caroljane

In the great Canadian tradition of niceness, fair play and barefaced hypocrisy, I would like to take this opportunity to gnash my teeth at congratulate the Red Wings on their lucky-ass strong showing in the season so far not that it will last. Also a big Get-Well-Soon shout-out to Minnesota. You guys are a true inspiration in the finest tradition of never-giveup-and -call-in-sick hockey. Whenever I see your first line being wheeled onto the ice for the faceoff, I get a lump in my throat.

Folks: FYI http://www.blogthing...rpredictorquiz/ Birth Order Predictor test - five (5) questions. http://www.time.com/...1673284,00.html The Power of the Birth Order Fun fact, Adam You and I had nearly identical upbringings in terms of birth order and extended family, in addition our fathers appear to have been similar types. That's probably why, as so many have noted, we are so similar in nearly every way.

Yes. Thinking my own life choices and events, these three factors are really dominant (more so because I am female? I wonder). Of the three I think the birth order may have been most important.

Also, didn't she write that there are heroes like her fictional ones in real life, and she knew one It was either NB or her husband Frank, I don't remember which)

Autistic isn't the right word. I'm uncomfortable slinging diagnoses around and even more uncomfortable when non-psychologists do it. Let's just say that Roark and Dagny weren't very compassionate people. I was pretty pissed off even in the 6os about what happened to Willers. Autistic isn't the right word. I'm uncomfortable slinging diagnoses around and even more uncomfortable when non-psychologists do it. Let's just say that Roark and Dagny weren't very compassionate people. I was pretty pissed off even in the 6os about what happened to Willers. You are right, Sharon. It isn't the, or even a right word to apply to fictional characters, and especially characters created to exmplify Rand's view of human motivations. Still I think the characteristics of autism, as laymen understand them, cast an intriguing light on the black and white, brilliantly lit world of Rand's fictiverse.

Well there are four musidians in this one, so I guess it qualifies... Adam this was simply wonderful. It didn't have the first movement where the referenced tune is but so what. It made me think that is what it was like when the string quartet was the garage band or corner do-wop group. I loved the group interplay and the way the cellist looked exasperated nearly all the time. And the sound was sublime, Thanks.

I thought we weren't allowed to use the "c" word? Adam confusedly equal rights oriented male, now leaning towards Sharia becasue women can't make up their minds.... Huh? Are you referring another c word issue that I don't know anything about but which I sense may refer to "C" for Chivalry and is a guy thing that I repeat do not know anything about? C'mon, admit that Hillary CCClinton's hair looks great and she is a good Sec of State. I could care less about her hair, but I will accept your judgment as it looking good and she is an awful Secretary of State: 1) botched the Russian re-set; 2) botched the Israeli-Palistinain situation; 3) botched the Turkey Syria situation; 4) been out to lunch in terms of women's rights and Sharia Muslim States; 5) botched Egypt; 6) botched Libya; 7) completely absent on Central Africa's genocides, rapes as a tactic of war and children soldiers; 8) completely absent on China's human rights violations; 9) completely silent on the slaughter in Tibet; 10) completely inactive on N. Korea;; 11) does she even know about what her hubby did in Haiti? 12) does she know where South America and Central America are? 13) completely abscent on Mexico and the border war. Shall I continue? No, don't continue.. I know you don't care, but her makeup is really excellent too \Maybe she doesn't know about what Bill did, but not her fault Everybody knows that what happens in Haiti stays in Haiti.

Brant, I am going to antagonize some people with this, but what the hell. From all the screaming I have observed from scientists, I believe some of the most inflexible and irrational faith-stories I have ever witnessed come from that quarter. Some of that stuff gets weirder than Candomblé at its most primitive uga-uga. Wouldn't it be great if philosophy were treated solely as a body of ideas about the fundamental nature of the universe and man from the top down, and science treated solely as specialized knowledge and inquiries into isolated parts of the universe from the bottom up? But that's not to be. Not in my lifetime... Michael Doctors have something of the same problem, but they aren't so vocal about it. They do try to force it down their patients' throats using implicit appeals to authority--theirs. I know enough about medicine it doesn't work with me. --Brant What exactly do they try to force down their patients' throats? Medicine maybe? I'm glad you know enough to resist, but I hope you never need your stomach pumped.

I subscribe to Baal's theory that Howard Roark may have been autistic, and I think this could apply to other of Rand's characters.Dagny withdrew the apparent empathy she had for Willers at the climactic moment of their relationship. I can think of other examples.

I thought we weren't allowed to use the "c" word? Adam confusedly equal rights oriented male, now leaning towards Sharia becasue women can't make up their minds.... Huh? Are you referring another c word issue that I don't know anything about but which I sense may refer to "C" for Chivalry and is a guy thing that I repeat do not know anything about? C'mon, admit that Hillary CCClinton's hair looks great and she is a good Sec of State.

note to above: this hymn is usually sung to the tune from the Emperor Quartet, most often heard in the German national anthem.

