caroljane

Brother dear, you know I have no clutches! Due to weak grip, cannot grasp concepts firmly - unable even to open JARS. The scheming is fair comment, however/

Phil, don't let rationality spoil the whimsical fun Carol and I are having in tracking down the imaginary Secret Billionaire in OL land. This is like you would be telling Alice in Wonderland that Humpty Dumpty does not exist. ;) Hmmmm, what knowledge do you think Phil is hiding

Apropos of nothing, if Yaron Brook is Israeli, why does he have a New York accent?

My understanding is that he thought it had washed ashore from the Japanese Tsunami and he had forgotten his lead lined gloves in his locker. The area that it had been thrown from had a peculiar glow emitting from one person. No, that was the Coach's Corner - just Don Cherry's jacket again.

Well, I've been through the Macs and Mcs again, but couldn't turn up any new clues. As said before, the Canadians are out since our rich people are all clearly labelled and the billionaires have to wear those distinctive toques in public. It isn't MacDonald for sure, he can't even pay his lodge dues. Ba'al did express that intriguing interest in haggis, maybe an oblique clue? No, Aspies do not do oblique much. Anyway he's married. Better move down the list. There's a Richie Rich on Oonline, I'm pretty sure.

Did you see the latest marine tribute to Our Game in Vancouver? A salmon (most appropriate) was thrown on the ice during the Canuck-Wild matchup. Ref L'Ecuyer was reluctant to approach it, causing the Minnesota bench to jeer. "Oh, pick it up. It's only a salmon, for cripe's sakes. You act like it's poison." Perhaps the squeamish l'Ecuyer should take a workshop in Pescatorial Management from the veteran octopi-wranglers in Detroit. It did wonders for the Nashville officials when confronted with their first catfish. In other sealife news, sources report that Paul, late of Germany,has become a hockey fan through acquaintance with the large community of Michigander Octopi it Aquarium Heaven.He predicts an all-Canadian Stanley Cup final.

When his critics are causing him pain Phil will patiently make himself plain Thus: "I swear by my Coate That I never do quote But to show you the truth yet again!"

Did Ayn Rand actually proudly state that her entire philosophy was consistent with the perspective of a two-and-a half-year old child?

You're quite correct; most people are cosmopolitans rather than multiculturalists per se, however the multiculturalists deliberately package-deal the two and say if you're against multiculturalism you can't be a cosmopolitan. Basically, its an attempt to say "believe in my doctrine of racial collectivism, social constructivism et. al. OR YOU'RE RACIST! On a totally irrelevant topic, many of the best Industrial bands are Canadian (Front Line Assembly (although it was started by an Austrian immigrant), Skinny Puppy, and Decoded Feedback (one member Canadian, one member Italian) for examples), so if the Canadian government started trying to 'acculturate' the goth community they wouldn't need to work too hard lol. It makes you think a lot when so-called leftists go on about 'enlightened social democracies' they always gloss over the rampant racism, nationalist collectivism and the like you find in those same 'enlightened social democracies.' Studio, wayer offtopic. You're an Aussie - do you like to read black-comical books at all? Robert Barnard wrote a brilliant murder mystery titled Death of an Old Goat, set in an Australian university, which absolutely skewers academia,Australian racism, Australian culture, Oxford dons and just about anything else you can think of. It's an old novel but a true classic of the genre.

Xray! Girlfriend, did you see the latest Forbes magazine? There is a coded message in there for us - your shrewd identification of McDuck - it all fits. We have been discouraged, we have been downhearted, but I feel we have now been told we are on the right path. The Secret Billionaire is among us. It could be Jimmy Wales, or maybe Glenn Beck while he's between jobs, or maybe even George H. Smith in his brilliant disguise of poor but honest scholar. We must re-perk our antennae and take at the flood that which leads on to fortune. Yours in mutual selfishness, Carol

PS Phil, why not try to substitute Appt in Samarra for Gatsby? It's shorter and you could move it from the biblio tower to the book club bower!

I hope the Feminine Mystique doesn't make the cut. It was certainly influential in helping kickstart the 70s feminist wave but it was a trivial, fraudulent book. If there is a felt necessity for feminist lit from that era anyone else would be better - Germaine Greer, crazy Kate Millett, anybody.(I would add de Beauvoir's the Second Sex but I am down on the French just at the moment).As always I think a novel would be better - Vida by Marge Piercy, which has the whole student protest world also, brilliantly done. The other choices look good, it will be tough to choose just 7.

Re Cosmopolitanism/Multiculturalism and the Melting Pot Studio's definition of cosmolopolitanism sounds closer to my own understanding of multiculturalism, than does his definition of multiculturalism itself. Perhaps here we have a kind of national cosmopolitanism. Certainly there is a thriving goth subculture and nobody tries to make them start listening to the Barenaked Ladies and Leonard Cohen. Being forced, or subtly pressured, to join the dominant culture is the hallmark of the melting pot concept, which has been dominant in America until now, but the most extreme Western example of this is France.They are the strongest voice in Europe to demand that Muslims conform outwardly to the norms of the secular country in which they are living. Yet the culture to which they demand conformity is a fairly exclusionist one. They are elitist and exclusionist, even in language: French has a very small vocabulary because the Acadamie Francais allows no word which is not provedly French into its dictionary; and you can't give your baby a non-French name without government permission. The racism in France is not solely a response of bewilderment and fear of waves of strange Muslim immigrants, either. As the former colonial masters of Algeria, which they only relinquished in the 1950s, the French had become accustomed to thinking of the Arabs as "the Other", the subjugated people, the natives, in parallel to their partner in Liberty's experience with their slaves. Strange bedfellows. It is interesting that in the heyday of American racial prejudice, the 1920s to 1960s, it was France who celebrated Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson and James Baldwin. And it was America who romanticized the Arab, in Valentino's Sheik and Lawrence of Arabia's noble desert friends.

