Ayn Rand and the World She Made

[Dragonfly]

Anne Heller gives some interesting information on her site:

Dear Mr. Moeller,

Yes, Dr. Blumenthal supports the presence of Dupuytren’s disease in Frank. I consulted with medical practitioners and medical literature, including “A Clinical Study of Dupuytren’s Contraction,” by J.D. Nichols, to be found here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7ggCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=Gibson+Empyema+of+the+frontal&source=bl&ots=naqusNh9sU&sig=ybAymSrNf_SEe7YReIsE4NpjnkI&hl=en&ei=HbVMS8eLLonS8AbOg7X2DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Gibson%20Empyema%20of%20the%20frontal&f=false

I did discuss Frank’s drinking with the Blumenthals. They supported, and support, what I reported in the book.

Yours truly,

Anne

[Reidy]

I see a small contradiction and a large one in the Holzers' statement. On p. 23 they say that Henry found out about the Rand/Branden affair as NBI was closing in 1968. A page later they say that, as of a year or two after this, he "was not to know until many years later." My best guess is that the second is a misstatement.

The larger contradiction shows up in their account of the Verdict affair. They say that Nathaniel Branden wronged them by enforcing the odd Randian notion of intellectual property, according to which one needs permission to invoke or discuss Objectivism publicly. They freely acknowledged their debt to Rand and did nothing illegal, so Rand and Branden, they insist, had no complaint. What Mr. and Mrs. Holzer forget, though nobody else conversant with Objectivist history does, is that they later made a public career of doing just this. The Jarret Wollstein episode has been on record for over forty years. The Objectivist once ran a letter from Henry to the student newspaper at U. Houston repudiating some unauthorized club, newsletter, class, what have you (do you really care?). The most salient example of this ran in 1969, anathemizing Branden's NBI audio venture and anyone who patronized it. These incidents all took place after the kiboshing of Verdict.

The Branden axis fired back with a statement by Branden's lawyer, in the Academic Associates newsletter, saying [here I paraphrase] that Holzer's complaints were void on grounds of rectocranial impaction. The lawyer cited the decision in Rand's Hearst lawsuit without giving details. All these years I've wondered what it was, and now I know. Does anyone out there have the full text of this statement? It might make interesting reading.

One aspect of the document that I don't question is its account of Branden's vanity and vindictiveness. Having been his patient for several disastrous months many years ago, I need not take anybody's word that the portrait that emerges from Ruminations, the Heller book and the more distasteful parts of his own Judgement Day is absolutely true to life.

[9thdoctor]

I see a small contradiction and a large one in the Holzers' statement. On p. 23 they say that Henry found out about the Rand/Branden affair as NBI was closing in 1968. A page later they say that, as of a year or two after this, he "was not to know until many years later." My best guess is that the second is a misstatement.

He says he heard about it, but didn’t believe it. They suggest later that the fact that his reaction worked against them, that Rand presumably was insulted, and she sought “an excuse to end our relationship because of Hank’s earlier reaction that Ayn’s longtime lover was an object of disgust." The extent of it was his statement “Nathan? Yick!”. I might be reading into it a bit, but that’s what I took away from their story. It looks like they reinterpreted their break years later, presumably after reading PAR.

Its weird how some paragraphs read like they were written by a third party. It gives it such a pretentious tone. No use complaining though, the price was right.

rectocranial impaction

You say it’s a paraphrase, did they actually use those two words? I just about fell out of my chair when I read that.

Edited January 13, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Reidy]

You make a very fine distinction between hearing about X and believing X.

Not an exact quote; the statement was all very lawyerish. The lawyer's point was that Holzer and Rand had no case; since nothing ever came of it, I conclude that he was right. An interesting point about Holzer's hands-off-Objectivism statements is that for all his bluster he never quite said that anybody was doing anything illegal, and he never went to court against any renegades.

[9thdoctor]

Edited January 13, 2010 by Ninth Doctor

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Anne Heller gives some interesting information on her site:

Dear Mr. Moeller,

Yes, Dr. Blumenthal supports the presence of Dupuytren's disease in Frank. I consulted with medical practitioners and medical literature, including "A Clinical Study of Dupuytren's Contraction," by J.D. Nichols, to be found here:

http://books.google....frontal&f=false

I did discuss Frank's drinking with the Blumenthals. They supported, and support, what I reported in the book.

Yours truly,

Anne

Dragonfly,

Heh.

There goes the windmill of Perigo, Stuttle and Moeller trying to discredit Barbara about Frank's drinking.