Amazing Grace... Wonderful human being...as Glenn Beck would say, he can point to his pivot point. Wasn't his brother named Fig? If he wasn't he should have been. That family knew how to feed the senses. "Who can faint when such a river Ever flows, our thirst to assuage..?" And that's without the glorious musical accompaniment courtesy Haydn.

.."with salvation's walls surrounded, thou may'st smile on all thy foes. ..since of Zion's city, I through grace a member am, Let the world deride or pity, I will glory in thy name. Fading is the world's best pleasure, all its boasted pomp and show. Solid joys, and lasting treasure, None but Zion's children know." -John Newton, 1779

Jumping in inappopriately, I just saw Adam's love-to-hate gal Hillary C. commenting on yay-he's-gone Korea. She looks terrific.much lovelier than Ron Paul. If she stays the course I bet she can succeed O as Dem presidential candidate.

John, for heaven's sake. Curriculum is a menu of subjects, which have been learned for , like, ten thousand years. Oddly, people still find value in learning them. Most people only get exposed to these subjects at school, between the ages of 11 and 16 or so, although they could of course seek them out on the internet but not bloody likely. If you are not interested at the time they are offered, like a baby with a new food you will be offered it later, until it is established that you just don't like it. Whether you need it in your diet, will only be known after you grow up, long after you have left school. Injustice hell. It would be an injustice to you and to civilization if you were not exposed to "things you're not interested in" at the age when you are most able to become interested.

I've given my opinion about schools more than once already, so I'm rather with you guys here. I don't find Carol's argument about all teaching being an enabling of auto-didactics convincing. In my book, auto-didactics means voluntary, self-driven learning with a self-chosen curiculum. Nothing kills curiosity more than a curriculum one hasn't chosen and one isn't interested in at the time when it's being chosen. The majority can only learn that way, so they advocate that system for everyone. "All stones are cobblestones to you." (Kira in We, the living.) They don't care about about the injustice this implies. I don't hate any particular teacher of mine any more and I didn't know my hatred to be just when I still did. Today, I blame the masses who are advocating government in education and since that's nearly everyone, I can't practically point a finger to anybody. People, including many of those who embrace the label of Objectivism, are sometimes referring to "common decency" or that there are some things so unjust that everyone "just knows" it to be wrong. I'm sometimes accused of being heartless for not sympathizing then. But it's really very simple. We live in a world in which almost all people advocate a school system that sacrifices a few children that they usually don't know. At least they won't know who those children are. They do that because they know that school was good for themselves - they wouldn't have been auto-didactic. Also, advocating public schooling in particular makes them feel warm and altruist - it's not their money, after all. There is no "common decency". Indecency is the common case. There's "common good manners", and I try hard to comply to them. I know what's good for me. And there's kindness and love to people one knows to be worthy and that can always only be an exception. I'm not a Randroid in the sense that I run around and spit in people's faces. But it's still necessary to spell things out every once in a while to keep good manners from descending into the betrayal of one's values. I've given my opinion about schools more than once already, so I'm rather with you guys here. I don't find Carol's argument about all teaching being an enabling of auto-didactics convincing. In my book, auto-didactics means voluntary, self-driven learning with a self-chosen curiculum. Nothing kills curiosity more than a curriculum one hasn't chosen and one isn't interested in at the time when it's being chosen. The majority can only learn that way, so they advocate that system for everyone. "All stones are cobblestones to you." (Kira in We, the living.) They don't care about about the injustice this implies. I don't hate any particular teacher of mine any more and I didn't know my hatred to be just when I still did. Today, I blame the masses who are advocating government in education and since that's nearly everyone, I can't practically point a finger to anybody. People, including many of those who embrace the label of Objectivism, are sometimes referring to "common decency" or that there are some things so unjust that everyone "just knows" it to be wrong. I'm sometimes accused of being heartless for not sympathizing then. But it's really very simple. We live in a world in which almost all people advocate a school system that sacrifices a few children that they usually don't know. At least they won't know who those children are. This statement is frankly ridiculous. First off, we live in a world in which "most" people have no schools let alone school systems nearby to advocate or not. Of the "most" I infer you mean, western European and North American, yes, most of them have been through a school system and are willing to "sacrifice" their own children to it, since most of them have survived and a few have even learned something. Why you should think there is a large number of people who are enthusiastic to sacrifice children they do not even have, is beyond me.

Oh, Bingo! Just what I was talking about. LP is not "a sort of genius", he is as you said, a wordsmith, a writer. Average intelligence, big need to be thought a revolutionary, great organizational skills. Really high self-esteem.

