest claim to fame is that he walked off his high-profile job and called NZ broadcast news "braindead." Ever since then, his career has been on the periphery or has been a train wreck.

I cringe when someone calls him an Objectivist and me one, too.

Let me put it this way. I don't mind being called a carnivore along with a cannibal. We are both meat-eaters, so the categorization is correct. I just want people to be clear that the cannibal eats human flesh and I do not. I find that morally reprehensible. Also, I would not share the stage on a panel discussion of barbecue techniques and recipes with a cannibal just because we both eat meat.

What Perigo says: Rhetorical lip service to Objectivism.

What Perigo does: Pure personality cult and crusades to smear people.

He does not practice Objectivism, he merely preaches parts of it. He is a malicious second-rate has-been as a public figure. His whole career as a broadcaster and publisher is based on tripping people up, exposing their "evilness," smearing them, cussing things he doesn't like, etc. He peppers that crap with some classical music, hymns of praise to Rand the martyred hero, and colorful banter. But it's only words, not deeds. I despise what he stands for. That is my problem with Perigo.

Call it branding.

My brand is different.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Ah, William, you do like to stir things up, don't you?

One comment in reply from Valliant is too funny not to quote. He writes:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4129#comment-47967

And Stuttle better watch herself -- she risks getting booted for "Branden-bashing."

If he only knew the altercations Barbara and I have been known to have... LOL.

Ellen

___

[william.scherk]

Ah, William, you do like to stir things up, don't you?

Well, I didn't quite expect Lindsay to call me a 'sick fuck' quite so soon in the thread. My post was a very small swirl of the spoon. Lindsay seems convinced that I am a "schism-junkie." More fair to say that I am fascinated by the ick factor, and the schisms that attract my attention are the canyons that sometimes loom between objective reality and the O-world.

I found it amusing that Lindsay is now reading OL, and thought I would correct his editorializing by giving links to and quotes from a group of posters he was characterizing as a "lynch mob" of "scum." I suspect a hidden readership at SOLO -- those who don't actually post, but do follow the discussions. Maybe he just doesn't like to be corrected.

One comment in reply from Valliant is too funny not to quote. He writes:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4129#comment-47967

And Stuttle better watch herself -- she risks getting booted for "Branden-bashing."

If he only knew the altercations Barbara and I have been known to have... LOL.

Yes, Valliant's aside was hilarious. Perhaps some SOLOists do really believe that OL is a pit of snakes seething and rattling at the command of Emperor Michael and Empress Kat!

I added another post there, noting that (at least according to Alexa rankings) SOLO readership is in decline recently as compared to both OL and RoR.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

I just looked and the Alexa traffic measuring resource has SOLOP all in a tizzy. Graphs and discussions all over the place.

I happened to mention Alexa at the time I did because I have a parallel interest on the Internet—Internet marketing. I have been studying that hard for the last 3 or 4 months. Toolbars, proxies, link-cloaking, new sites and tools popping up all over the place. Learning all that stuff is a bit overwhelming, albeit I am having a blast doing it.

One of the first things you learn is that Internet marketing is nothing but Psychology + Math. Enter Alexa. You need measuring tools for the math part. That is about as basic as you can get. But there are oodles more tools out there.

(btw - Regarding the psychology part, this has nothing to do with psychology as covered in Objectivism. It is more about positive persuasion techniques like countdowns, scarcity, reciprocity, consensus, stampede, and so forth. There are even studies of eye-movements over the screen so clever marketing writers now make their text intelligible in a general way on the left half of the text chunk from top to bottom. That way if the reader does not read the full text, he still knows the gist of the message. All this is another world outside of Objectivism and it is fascinating.)

Now here is what I want to know. Why would any Objectivist forum want more traffic? It is true that more traffic means more people, but what are you going to do with all those people? And what kind of people are they anyway?

When Kat and I started OL, we decided to concentrate on making an environment that would attract high quality people. I didn't (and still don't) care about being big. I wanted to be high quality. I watched with great pleasure as my intention became reality. Just look at OL's membership, especially the active members.

If I wanted to do Search Engine Optimization, horse around with keyword manipulation, do Web 2.0 campaigns, article marketing, blog marketing, and so forth to increase OL's traffic, I would do so. (There are great tools like Wordtracker, Web CEO, and many others I have learned and am learning to use for this.)

But I have that preliminary question that I stumble against. Why on earth do I want more traffic?

• Vanity? I suppose I am as vain as the next guy (although I fight it), but that's a poor reason in my book for the amount of time running a forum entails. Opting for intelligent independent thinkers as my preferred member profile has resulted in a forum that is like trying to keep a herd of cats organized. Try it sometime.
  
• Sales? OL is not really a sales site. It is a discussion forum. I do have plans to branch sales sites off from here in the future, but the nature of OL is and will continue to be a discussion forum.
  
• Personality cult? I am not, and do not want to be, an Objectivist leader with a flock. I have no ambitions in the direction of power. I had my fill of that during the years I was a symphony orchestra conductor. My thing is creativity. And even if I were a sincere cultist, my life is much too valuable to give to any cause—even a body of ideas I believe in like Objectivism.
  

