caroljane

So you'll probably be really into dung and pee-pee art when you hit about 175. J Hope so! If you want to stay young and with-it you gotta keep up with the times! peppily, Carol

Brant, is that a quotation? I know, the quote marks should give me a clue, but you could just be quoting your own previous comment. It is art whoever wrote it, heartbreaking truth. As I read it again it seems to echo dimly as something I have read before. But that's art for you,heartbreaking truth that is just a recognition.

And a little aggravation in the afternoon.

I thought for sure that you would remake Atlas.

All forms of grief are connected with a loss, and in the most tragic case of losing a loved one, the grief is about wanting him/her back to life. One can also grieve deeply about a loved one not having had the life he/she could have had. My heart goes out to you, Brant. Angela Yes, and madness is the loss of one's self, while you are still alive, and aware of the loss. This form of grief is so severe that for some it is literally unendurable. As with postpartum depression which I got with my first baby. I never wanted to kill my baby or myself, but in my terror and utter helplessness, without my husband I might have slid into psychosis and done so. Hearing of such cases that become famous we all wonder, how could a woman kill her own child? How could she not? In madness you simply know you have to do something, so you do it. One reason there are nearly six years between my two sons is, I was afraid of getting PPD again. But second time around was the opposite, Andrew Edward Lynam 9 lbs. 6 oz, brought with him "joy in the morning."

It is as true as Sunrise. Unfortunately we Aspies have just been demoted to Autistics, or Auties as we former Aspies like to say. Herr Doktor Aspberger did for us was to give us a name for our woe. I used to say: Well, no wonder I have been taunted, insulted, mocked, rejected and even beaten up by bullies. It is because I have Aspberger's Syndrome. Now the name of my pain has been taken by the professional headshrinkers. Oh well, I suppose being put in the same slot as Temple Grandin can't be all bad. Ba'al Chatzaf I used to say: Well, no wonder I have been taunted, insulted, mocked, rejected and even beaten up by bullies. It is because I have Aspberger's Syndrome. Ba'al Chatzaf No, no, you were mocked and taunted and beaten up because we thought you were an Objectivist. A. Bully

You never thought it would happen, but you still bought the odd ticket, and now you are rich beyond what you even deserve! I know you will disribute your new wealth rationally. (Me, I would stuff it under the mattress and . pretend I didn't have it) But this is all about you. Unlimited capital, what would you do with it? Please omit securing your wives and children and building a cottage for Granny. Thanks! Await your replies.

Brant,when I wrote my posts above I knew only that you had lost your loved one. Now a friend who is very distressed for you,has toldI me how you lost him. I do not have anything to give you except this, I know what it is to want to die, and to need to die. I know it from authority, and and no I will not quote my sources. I know what it is, to believe you ought to be dead, to know that you ought to be dead more surely than you know anything. As I think you believe me to be honest. I am just telling you what I know. In that lonesome valley there are no others, you gotta walk it by yourself. I would credit the songwriter but I do not who the hell it was. You know how it is, when people you care about suffer, you just want to do something when you know there is not a damn thing you can do. This is the only stuff I have Brant, I am pretty sure you would not like one of my casseroles. Most people don't.

There's a psychological subset to the nicotine addiction. Smokers feel that they are just not themselves, their full personalities without their cigarettes and that they would not be able to enjoy their morning coffee without that first cigarette. Seriously, that was my biggest fear, although after I quit, I found I still enjoyed the coffee. But I did not enjoy it more. It tasted good while I smoked, it tasted good when I didn't. It is coffee.

What fascinates me is that Rand, who was such a heavy (and also very passionate!) smoker, managed to quit cold turkey from one day to the other. Obviously you have never smoked, X, and good for you! It is not fascinating to me at all. My father quit that way and so did I, not because you get information that shows you are killing yourself. It is because you are disgusted at yourself for being addicted, to anything, that the thing you are addicted to is stronger than you, so that although quitting will take away your entire pleasure in life you will give that up and just suffer forever, rather than let your enemy win. I never could stand to be bossed. That is only how it was for me, of course. And after 20 years I have submitted to the yoke again, so who the hell am I to comment.