Phil, you are going from strength to strength. To use the words ",manhood" and "Perigo" in the same sentence is challenge enough, and I am not talking about sexual preference here. You have also used detachment and fairness. Bravo.

Phil, I absolutely hear you and I believe i do understand. It's just Newtonian. We expect an action - a hard-wrought, thoughtful, deeply felt piece of writing - to have a reaction. it doesn't have to be equal, and of course we hope it isn't opposite. But we want the thought and passion we fling into the world to be flung back in some form, an acknowledgment from reality. It's just a numbers game, really. So much more is written than ever will be read, on any given day, that anyone but a writer would just run away howling and sign up for a welding course. The pay would be way better I can't say more than wss has already said well, except that I always read and appreciate what you write.

Ah Ha!! Now tell us about that bad couch experience you had which led to this deeply repressed trauma that caused you to passively aggress against the psychopathic oops psychotherapeutic profession. Counting my referral commissions Don't listen to him, anybody. He a confederate of intraterrestrial conman the Ninth"Doctor" and their lucrative cyberporn consortium is well known. What chutzpah to reference couches, their own supposed "therapy" spas are notorious, I myself survived a session billed as an "out-of this world-experience.". In fairness it was out of this world, he never told me the name of the planet. Or his own name as it turned out. I've said it before, and I'll say it again until someone takes action. I was 106 when he took advantage of me! I don't say the therapy was totally useless. I sort of see the point or 'ticket to Ride" now. And I' not 106 anymore.

This rings very true. I have been mainly lucky and therefore happy in my life, yet at times when I had a minor ache or pain, or just felt wildly irritated for nor reason, I have been rude or offensive to others. It had nothing to do with them. I didn't envy them, hate their philosophy, feel threatened by them or usually even know them as they were complete strangers. I was just hurting and needed to lash out and be mean. Depression is even worse. You feel so unconnected with normal people, so inferior and unworthy even to be seen by them, that you spend most of your time trying to avoid human contact. If misery is constant so will be incivility and anti-socialism. In a bad sense, Objectivists! Good insight, Daunce. Your observations coincide with mine. Conservative talk radio host Dennis Prager wrote a book titled Happiness Is A Serious Problem in which he argues that people have a moral obligation to be happy in order to be make the world a better place. Objectivists would say that our moral obligation is to ourselves—i.e., that each of us has the moral responsibility to make the most of the value that is your own life, and that the emotional state of happiness is the consequence of achieving that value. Objectivists would say that benevolence toward others is a by-product rather than the goal. But either way you look at it, I think we could argue that happiness and benevolence are moral issues. And when I witness a malevolent pattern in others (e.g., the way some posters routinely mock certain other posters on OL), I tend to conclude that the ones doing the mockery are likely making a confession they would not care to see examined in the clear, remorseless light of day. I assume you are talking about real mockery, with intent to wound. I spend a lot of my time here calling my good friends terrible names. You yourself have not been immune. There are few men who like you, could shrug off being equated with Donald Rumsfeld or the revolting David Hassellhoff. I respectfully credit the psychotherapeutic profession, which I have not always respected as I should.

Phil, do not generalize about writers. They are just people who happen to have a knack for writing. A lot of them hate feedback, even (sometimes especially) positive feedback (think JD Salinger) some are indifferent, some are praise whores or so narcissistic that they cannot believe anyone who doesn't enjoy their writing isn't just jealous. Rich Engle used to have a tagline about writers being untameable. Ha, I bet nobody ever offered him a decent ghostwriting contract. News flash, writers don't even have to be especially smart. It helps, of course, as it does in every profession, but it's not a requirement. Some very, very good novelists have had very average intelligence (FS Fitzgerald, in my view) and some, especially in bestselling genres, are complete knucklebrains. On the never shutting up part though, you are 100% right.

She knows that we are following her! Well, a follower is a follower. I guess I'll take them.

What you said. Also, to Phil, keep in mind that the majority of your readers are browsers only. Check out the number of times your threads have been read- they will keep increasing. There could be people out there who have been inspired by you to read Atlas, or to take rational charge of their lives, or to study American history because of you, although you will never know who they are. Wish I could say the same when my gem-like specimens of deathless prose on vital subjects go totally unacknowledged. I darkly suspect most of my browsers are just bloody Canucks fans, laughing at me.

This rings very true. I have been mainly lucky and therefore happy in my life, yet at times when I had a minor ache or pain, or just felt wildly irritated for nor reason, I have been rude or offensive to others. It had nothing to do with them. I didn't envy them, hate their philosophy, feel threatened by them or usually even know them as they were complete strangers. I was just hurting and needed to lash out and be mean. Depression is even worse. You feel so unconnected with normal people, so inferior and unworthy even to be seen by them, that you spend most of your time trying to avoid human contact. If misery is constant so will be incivility and anti-socialism. In a bad sense, Objectivists!