Spare us all, Phil. You on the cliff is a sharp enough image. A torn whimpering bleeding George would drive everybody over the edge.

I never saw Peikoff live before! Is that his original nose? It looks so generic!

Gee Ninth, I can't possibly think why. An attorney? Could it be that he didn't want to, didn't believe he should have to, didn't want his exwife to have the administration of one cent that he had earned and she didn't? Could it be that he found many ways to avoid paying? I haven't even read the article, but come on. Why "can't" people with money use it for what other people say they ought to?

Also Michael, I remember you were going to hear Beck speak a while ago. Looking back, do you think he gave any intimation to his audience about future plans?

Michael, Do you think Beck might be wanting to raise a few echoes with the Catholics too? The Black Robes were the Jesuit missionaries who evangelized the Canadian Indians, principally the Hurons, - their most famous members, Brebeuf and Lalement, were tortured to death in the 17th century. There is an excellent novel, Black Robe by Brian Moore, and a good movie was made from it.

I loved the faux news article on Rand Down Under! Have you read the Yiddish Policeman's Union? In it the Jews got a long lease on Alaska, but at the time of the book it is running out. It is among other things a murder mystery and a chess puzzle, a brilliant book with a Dostoyevskian feel. Carol Alternate history fan Carol, Yes! An excellent book, that I read last year, and would re-read now. So would I, but I can't play chess so I felt a lot of the symbolism was lost on me. Do you play, am I right? The hero's aboriginal partner and his family were very striking to me as a Canadian.

There's not been a Randian man Within this thread's firefly span Who knows he has more chance Of showing importance By getting his lim'ricks to scan!

I loved the faux news article on Rand Down Under! Have you read the Yiddish Policeman's Union? In it the Jews got a long lease on Alaska, but at the time of the book it is running out. It is among other things a murder mystery and a chess puzzle, a brilliant book with a Dostoyevskian feel. Carol Alternate history fan

Avoid using the Google spell checker until after the initial posting--then go back with the "edit" function. --Brant Brant, I never use the spellcheck. I know more than it does. Modestly, Carol My spelling is pretty bad, especially with typos. I do have a bigger vocabulary than the spell checkers. You're one of the best writers I've read on the Internet. Want to hurt me? Tell me English isn't your first language. --Brant arrrgh!!! Brant, Your compliment astonishes me and will make me so vain I will be unfit to live with. I have not read much internet except Osites and royal wedding and hockey news, the writing there is short and to the point and the spelling is bad, the use of its and it's in a hopeless state.. English spelling is ridiculous and being good at it is just a tic, like writing backwards or being able to do impressions. F. Scott Fitzgerald was famously bad at it. English is my mother and father tongue, my second language is French which I speak at about Grade 7 level, and spell fairly well only because French spelling is phonetic unlike our native kettle of ghoti.

Clearly because he did not use the "reply" or quote function. The Garbage Pile - gnawed bones - D avid Harriman- just when I thought it was safe again (moan)

Adam, of course Louisiana's law system meshes quite well with federal one, because it has to. All the states' systems mesh, because they have to, at whatever beauraucratic expense and attorney enrichment, because states' rights are sacrosanct in America. Historical context again. Canadian provinces mainly have responsibilities, of grudgingly coughing up the taxes and receiving their portion of the national wealth, and of administering the national health and education systems. We have no concept of "Provinces' rights".They are weak and the central government is strong, though the national political leader is essentially weak while the party system is strong. Your states and regions are strong and your national leader has great powers. Your orientation is individualistic, ours is nationalistic. We do not have the wide differentiation of regional history that you do, except for the oldest regions, Quebec and the Maritimes. I could go to Prince Albert, Sask., or Kootenay, BC, where I have never been, and meet people who speak with much the same accent as me and have most of the same cultural referents. This is because of our small numbers and our shorter history, and geographical clustering. Multiculturalism can never mean the same thing to our two countries because the central experience of dealing with other races has been yours of defeating slavery, and, as appears to you, overcompensating for the effects of past slavery. We have always had to deal with other races more or less as equals, and we have always needed them, as immigrants. We are underpopulated and a whole generation of ornery young women just refuse to have enough babies. Maybe forgetting history means that we are condemned to repeat it, but it repeats itself whether we forget or remember. The worst happens, over and over, and it is always in our nature just to try and do better.

Carol, Welcome to the club. You are now an officially indoctrinated user of computers. If that ain't happened to you at least once, you are a piker. A word of advice. If your post starts getting long, I suggest you copy-paste it to Notepad or something like that until it is up. I don't always take my own advice and I have had to rewrite (and abandon a couple of times) several long posts when they were sucked into the wormhole. We get great value from computers and the Internet, especially with respect to instant communication with large numbers of people. But sometimes we have to pay the piper. In the famous words of Richard Pryor, "Life's a bitch... and then you die." Michael Thanks Michael, I was frustrated that there seemed to be no way to save a reply when your internet connection is always threatening to go on strike. (I think of my net connection as "Galt") Looking on Pryor's bright side, every day there is really ever only one thing we have to do. I loved Pryor. One fave was his report on an appearance he made at San Quentin or some similar venue. "I just did a gig at a penitentiary. I tell you it was a enlightenin', life-changin' experience. I went in there, I met those men, I felt those prison walls around me. I come out and I tell you what I think - Thank GOD we got penitentiaries!"