In their Don Quixote charge, they thought they would at least puncture a windmill. They ran right into a boulder.

(splat...)

Michael

[Selene]

Mount up! To Arms!

Edited January 12, 2010 by Selene

[Alfonso Jones]

Anne Heller gives some interesting information on her site:

Dear Mr. Moeller,

Yes, Dr. Blumenthal supports the presence of Dupuytren’s disease in Frank. I consulted with medical practitioners and medical literature, including “A Clinical Study of Dupuytren’s Contraction,” by J.D. Nichols, to be found here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=7ggCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA305&lpg=PA305&dq=Gibson+Empyema+of+the+frontal&source=bl&ots=naqusNh9sU&sig=ybAymSrNf_SEe7YReIsE4NpjnkI&hl=en&ei=HbVMS8eLLonS8AbOg7X2DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Gibson%20Empyema%20of%20the%20frontal&f=false

I did discuss Frank’s drinking with the Blumenthals. They supported, and support, what I reported in the book.

Yours truly,

Anne

The attack on Barbara Branden's account in Passion of Ayn Rand continues to crumble.

I wonder if the usual know-nothing crowd will now insist on date and time-stamped video of Frank in an inebriated state before they really acknowledge there is evidence. Reminiscent of all the angry denials of the AR-NB affair, before Peikoff acknowledged that Rand wrote about it in her journals.

Sad, so very sad.

Bill P

[Brant Gaede]

One aspect of the document that I don't question is its account of Branden's vanity and vindictiveness. Having been his patient for several disastrous months many years ago, I need not take anybody's word that the portrait that emerges from Ruminations, the Heller book and the more distasteful parts of his own Judgement Day is absolutely true to life.

I know how difficult psychotherapy can be and I was once NB's client ('76-'77). I have no desire whatsoever to intrude on your privacy, but could you give us the year you were involved with him?

--Brant

[Reidy]

August or September of 69 until June of 70.

[Brant Gaede]

August or September of 69 until June of 70.

Thank you.

I wouldn't have wanted to have been his client then; he was completely in transition. This goes with my not wanting to have known him in the 1960s.

--Brant

last post by me on this subject on this thread

[Neil Parille]

Anne Heller responds:

Dear Ellen,

Joan and Allan Blumenthal confirm and reaffirm that Frank drank heavily in the 1970s. As to Dupuytren’s, they not only support the likelihood of Frank’s having had it; they recall having been told that Duypuytren’s was the diagnosis at the time. Joan’s father had Dupuytren’s, or something similar, she told me, and was told that, in him, it was the first sign of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

I do hope I have answered your questions. What I have to say on these and other subjects is for the most part contained in my book. You will agree, disagree, conduct further research, interview Frank’s doctors, contact the Blumenthals–just as you please. I do not want to further dissect this matter or become involved in a debate over controversial passages in someone else’s book.

Yours truly,

Anne

-Neil Parille

Edited January 14, 2010 by Neil Parille

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have a friendly request.

Please provide a link when quoting another site if it is not too much trouble.

It's a real pain going back through the threads (or looking it up on Google) to find a link to visit the original.

Here is the link to Anne Heller's reply above.

Thanks.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

The attack on Barbara Branden's account in Passion of Ayn Rand continues to crumble.

Are you guys out of your gourds?

Or are you just not paying attention?

Particulars of Barbara's account of Frank's drinking are in shreds. (There are also some particulars of Heller's account which don't stack up well, but I mostly haven't gotten around to discussing those.)

See (83261), see (83262), and see (83263) -- I'll quote the middle one in full below.

There are also some posts -- here (83242), here (83231) and here (83183) -- by Michael Moeller which go to the point.

(All the posts are on the thread "Anne Heller, M.D.?," node/7156.)

That Frank was drinking in his studio in the '70s (possibly starting in the last couple years of the '60s), I don't think anyone has denied. Certainly I have never doubted that he did drink in privacy during that time. How "heavily" I still question, and will continue to question until and unless some decent evidence of quantities of what strength alcohol is provided.

And notice that Heller still doesn't quote anything from the Blumenthals. What, exactly, did they say they saw? Maybe we'll never know.

--

Full post, title "Heller Replies - Part II":

#83262, node/7156

Heller obviously doesn't want any more questions from me, and I'll honor her wish at this point and cease inquiring of her.