So small but high-quality suits my reality (time, money and vision) at the present more than enough. Maybe later a reason or objective will appear where OL will need more audience and members. Should that occur, I will pull out the stops and drive massive traffic to OL.

Now why is another discussion forum like SOLOP suddenly all in a tizzy about measuring traffic? Their sales efforts suck to be blunt. That really needs a lot work before increasing traffic and there are specific things they need to do first, increase conversion being the most glaring. Vanity and personality cult? Well... I can certainly see that... Oh. I forgot. Perigo wants to save the world (from the Brandens). Without increasing traffic on SOLOP, he won't be able to save it.

My studies are leading me in good directions, William. Since I made the initial Alexa comment, I have come across a small bit of quality information that I will share with you, should you wish to continue horsing around with traffic statistics. Use Compete in addition to Alexa. That's one of the services that millionaire Internet marketers use.

(Dayaamm! Do you think the SOLOP people are looking? Now they can use Compete, too. Woe is me! )

Michael

[Rich Engle]

MSK is truly putting in the midnight oil on what is internet marketing. He has shared a few things with me and they are adroit.

I think, at least in this case, that growth (new people) is healthiest when it happens slowly, organically, naturally. That way you don't get too much of

the weirdness factor, and it just chugs along. You watch it patiently. And, this has happened in a big bad good way with OL itself. It certainly didn't

sit out and starve and dehydrate like a lot of O sites have/do. So that's real good, and agree.

Perigo... Ah, Perigo. I'd like to say "I don't think of him," but once in awhile he appears in my consciousness, not unlike a hard-to-cure-annoying- troublesome-rash<tm>.

One thing that I find amusing is his historic incapability of taking on specific people, details, and so on. At least if they aren't on his home turf. That is

a sign of weakness. He has to generalize, meaning, he reads a few things that sting and then makes, if at all (he is not much of a maker of anything, let's

be honest) kind of generalized comments to what he would call a mass, mob, fringe, whatever; whatever that is you call those who do not reside within his court.

For all the talk implying his being outspoken, vigilant, what have you, I don't see any balls out of the man. That's just Nancy-boy stuff (and, in anticipation of a preemptive "you used the G-word" accusation, as I would gauge one of the limeted repretoire of his typical responses {not a lot of optinos in the boy's tool bag}, I am NOT referring to sexual preferences, just general pussiness, which has nothing to do with anything other than being, well, a pussy).

I have written horrible things about this, this curmudgeonly creature-thingie. My satisfaction in these doings vary, but mostly they are short-term fixes then I wonder why I bothered. Then I remember why it's not so bad to bother, and have at it sportsman-like. He is to me as Nixon was to Hunter Thompson, just not at such an amplitude, on either end. But contempt is contempt, on any gauge, and I do find contempt for the man, something I generally fight off myself due to my spiritual orientation: here, an orientation that fails me because I have no reverence nor tolerance for his antics. He just makes it too easy, and for that I am not sure which I loathe most: him, or what he makes me feel like doing. And I like watching hacks work, mostly, if they are a little interesting.

For a time I thought him more formidable than what is. The one time he attempted to acknowledge my near-endless lampooning of him he could not even spell my last name right. Such a loss. Such painstaking attention to basic battle. Perhaps I should start spelling his first name the wrong way, as there are two common ways to do so. At least I occasionally check my spelling when I have lowered myself and gone out on the hunt.

The man never really takes anything head on. He's weak and hypocritical that way. Ah, Perigo...

rde

I think I used enough cortisone now and I'm not so itchy at the moment.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Rich Engle

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

So long as the interforum hostilities are still going, here is... Ta Daa!!!

DROOLING BEAST!

(There is no sound in the video and it is only about 2 minutes long.)

I can't help but see this as a metaphor for after public chastisement by Kilbourne, Perigo becoming more careful: the man eating symbolizes the Objectivist world looking on once in a while and the dog symbolizes Perigo wanting to cut loose in public after he has had a few. Then finally allowing him to end his misery.

I know, I know. I should let this thing die, but this just cracked me up too much. After the metaphor burst wide open in my mind, I couldn't stop laughing.

Apropos, has anyone noticed in the entire Drooling Beast affair that around 2.5 years ago (Kilbourne's article was published in July 2005), Barbara mentioned Perigo's drinking in 3 or 4 posts (in response to him), and in a couple of posts recently (this time under her own steam)? That's it. Nothing more in public. But in the interim, there have been literally hundreds of posts against her by several people for doing so. Even recently, right before the TAS thing exploded, I read about the "Brandbourne Christian Temperance Union" or one of those phrases Perigo uses to mock her.

So as time developed, I changed my opinion from the standard "nobody's business" to "why all the fuss?". If the matter of Perigo's drinking was not so important, or if Barbara's previous alleged accusations of alcoholism (which she never made) were so wrong, why the hundreds of posts? Who really has not let this matter die in 2.5 years?

To those who think Barbara is wrong, sorry. Facts are facts. All you have to do is look.

