caroljane

Stephen, your previous avatar, I presume was the young you ---I thought it looked so much like early photos of my father, that we must somehow be related.

Bill, have I told you lately that I love you? Widely-thought, great-hearted, beautifully humane post. And "the damp basement suite of the American dream" is quite simply literature. Waving a cold squid tentacle towards the Left Coast,

Is Euoil a woman? I have no idea. Are you mixed up? Well, that would require a separate thread to determine. 8-) Ghs lol, I guess if it is Louie it is not a woman. Maybe I am thinking of an Overture ...I Aam pretty sure Wotan is a guy though.Really, Oonline should pay Michael for all this free publicity. But I don't know who its owner is, or its webmaster ... I guess is ARI in some corporate license form. Full disclosure, I have recently returned from Taste of the Danforth, a street and eatfest here attended by tourists from as far away as Buffalo, NY! I met up with my son Andy, dog Bodie and latest gf Holly, and am full of kalamari and goodwill.

Maybe he provokes you and me, wss, more than ordinary conspiracy nuts or health cranks do, because he sits chewing his twigs under the maple tree. He just offends our sense of Canadian collectivism. When I want to get teary eyed about the average Canadian as on other thread, I have to know he is grumping away on the wrong side of the road on the Queen's Highway.

I thought Euoil was a woman,,,, Am I mixed up?

Avatars are another story altogether! I admire the people who present their real faces, but at 107, and did I mention my resemblance to von Mises? I could never do it. We had a cat Smokey, dearly lamented. Cats are the best.

I agree with your comment, but in such a case a person can explain the compelling reason for anonymity. What I cannot abide are coy games about who a person really is. And that seems to be what is going on here. Ghs Let me put it this way: In the absence of a compelling and explictly stated reason for remaining anonymous, the presumption should be against a person who won't reveal his or her identity. It should be assumed, in other words, that the person is not being forthright about other matters. But this is a defeasible presumption; over time, as noted before, the person may gain the trust of other members. Ghs Yes. Psychological visibility, so to speak.

I would add a rider about posters and moderators on highly sensitive forums such as mideast ones on Egypt, Syria etc, I imagine they might be targets of death threats for real.

I think there are some practical and professional reasons for people to protect their identities online, but when you are actively promoting a cause I don't see the sense in it. You should want your name identified with your beliefs as early as possible. Loud and proud!

The name game is interesting though, as whateverhisnameis says. When I ventured onto OL bringing my real names with me, I actually expected that I would just be a A Mind meeting with other Minds in impersonal and stimulating discourse. Of course within a short time I was spilling my guts and telling my life story, and making friends and enemies who are personally real to me although I will never meet them. ( did not have any big plan in mind except of course the Secret Plan which is proceeding nicely, mwah=ha=ha.

You don't expect me to be rational during the Olympics do you? The Maple Leaf Forever!

Yes, of course, I know. I guess what I am musing on, is the Persecuted Truth Teller stage that young Objectivists seem to have to go through, and poor Wotan is an especially fine example of it. He's at it again today, reiterating that most people are entirely, wilfully irrational. He personally has tried to argue with them, and although he was polite, well-meaning and of course correct, he has just got hated for his efforts to help them see the light. I recall my own struggles with the discovery of the irrationality of "most people". My four years in the Navy was the first time in my life I lived and interacted closely with people other than my family. Of course I went to school growing up but had few close friends and didn't live with any of them. Anyway, shortly before going in the Navy I discovered Ayn Rand. I had read Atlas Shrugged and Anthem and the Fountainhead, while on my ship I read the non-fiction, particularly liking "Capitalism the Unknown Ideal" and VOS. I got in a number of discussions with my shipmates, some very heated. I mostly thought I did well. But there were the occasional times where I had some bizarre experiences. One I remember well. A fellow agreed to debate the draft with me. I prepared well, had four major points I believe. I argued them one at a time, at the end of each part I got agreement from this fellow. I mean, he agreed with my conclusions on the separate parts. At the end, the coup de grace, "Therefore, the military draft in the United States should be ended". Pushing his chair back and standing up my friend said "No! If I gotta go, they gotta go!" and walked away. I "knew" then, that is my conclusion was, that "most people are not rational". Now I believe (after 40+ years) things are a bit more complicated. People know from experience their knowledge is incomplete and they rely on intuition or authority to shape their viewpoints. The less self confident a person is the more he sticks to the ideas he has absorbed from his teachers. The more of an "expert" know it all you come across as the less likely you are to change his mind or question his beliefs. People rarely change their minds quickly. I've experienced having debates, arguments, with a person who disagreed with me strongly and would not be moved. Perhaps six months later overheard this person having the same argument with another person but adopting the view I had been arguing strongly before. He had changed his mind! But he required a period of time to mull it over, to make it HIS idea before he could argue for it. I became less cynical. I truly love mankind, the independent streak in people and their nobility. It comes out in little ways all the time if you only watch for it. What a great post. You have really come to the heart of things I think. Two of my uncles joined the navy in WW2, at ages 19 and 17. AI loved them dearly but I doubt they joined up with a brain in their heads between them. Maybe this quality helped them survive, who knows. Uncle Albert stayed in the navy after the war and for the rest of his life.If you ever met Aunt Shelagh you would understandy why. Uncle Joey did not like the navy and quit after a few months and joined the Merchant Marine. If he had notified anybody it would have helped out his anxious family who had the Mounties camped on their door until 1945l waiting for the deserter while he was being torpedoed in the North Atlantic.