The project has been useful, since several important details have emerged:

1) Most important is that Barbara's only witness for Frank's reputed (by Barbara, PAR, pp 272-73) starting to drink in excess, seeking refuge from "an intolerable reality," in the '50s -- i.e., Don Ventura -- didn't meet Frank until 1962.

Another detail of chronology which I haven't yet mentioned (that Ventura's fall from grace, according to Heller, occurred *in '63*) raises additional questions which I'll take up in a separate post.

2) The Blumenthals, Heller reports, recall Dupuytren's as having been the diagnosis at the time of Frank's hand surgery.

Heller either didn't notice or sluffed aside my pointing out that if it was Dupuytren's (I find her reply on that convincing), then it *wasn't*, as Barbara described it, "a contraction of the tendons of his hands." Heller didn't answer where she got this description (with the added adjective "painful"). I suppose she got it from Barbara and didn't notice that it contradicts the description of Dupuytren's in her own cited medical source. (Dupuytren's is a condition of the palmar fascia.) I wonder if she ever flew the tendon-contraction description past Allan, and if he corrected her. The answer to that, I suppose I'm unlikely to find out.

3) Heller says the Blumenthals confirm that Frank drank heavily *in the '70s*.

Note, she didn't mention the '60s, and still less the '50s -- when, according to Barbara, no one in Ayn's and Frank's circle of friends suspected (small wonder if it wasn't happening then).

If Frank's heavy drinking occurred in the '70s, this does seriously call into question any idea of distress about the NB/AR relationship as a psychologically causative factor.

Ellen

[Robert Campbell]

Ms. Stuttle,

Why have the negative responses from ARI insiders

• Bob Mayhew's review of Goddess of the Market in The Objective Standard

• Harry Binswanger's review of Goddess on HBL

* Harry Binswanger's comment on Volokh Conspiracy, in response to Ilya Somin's post on Ayn Rand and the World She Made

not mentioned Frank O'Connor's drinking, or complained specifically about the way it was described in either biography?

Robert Campbell

[Brant Gaede]

It's certainly better to get Barbara than to get Rand?

It seems Barbara was too concerned about the injustices done to Frank to serve Ayn.

PARC II won't fly.

Frank, please leave the apartment two nights a week so Nathaniel and I can make love in our bed.

It would have been immoral if Frank hadn't gotten a drink or two or three or more. What the heck do you think Frank was doing, Ellen, while Nathaniel was loving his wife?

Justice for Frank is not proving there was no proof he drank, but that he got tricked out of his marriage but was required to maintain the form.

--Brant

Edited January 14, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Stuttle always was the last one off the horse, even when the windmill turns into a boulder.

The issue done died a dead death and only the stalwart half-dozen brave heroes of the War of Frankian Sobriety are left reading this crap.

I do admire her tenacity in trying to out-Valliant Valliant in ineptly attributing meanings where there are none, ignoring meanings when they are in-your-face obvious, redundantly redundanting redundancy of the insignificant, nitpicking over irrelevant minutia and oozing outright smarm in an attempted trashing of a Branden.

There's a lot of hatred there, but there's only one James Valliant.

And Ellen Stuttle is no James Valliant.

He wrote a book.

She didn't.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I have a great idea.

Stuttle has frequently pranced and preened about, delightfully telling all how close she is to the Blumenthals.

I don't know why they're suddenly the only source in the earth-shattering War of Frankian Sobriety (how did that happen? --Valliant-logic, I guess), but just supposin' they were.

Why doesn't Stuttle ask them some questions?

She is close to them, ain't she?

I'm jus' sayin'...

Michael

[Xray]

Interesting how on the one hand, Perigo lists a plethora of quotes singing the praise of booze, and on the other hand refuses to accept that Frank O'Connor loved his liquor to excess as well. He cleary violates the law of "non-contradiction".

http://www.solopassion.com/node/7240

I just completed Ayn Rand and the World She Made. It's a very good and important work. The picture of Rand as a totally rational person must be revised.

Presenting herself as a rational person was a self-serving myth created by Rand which her followers seemd to have believed without daring to question.

BB and Frank even accepted her decision to engage in an affair with NB as allegedly being a "rational" (!) decision, so much were they under her spell.

This rational decision involved that Frank move out of his own bed for the sexual encounters his wife had with her lover. It reads like a toally unrealistic piece of fiction, but as the saying goes, truth is stranger.

Imo a person behaving like that to their spouse has neither rationality nor empathy. Nowhere does Rand's lack of empathy manifest itself more clearly than in this "arrangement" which ended in a total disaster. Rand either had no idea of how much this was going to hurt and humiliate Frank - (as well as Barbara, but from BB's book I got the impression that Frank suffered even more because he was emotionally more dependent on his wife Rand than Barbara was on her husband NB) - and in case Rand did have an idea, she did not care enough about it to desist from her "plan".