That dog is so damn funny, though, I might publish the video in Humor (but without the metaphorical analysis).

Michael

EDIT: I managed to describe a clearer image of the metaphor to a friend, so here it is for those who don't get it.

I have the image in my mind of Perigo getting royally ticked-off (say at me or Barbara or someone), then getting the urge to get mad tanked-out drunk to vent, but afraid he will make a stink if he lets himself go. Then the drinking urge suddenly swells up and he belligerently reaches for the glass with full intention of getting pie-eyed, but the image goes through his head of the Objectivist world suddenly and sharply turning and glaring at him from all sides (like the guy eating did with the dog), and his hand backs off. All he does is look away and drool.

Then the tears of laughter come.

[Rich Engle]

Heh. Video of Perigo: interesting. Viddy of Perigo chomping a pie: good! Video of Perigo chomping pie w/ dog: Priceless.

I do not wish ill will on the man, at least nothing approaching losing his mortality. My life would be less without him, and for that I am

ashamed. On the other hand, I keep re-reading Thompson's Nixon eulogy, and I keep, sickly, harboring the possibility of writing a straight parody version of it, penned, with bittersweet love, for Perigo. It would be a guilty pleasure, to be sure, and likely I would harbor a bit of guilt in the end; guilt that would pass. Eventually, I would absolve myself for my cruelty. Talk about rationalizing, geez. Know whut ah meen?---> http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/graffiti/crook.htm

As to his drinking, well, more Nancy-boy junk. Musicians, real ones that work, know that they have to be somewhat reliable even under hard partying conditions. Perhaps he develops false bravado when under the spirits, but I don't think he lacks that even without. Certainly, drunkeness is no excuse; if anything, it likely only amplifies what was an annoyance preexisting. So I don't make a big deal out of the drinking thing, although I only hope that it makes him funnier to watch on occasion, that's about the best you get out of the lush life.

Nonetheless, it would be Fine Sport<tm>, and surely I would find some small pleasure in that, maybe enough to go happily to my own grave.

Ah, carbohydrate-loading, dogs, air-batoning, it is all loveliness. I do love his holding forth stuff. Not the best kung fu, but fun to watch.

It's like this:

You know how they overdub kung fu movies with Occidental voices, and they are inevitably out-of-synch? But, if you see one overdubbed with Spanish, say, on a Latino channel, the lips work. That's kind of how I see his gig. He can at least pull off that kind of dealio.

rde

Hopefully, that wasn't stuffed crust. Eew.

Edited February 2, 2008 by Rich Engle

[Ellen Stuttle]

William,

While you're exchanging posts with Valliant, should you continue to do so, you might ask him what post of mine on the Dawkins forum he misread to get this statement:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4129#comment-48128

(While you're at it maybe you can ask Ellen to provide that "empirical" case for determinism she claimed existed over at Dawkins.)

Ellen

___

[william.scherk]

William,

While you're exchanging posts with Valliant, should you continue to do so, you might ask him what post of mine on the Dawkins forum he misread to get this statement:

http://www.solopassion.com/node/4129#comment-48128

(While you're at it maybe you can ask Ellen to provide that "empirical" case for determinism she claimed existed over at Dawkins.)

Well, I could ask, but am unlikely to get an answer.** The all-purpose answer to inquiry seems to be "I have no intention of filling the many apparent gaps in your knowledge."

In the same thread you cite, he made this statement: And bizarre misstatements of my position occur over there with some regularity (e.g., Stuttle's claims on that very thread.)

He was referring to this thread, I believe. What was your bizarre misstatement? I asked him, but got no reply.

_________________

** The post Valliant is most likely referring to is this one.

Valliant had written: The truth is, as the honest have acknowledged, that determinism has no "empirical" case.

You replied: Not so. It has a strong empirical case, since the brain is a physical organ and the conclusions of physics would thus be expected to apply to the brain. You'd require evidence of errors in the currently understood laws of physics to have a sound empirical case for thinking that the brain is different.

Edited February 4, 2008 by william.scherk

[Ellen Stuttle]

In the same thread you cite, he made this statement: And bizarre misstatements of my position occur over there with some regularity (e.g., Stuttle's claims on that very thread.)

He was referring to this thread, I believe. What was your bizarre misstatement? I asked him, but got no reply.

I don't know what statement he means.

You're probably right about the Dawkins post he meant. He apparently didn't understand the context of talking about whether the brain operates as a classical or indeterminist system.

Ellen

___

[Dragonfly]

In the same thread you cite, he made this statement: And bizarre misstatements of my position occur over there with some regularity (e.g., Stuttle's claims on that very thread.)

He was referring to this thread, I believe. What was your bizarre misstatement? I asked him, but got no reply.

I don't know what statement he means.

You're probably right about the Dawkins post he meant. He apparently didn't understand the context of talking about whether the brain operates as a classical or indeterminist system.

He could have asked all those questions on the Dawkins forum (in Objectivist terms a neutral territory), but he preferred to retreat to the safe Solo fortress, where everybody will agree with him.