But Mikee, the average person and the ordinary person, are different beings in our two minds. The average ordinary Canadian to me, is a fortunate recipient of geohistorical grace, a person I like and trust and feel connected to.Idon't have the sense that youI Americans have that , and maybe it is just a stage in all national history, which like all things must pass to make way for the unknown new. I don't know about the Mexicans but this is North America to me.

Threescore and ten, Old Happiness! You are just hitting your stride. I doubt you will read this, as you never check in here, but honestly if you want to promote your books here you ought to say hi once in a while and not leave it all to your friends. I have a lot of dishes to do and Shane B. has a nation to protect. Felicitas, C

Yes, of course, I know. I guess what I am musing on, is the Persecuted Truth Teller stage that young Objectivists seem to have to go through, and poor Wotan is an especially fine example of it. He's at it again today, reiterating that most people are entirely, wilfully irrational. He personally has tried to argue with them, and although he was polite, well-meaning and of course correct, he has just got hated for his efforts to help them see the light.

I follow your thinking, I think. But you understand the human world in Versus,where we are all in battle for or against opposing concepts. I see it as countless individuals in diverse muti-motivated pursuits,ultimately interdependent.

And with property rights paramount, people have been slaves and the property of someone else.

A Mormon marched and a Catholic ran iinto a bar....

lol. I think Brant is implying that avoiding aeronautical death, Eddie kept his Appointment in Samarra later at the church. Carol cryptologist

Oh Tony, yes Rand wore herself out laying bare the principles of the deluded (and mother Teresa whom I dislike btw)wore herself out also, .. They did not do it so that anyone else would wear themselvelves out,or fail to live life.

Nonsene WSS. Often in a thread somebody says things so sensible and true that axe grinders and interested parties, cannot improve on it. Thanks btw for the aerial Calgary. Having been there I can say that is even more striking on the ground, You go to the outskirts of Calgary and there just aren't any.It is all nature. When you fly into Calgary the mountains are low and welcoming right beside you, seeming very near. It reminded me of flying into Fredericton before my wedding. You descend apparently into a forest with a little airstrip in the middle. My poor urban bred fiance thought we were crash landing and that his last hour had come,

Uh, what? In the context of the communists taking over Russia, you come up with this? --Brant "Don't be deceived by the weather. Benath the lovely exteriors, life beats on." -Philip Roth

I don't think I would hire Roark as an architect. I mean, he designed a housing complex without any communal area or recreation space. No wonder he did not have many clients. I imagine a Roark garden as a bunch of pugnacious cacti.

As to Rand's family, I am thinking maybe she did not get trauma so much as gave it. I remember a great CBC show on Leopold Mozart, a fine composer and reluctant stage father, who struggled valiantly to cope when "genius fell crashing on the Mozart household in a ceaseless barrage"

As to #2, yes, degree of trauma is the real issue. I was thinking of "natural shocks the flesh is heir to", not deliberate assaults by the ones who are supposed to love and protect us. I know how lifelong devastating this can be, how much more prevalent than the lucky ones imagine. I honour you for your triumphant survival. Being well is the best revenge, if revenge is needed.