So in both cases, NO empathy. The same goes for NB.

Frank, please leave the apartment two nights a week so Nathaniel and I can make love in our bed.

It would have been immoral if Frank hadn't gotten a drink or two or three or more. What the heck do you think Frank was doing, Ellen, while Nathaniel was loving his wife?

This direct question to Ellen calls a spade a spade. But I suppose hell will freeze over before Ellen answers this question.

Imo is perfectly explainable that a person like Frank would drown his pain in booze.

It looks like Frank was non-confrontational man who not once dared to go against his wife's wishes.

All that prattle about ths bein a rationalafai is just plain absurd.

But what "rational" Rand irrationally blanked out was the consequences her decision had on the parties involved. She was clueless like a child having not enough life experience to asses the effects of its actions.

What I do is rational and therefore right. THAT was how she operated.

A husband with backbone and emotional independence could have "rationally" retorted to her:

"So you want me to move out of my own bed for your sexual encounters with your lover? Well, I'm afraid I will rationally have to decline. For it goes against your premises, my dear. Surely you don't want to violate them by suddenly "faking reality"? Why keep it secret if is so rational what you two have decided? Frankly, I don't understand. You should give a press conference and announce this to the world!

And while we're at it, I too will announce something to you, of which the public will be informed as well: I won't of curse stand in your way. That would be irrational. Which I is why hereby inform you of my decision to see an attorney - I'm going to divorce you. For I have rationally decided that you are not the woman I want to spend my life with nymore. So let's getting things done. I don't like unfinished business."

Can you imagine the effect such a reaction, turning tables by confronting Rand with her own "dogma" would have had? All that 'rationalitiy' of hers would have been unmasked, and the whole charade been blown to pieces. But no way would Frank have dared to do this. He was both emotionally and financially dependent on Rand. I believe he also feared her. In a way, they were ALL were dependent on Rand - the whole collective. Quite telling that the so-called individulaists called themselves - the collective (!).

BG: Justice for Frank is not proving there was no proof he drank, but that he got tricked out of his marriage but was required to maintain the form.

Imagine the strain this must have put on him. Humiliation, hurt, jealousy, deception, fear - each of these things alone is a stress factor, and they were all combined. And he suffered all this in silence. No surprise that he sought relief and oblivion in drink.

Imo those Objectivists who so vehemently deny Frank's problems are 'faking reality' as well.

I have a great idea.

Stuttle has frequently pranced and preened about, delightfully telling all how close she is to the Blumenthals.

I don't know why they're suddenly the only source in the earth-shattering War of Frankian Sobriety (how did that happen? --Valliant-logic, I guess), but just supposin' they were.

Why doesn't Stuttle ask them some questions?

She is close to them, ain't she?

Who is going to ask her? Does she she still post here regularly?

[Xray]

[Have to repost this since the glitchy software makes it impossible for me to edit the last post in the 'five post cycle'. It looks like it counts every editing as a separate post,

For when I get the message "You can make five more posts today" and I then make the first of the new series and edit it, I get the message that there's only three left (instead of four)].

Edited version:

Interesting how on the one hand, Perigo lists a plethora of quotes singing the praise of booze, and on the other hand refuses to accept that Frank O'Connor loved his liquor to excess as well. Perigo cleary violates the law of "non-contradiction" here.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/7240

View Post Chris Grieb, on 26 December 2009 - 06:01 PM, said:

I just completed Ayn Rand and the World She Made. It's a very good and important work. The picture of Rand as a totally rational person must be revised.

Imo presenting herself as a rational person was a self-serving myth created by Rand which her followers seemd to have believed without daring to question.

BB and Frank even accepted her decision to engage in an affair with NB as allegedly being a "rational" (!) decision, so much were they under her spell.

This rational decision involved that Frank move out of his own bed for the sexual encounters his wife had with her lover. It reads like a totally unrealistic piece of fiction, but as the saying goes, truth is stranger.

Imo a person behaving like that to their spouse has neither rationality nor empathy. Nowhere does Rand's lack of empathy manifest itself more clearly than in this "arrangement" which ended in a total disaster. Rand either had no idea of how much this was going to hurt and humiliate Frank - (as well as Barbara, but from BB's book I got the impression that Frank suffered even more because he was emotionally more dependent on his wife AR than Barbara was on her husband NB) - and in case Rand did have an idea, she obviously did not care enough about it to abandon her "plan".