Yes, we've borrowed the word like other useful ones to express embarrassing, or self-pitying feelings, or mawkishly sentimental emotions and so on. English grabs every word, plagiarizes without shame from other languages, to continue to own every word in the world, a million and counting. WSS and I use sf(sorry, I just know I can't spell it right twice) in the Canadian sense, mild pleasure in the discomfiture of those who deserve to be discomfited. The Americans use it with a heftier moral edge, delightful gloating and pleasure due to the suffering of one's enemies. There is such a thing as sf, and there is such a thing as the joy of battle. I, the head of the Canadian League of Cowards (but don't tell anyone that, they might get mad) feel that I understand both these emotions, hard to believe although that is. Andrew Breitbart died young, and I believe he died of both those things, and the major contributory cause, conspiracy theories aside, does not matter. He was right, dead right, as he sped along, but he's just as dead as if he was wrong. Balance in all things said Aristotle. Extremism is no vice, but it is no virtue either. I do not have to know the intentions of all the Founding Fathers or to read Aristotle in the original Greek to know the difference between the battle, and the rape and pillage or the imagined, hoped-for rape and pillage. I have a read a lot about Jefferson for instance, and I know a lot of Greeks.

The Clown Bus is already chartered sir, and your seat has your name on it. I was pleased to see that you are beside me on our next trip, as I have heard that you are a gentleman.

So you'll probably be really into dung and pee-pee art when you hit about 175. J If I can learn to truly appreciate art, my life will have not been lived in vain! Thanks for being euphemistic, J.

Long title, short post, eh? When I was 18, believing Ayn Rand to be a moral goddess, if I had seen her emerge from the Ford Hall in mink and ethical splendour, and then slip on a banana peel and splat into a gutter, I would have laughed. Now that I am 113 on my best days,when I think her no goddess and fear her philosophy is destructive, if I saw her slip again, I would not laugh. Knowing that it was she, knowing what I know now,I could not, and I would not want to be able to laugh.

Baal dear friend, I have been fortunate to escape the other symptoms so far, but I do get the general less than optimal rundown feeling after heavily imbibing some of your posts. Carol Smoker I have never been optimal however so I cannot claim full accuracy here.

C'mon Baal, you know you really love us all, deep down.

Gulch, Thank you for your post. Before I read it I had mentioned that I admired physicians in general, which I do. I admire psychiatrists in particular. My mother was a paranoid schizophrenic, and psychiatrists helped not just to save her life, but to save her life as her self , and thus to give my father and me our lives.I also think I know a bit of what psychiatrists pay, for doing their job, the payment not in money and cannot be recouped. I do not agree with your politics, obviously, and if you ever read any of my posts you must wonder why Michael puts up with me. But the great thing about OL is its adventitiousness. A socialist gets to say to a libertarian , thank you. Carol bat Ruby Next up: "I Kissed an Objectivist..and I liked it!" the sequel ..new revelations from Kat, .....and a what a socialist never wanted you to know!!!"

DDL, Thanks for the explication of the Glenn stuff. Demonstrating that you are a neanderthal is great populist politics. I did not realize that he agreed with Jonathan about art and my respect for him has again increased. I am more than excited to welcome you here. It is always nice to meet a newcomer who is not a complete head case. Also, you live in New Orleans, the only American city I ever wished to visit (and I dislike jazz). The usual Welcome Wagonner is Adam, but he is not around, I guess he has locked himself in the dungeon again. If I've told him once, I've told him a thousand times...cellar key on the left.. the man just does not listen. ..Where was I ? Ohyeah, so maybe I am not doing the most polished job as greeter, but nice to meet you.

