Thriller Author, Vince Flynnn dead at age 47

[Jerry Biggers]

Vince Flynn died yesterday from prostate cancer. His thriller novels are "hard line" American values of freedom versus totalitarianism.(in particular, radical Islamic-based terrorists). According to fellow thriller author and Objectivist, Robert Bidinotto, who interviewed Flynn for an article in The Atlas Society's magazine, The New Individualist, several years ago, Flynn expressed admiration and inspiration from the novels of Ayn Rand.

http://www.today.com/books/best-selling-author-vince-flynn-dies-47-6C10378919

[Jerry Biggers]

Here is a link to Robert Bidinotto's blog on the recent death of Vince Flynn.

Note further down in the article, there is a direct link (you will need to click on it separately) to the fascinating interview that Robert had with Vince. for The Atlas Society magazine, The New Individualist

Ayn Rand is discussed. (Flynn, however, was not an Objectivist, but a Catholic conservative - although many values that he defends in his books would be shared and/or admired by Objectivists)..

http://www.bidinotto.com/

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I saw this earlier.

I'm reading Protect and Defend right now in my spare time.

What a loss.

Michael

[Roger Bissell]

Vince Flynn is one of my favorite thriller novel writers. I will miss his great stories.

In related news, Chelsea Kashergan, a 22 year old musician recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton, was struck while riding her bicycle by a FedEx truck. She was a dear friend and someone I mentored about 5 years ago, when she was a budding young composer/arranger in high school. This news hit me very hard, right on the heels of hearing me about my fiction fave, Vince Flynn.

I do not like this clustering effect. I know it's just a coincidence, but it sucks in any case.

REB

[BaalChatzaf]

Vince Flynn is one of my favorite thriller novel writers. I will miss his great stories.

In related news, Chelsea Kashergan, a 22 year old musician recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton, was struck while riding her bicycle by a FedEx truck. She was a dear friend and someone I mentored about 5 years ago, when she was a budding young composer/arranger in high school. This news hit me very hard, right on the heels of hearing me about my fiction fave, Vince Flynn.

I do not like this clustering effect. I know it's just a coincidence, but it sucks in any case.

REB

It is a stark reminder that none of us are guaranteed to live to a ripe old age.

Some of us luck out. Some of us do not.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Roger,

Sorry to hear that.

This is a time when not having religion comes with a price. The religious can say, "God takes His favorites first," and mean it. When you don't have religion, all you can do is grieve.

So we grieve.

You have my deepest condolences.

Michael

[GALTGULCH8]

Michael,

The religious may delude themselves into thinking and believing that their loved one who died still exists in the afterlife so that takes the edge off whatever emotional pain they feel over the loss. They may continue to look forward to encountering those who died when they themselves kick the bucket.

But in the process they lose something which is at least the emotion they would actually feel if they allowed themselves to acknowledge that their loved one no longer exists.

Ayn Rand was right that it all boils down to existence.

In order for the religious to spare themselves the reality of how they feel about someone who dies they also have to accept all the baggage that goes along with being faithful. The wasted hours sitting in churches. The undeserved anxiety and guilt when they violate some irrational prohibition of the religious dogma.

As a bicyclist myself who owes my longevity to riding my bike every day since I was eleven years old and blessed with living in Brooklyn which was without hills in every direction, I find it to be painful to hear of anyone being killed while cycling. How sad.

gg

[Jerry Biggers]

Vince Flynn is one of my favorite thriller novel writers. I will miss his great stories.

In related news, Chelsea Kashergan, a 22 year old musician recently graduated from Cal State Fullerton, was struck while riding her bicycle by a FedEx truck. She was a dear friend and someone I mentored about 5 years ago, when she was a budding young composer/arranger in high school. This news hit me very hard, right on the heels of hearing me about my fiction fave, Vince Flynn.

I do not like this clustering effect. I know it's just a coincidence, but it sucks in any case.

REB

"Horrific," is a word that comes to mind when faced with the death of a loved one and/or someone that you greatly admire.

[Jerry Biggers]

Roger,

Sorry to hear that.

This is a time when not having religion comes with a price. The religious can say, "God takes His favorites first," and mean it. When you don't have religion, all you can do is grieve.

So we grieve.

You have my deepest condolences.

Michael

"God takes his favorites first."

So what do the religious (meaning, in this case, belief in an afterlife) say when someone they despise as evil, dies? (Fill in the blank. Anything will do, because religious faith leads you free to come up with anything, and requires no proof or reasoning. __________________).

I find these allegedly consoling words to be of little use, and are actually demeaning to everyone else (although that is not intended). Generally, in the case of a loved one, they mean, "We'll meet again in the afterlife." But they imply a lot more than that.

How about, when for example, a child is spared, as in the recent school shootings in Connecticutt? The parent, when asked, says, "God was protecting him." (and mean it), with little concern as to how that sounds to the grieving parents of the dead. So, God was watching over your kid, but not mine? Or the recent outbreak of tornadoes in Oklahoma. One persons survives while all around him perish. Turning to the waiting CNN camera, he states, "God was protecting me!" So, somehow, God didn't protect the others who died horrible deaths. How is this to be religiously interpreted?