So whatever it was, there was NO empathy involved. The same goes for NB.

View Post Brant Gaede, on 13 January 2010 - 11:36 PM, said:

Frank, please leave the apartment two nights a week so Nathaniel and I can make love in our bed.

BG: It would have been immoral if Frank hadn't gotten a drink or two or three or more. What the heck do you think Frank was doing, Ellen, while Nathaniel was loving his wife?

This direct question to Ellen calls a spade a spade. But I suppose hell will freeze over before you will get an answer on this from her.

Imo is perfectly explainable that a person like Frank would drown his pain in booze.

It looks like Frank was a non-confrontational man who not once dared to go against his wife's wishes.

All that prattle by Rand about her decision being "rational" is just plain absurd.

What "rational" Rand irrationally blanked out was the consequences her decision had on the parties involved. She was clueless like a child having not enough life experience to asses the effects of its actions.

"What I do is rational and therefore right". THAT was how Rand operated.

A husband with backbone and emotional independence could have "rationally" retorted to her:

"So you want me to move out of my own bed for your sexual encounters with your lover? Well, I'm afraid I will rationally have to decline. For it goes against your premises, my dear. Surely you don't want to violate them by suddenly "faking reality"? Why keep it secret if is so rational what you two have decided? Frankly, I don't understand. You should give a press conference and announce this to the world!

And while we're at it, I too will announce something to you, of which the public will be informed as well: I won't of course stand in your way. That would be irrational. Which is why I hereby inform you of my decision to see an attorney - I'm going to divorce you. For I have rationally decided that you are not the woman I want to spend my life with anymore. So let's get things done. I don't like unfinished business."

Can you imagine the effect such a reaction, turning tables by confronting Rand with her own "dogma" would have had? The facade would have been torn off that so-called 'rationalitiy' of hers, and her self-delusion exposed.

But no way would Frank have dared to do this. He was both emotionally and financially dependent on Rand. I believe he also feared her. In a way, they ALL were dependent on Rand - the whole "collective". Quite revealing that those so-called individualists called themselves - the collective (!).

BG: Justice for Frank is not proving there was no proof he drank, but that he got tricked out of his marriage but was required to maintain the form.

Imagine the strain this must have put on him. Humiliation, hurt, jealousy, deception, fear - each of these things alone is a stress factor, and they were all combined. And he suffered all this in silence. No surprise that he sought relief and oblivion in drink.

Imo those Objectivists who so vehemently deny Frank's problems are 'faking reality' as well.

MSK:

I have a great idea.

Stuttle has frequently pranced and preened about, delightfully telling all how close she is to the Blumenthals.

I don't know why they're suddenly the only source in the earth-shattering War of Frankian Sobriety (how did that happen? --Valliant-logic, I guess), but just supposin' they were.

Why doesn't Stuttle ask them some questions?

She is close to them, ain't she?

Who is going to ask her? Does she still post here regularly?

Edited January 15, 2010 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

Frank and Barbara both could have simply said "No." It is more understandable why Barbara didn't than Frank who was older than Ayn and had years of marriage with her. The "people" at SOLOP are so intent on slicing and dicing Barbara that they are incapable of acknowledging that she always got the basic story right. It's a story they cannot handle because they cannot be, by virtue of their fulminating suppositions, "Rand Diminishers." What they are actually referring to is that stupid Rand icon they pretend her to have been. To make this work Frank has to be an icon too.

--Brant

[Robert Campbell]

Xray,

Ms. Stuttle drops in here from time to time. She disappears again as soon as anyone asks her a semi-tough question, and there's no telling when she'll reappear.

But I'll bet she's aware of MSK's challenge.

If Ms. Stuttle were still on good terms with Allan and Joan Blumenthal, she'd have asked them about Frank O'Connor's drinking before her go-round with Anne Heller.

Robert Campbell

[Ellen Stuttle]

I have a great idea.

Stuttle has frequently pranced and preened about, delightfully telling all how close she is to the Blumenthals.

I don't know why they're suddenly the only source in the earth-shattering War of Frankian Sobriety (how did that happen? --Valliant-logic, I guess), but just supposin' they were.

Why doesn't Stuttle ask them some questions?

She is close to them, ain't she?

I'm jus' sayin'...

Michael

No, Stuttle hasn't. And, no, Stuttle isn't.