She then backpedaled in a subsequent post, apologizing to Ed Hudgins and Gulch8, not intending that they are as inept as jts. However, I must demur. They are. We all are. One way or another, we all obsess over issues peculiar to our own worldviews. Normally an eclectic writer with good insight and interesting perspectives, Ed Hudgins kept grinding Mitt Romney's ax, touting Paul Ryan, and pulling for the GOP. Gulch8 turned every discussion into an opportunity to plump for Ron Paul. I wonder what his new jag will be. When Robert Ba'al Kolker goes ballistic about being a Jew, I think of the "professional Irish" down at St. Malachi's who used to give to the IRA. I am pretentious, officious, and fatuous; I could be a pseudo-intellectual if my Asperger's did not get in the way. But even the nicest of us, say Robert Campbell and Stephen Boydstun, are off in the clouds, like (well, heck) like Socrates in "The Clouds." Not one of us here is beyond ridicule, however mild. We are also each of us in our own ways intelligent, loyal, and highly principled. We are complicated. But, then, who is not? On my blog I just reviewed Nerds by David Anderegg. What makes someone a nerd versus being a geek? To Anderegg, an academic psychologist, the diagnosis of such syndromes is always a matter of degrees, not of kind. ... and being kind is always important... which Carol is, and which I am not. Hey, I bin crool! And I kin be crool again! I could not leave Ed and G8 in the company of jts. I admire physicians in general, and Ed...look at those adorable faces, i just know he is a great dad. Of jts I know nothing except what he posts and therefore have no reason go give him any quarter. Ave atque vale friend, as we meet on the field where all is fair.

I agree, with all my gullet. Editorial commentators everywhere, please, if you want to show how low you can go, spare us the yuck and learn the Limbo.

I keep revisiting this. Art, funerals, what matters. Anyone who tries to create any form of art knows, what other people think does not matter. Of course acknowledgment is necessary in some degree. If you can do anything, you know it or you don't. The most important thing I ever tried to write was my mother's eulogy. I never wrote it but I composed it as it came to me, and I did not panic on deadline, it just came to me calmly. The most important compliment I ever had or will have on my writing, came to me about the words I spoke then. Who said them or what they were are not important to my point here, not just because "self praise is no praise" and so on. That is not what I am talking about. Those words were silver and gold to me, a treasure to lay upon her grave, the last thing I could ever give her.

Dear Mr. Selene, I hope you will forgive me writing to you when we have not been introduced , but I take the liberty on the recommendation of Lt-Col Alexander Francois Thumpie who speaks warmly of you, and I feel you are a chap who can understand. Hypothetically, what can one do when many people expect one to do something and indeed should have already done it? Thumpie says you are the finest arguer, I mean philosopher he knows, well he did say you are the only philosopher he knows but that is by the way. And when a man is trying to get his own relations to just shut up, let alone the entire British public, well you can understand that one would appreciate an outside perspective, as it were. And please do not say, "Just talk to her, communication is important." I happen to know that. I have talked plenty, to the point where I have been requested to cease talking. Mr. Selene, I feel within myself that my manhood is in question, although in verifiable fact I have honoured the Duchess every single night we have been married plus some of the days. I seek your objective advice, in confidence, I will trust your word as a gentleman, of course. Most sincerely, William PS I understand that your militia troupe was disbanded for technical reasons, otherwise of course I would have initially addressed you as Col. Selene. All reports tell me that you were an upstanding soldier and a credit to the party which you support.

Michael, I am going to carry on a little here,on the general topic of propaganda and polemics, because I am feeling touchy about stuff. Glenn Beck is a polemicist and a propagandist. Those are neutral terms to me, job descriptions. Ayn Rand was certainly both , as was Abraham Lincoln whom I revere with reservations,(it was a part-job for him )as is Pamela Geller whom I loathe without reservations, as was Christopher Hitchens and so on,Of certain OL members in this line I will not speak. I just think sometimes, that because a person does a job well, it gives him a glow of moral achievement amongst Objectivists, in areas where he may not deserve them. I just cannot back down on this. Glenn is a fine polemicist and propagandist. But he is a rotten art critic,

So, while I'm at it: You can't terrify people into acting rationally , you can't bully them with a thinktanks' worth of information into acting in their own interest. They will insist, because they must, because they are themselves, in acting as their gut tells them. And you can't program their gut, you can't educate it, you can only give it reasons to do what it must do. Of course, if you want to get an individual gut owner to be rational and act in their own interest, you will often succeed, if you love them. This is untenable as a mass strategy however, due to the variables and political basics. It is too cost-intensive in the short term. Bullying works better.

Oh my galt, I just realized what I implied in my #11. Ed Hudgins and Gulch8, you are in no way like jts, and I deeply apologize for inadverdently giving rise to the impression that you might be.