God takes his favorites, first? So, God the creator, doesn't approve of his own creation and is "saving" (i.e., letting them die) certain people, but not the rest? What's the selection process, here? Well, perhaps being very religious and devout, and therefore being looked on favorably by the Deity? In that case, does that prolong or shorten your life on this veil of tears. If it prolongs it, what about the devout that suddenly perish? What's the explanation there?

Or, for that matter, the evil. Does that lengthen your life so you can suffer - and make others suffer - longer on earth? Or does it shorten it, so that "He" can personally put the screws to you?. In that case, being neither good nor evil can prolong your life.

I could drop in a few choice Rand or Branden quotes here, but I'll wait for the rejoinder.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Jerry,

I don't have any issues with the logical implications of your questions and speculations, but I don't think a person who is grieving from the depths of his soul gives much thought to them. I don't think he cares when he is in that much pain.

And I, for one, prefer not to deny such a person any comfort he may find in phrases like the one you find offensive ("God takes his favorites first.").

I always interpreted that phrase to mean--in the context of grief--that the person who passed on at an early age was very, very special and will be missed. That's the part I see resonating in people when they say that.

I have yet to see anyone grieving say that and indicate they think the deceased won the equivalent of a cosmic lottery or feel resentful and envious that they didn't get chosen for the prize instead.

Obviously our mileage varies.

Michael

[Jerry Biggers]

I don't think anyone wants to deny a grieving person from religious consolation (if that is what he/she wants). That is not the issue, it is the content of the advice or consolation offered. No one wants to jump in front of the grieving, Atlas Shrugged in hand, saying, "Wait! It says on page 893 that .....". Inappropriate as that sounds, that is precisely what I have seen a lot of pastors or other advocates of religion, do.

Just because someone is grieving does not mean that he must irrevocably abandon his mind to despair. At any rate, what I have noticed at several funerals that I have attended, is not only soothing words, but the pastor using the service as an opportunity to promote his ideology or view that only religion offers consolation and that any other explanation for the tragedy must not be considered. This has happened on several occasions and I do not think it is accidental (not to mention, unwarranted). Perhaps some ministers feel threatened by the decline in church attendance, and have to insert an advertisement when they have the chance.

Your interpretation of how that phrase, "God takes his favorites first," is interpreted by the grieving is one that is certainly possible. But as far as I am concerned, it is similar to the survivor of a disaster (such as the Oklahoma tornado) saying "God protected me" is a slap in the face of the relatives of the hundreds who did die. The same with a person claiming that "God saved me," when scores of innocent children were shot to death. Is obscene, disgraceful, appalling, and highly disrespectful of those that did die and their relatives..What about the slaughter of the innocents? (And Objectivists are accused as being too selfish?? Rand is practically an altruist when compared with this type of egotistical effrontery!).

.

[caroljane]

I don't think anyone wants to deny a grieving person from religious consolation (if that is what he/she wants). That is not the issue, it is the content of the advice or consolation offered. No one wants to jump in front of the grieving, Atlas Shrugged in hand, saying, "Wait! It says on page 893 that .....". Inappropriate as that sounds, that is precisely what I have seen a lot of pastors or other advocates of religion, do.

Just because someone is grieving does not mean that he must irrevocably abandon his mind to despair. At any rate, what I have noticed at several funerals that I have attended, is not only soothing words, but the pastor using the service as an opportunity to promote his ideology or view that only religion offers consolation and that any other explanation for the tragedy must not be considered. This has happened on several occasions and I do not think it is accidental (not to mention, unwarranted). Perhaps some ministers feel threatened by the decline in church attendance, and have to insert an advertisement when they have the chance.

Your interpretation of how that phrase, "God takes his favorites first," is interpreted by the grieving is one that is certainly possible. But as far as I am concerned, it is similar to the survivor of a disaster (such as the Oklahoma tornado) saying "God protected me" is a slap in the face of the relatives of the hundreds who did die. The same with a person claiming that "God saved me," when scores of innocent children were shot to death. Is obscene, disgraceful, appalling, and highly disrespectful of those that did die and their relatives..What about the slaughter of the innocents? (And Objectivists are accused as being too selfish?? Rand is practically an altruist when compared with this type of egotistical effrontery!).

.

I do not know what variety of denominational funerals you have attended. I can only say that over the course of my life I have sadly had to attend many, most notably those of my husband, father and mother. The first that I remember vividly was that of a nineteen-year-old cousin, killed in a car accident, whose death was never entirely recovered from by her parents and especially her grandmother whose favourite she was.

The ritual words were the same in all the funerals, and there was no sermon at all, unless there was no relative who wished or was able to speak,in which cases the minister would speak of the best qualities of the deceased, and sometimes remind everyone that we live and die in God's love or some such. The tradition, the familiarity of the inevitable stark, centuries old text reiterating reality, the enfolding of the congregation in love and help to the bereaved, are what I remember most.

Thankfully I have not had to go to any funerals lately, or listen to such ideologues as you have.