Stuttle had a great many conversations with Allan Blumenthal during the time between her meeting Allan at his recital in 1970 and the last time she saw him -- the concluding session of a course whe was taking with Allan -- just after the election of 1980 (I remember some comments he and Joan, who was attending the class, made about Reagan's speech). The last time Stuttle wrote to Allan was at the end of 1981. Her life quite diverged from the Objectivist world for nearly a decade thereafter.

All of this has been said in her posts.

Ask another "tough" question. (If Robert is referring to his stupid queries about "moral perfection," Stuttle doesn't buy into the terms of the inquisition.)

Stuttle

Btw, changing to first person: I would have asked Allan questions directly had it not been that I would have found doing so, after all these years of not being in touch with him, an extremely impolite intrusion into a life which by all appearances (from some pictures a link to which I was sent of him performing in a Van Cliburn competition) is a happy one and probably one wherein he wouldn't welcome queries about Ayn Rand. If Heller indeed has direct quotes from him and from Joan, and if neither has requested that what either said be kept off limits, why doesn't she provide direct quotes? Why doesn't MSK inquire of Anne Heller -- or of Allan himself (I'm told he has a facebook account) -- if he's curious?

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Btw, changing to first person: I would have asked Allan questions directly had it not been that I would have found doing so, after all these years of not being in touch with him, an extremely impolite intrusion into a life which by all appearances (from some pictures a link to which I was sent of him performing in a Van Cliburn competition) is a happy one and probably one wherein he wouldn't welcome queries about Ayn Rand.

Stuttle,

Bullshit.

Blah blah blah...

You speculate all over the place about the Blumenthals. An email takes 5 minutes to write and doesn't cost anything to send or receive. The person who receives it either answers or ignores it.

End of story. This isn't not rocket science.

Anne Heller did it. You won't.

What are you afraid of?

If Heller indeed has direct quotes from him and from Joan, and if neither has requested that what either said be kept off limits, why doesn't she provide direct quotes?

You're asking me?

Why doesn't MSK inquire of Anne Heller -- or of Allan himself (I'm told he has a facebook account) -- if he's curious?

I'm not curious.

I, for example, have no reason to kiss Perigo's ass, especially by attacking Barbara so he can pretend he's never been a lush in public.

But I can certainly see the enormous importance of this issue for someone who does kiss Perigo's ass.

I'm just sayin'...

Michael

[Xray]

[All quotes: Ellen Stuttle]

Stuttle had a great many conversations with Allan Blumenthal during the time between her meeting Allan at his recital in 1970 and the last time she saw him -- the concluding session of a course whe was taking with Allan -- just after the election of 1980 (I remember some comments he and Joan, who was attending the class, made about Reagan's speech). The last time Stuttle wrote to Allan was at the end of 1981. Her life quite diverged from the Objectivist world for nearly a decade thereafter.

All of this has been said in her posts.

Ask another "tough" question. (If Robert is referring to his stupid queries about "moral perfection," Stuttle doesn't buy into the terms of the inquisition.)

Stuttle

Btw, changing to first person: I would have asked Allan questions directly had it not been that I would have found doing so, after all these years of not being in touch with him, an extremely impolite intrusion into a life which by all appearances (from some pictures a link to which I was sent of him performing in a Van Cliburn competition) is a happy one and probably one wherein he wouldn't welcome queries about Ayn Rand. If Heller indeed has direct quotes from him and from Joan, and if neither has requested that what either said be kept off limits, why doesn't she provide direct quotes?

It get the impression that you never really spoke with AB about Ayn Rand's private issues. I assume you both didn't want to go there.

Why doesn't MSK inquire of Anne Heller -- or of Allan himself (I'm told he has a facebook account) -- if he's curious?

What's there to inquire of Heller by MSK on this? It is you who doesn't believe what Heller says in her book. So that boot is on your foot.

If Heller indeed has direct quotes from him and from Joan, and if neither has requested that what either said be kept off limits, why doesn't she provide direct quotes?

Now really Ellen, this is getting ridiculous. Information provided by an author needn't always be be conveyed by direct speech in the book.

Ask another "tough" question. (If Robert is referring to his stupid queries about "moral perfection," Stuttle doesn't buy into the terms of the inquisition.)

Could you please give me a link to these alleged "stupid queries on moral perfection"?

Ask another "tough" question.

Glad to be of service, Ellen. Here goes:

What would you tell your husband if he asked you (hypothetical situation) to move out of your bedroom twice a week so he can have sex with his lover?

Edited January 16, 2010 by Xray