chriseyh

Have you heard of An Island Called Liberty? It has been described as "a cross between Dr. Seuss and Ayn Rand". I purchased this for my niece when she turned 2. She really doesn't notice the philosophy one way or the other, of course, but she loves to hear the story. I was never able to find a copy in our local libraries, but you can purchase it online. (Or you can do as I did...purchase 2 copies and donate one to your local library so that the next adorable little free-thinker will have better access to good ideas!) It's by Joseph Specht, by the way, and the following is an excerpt from the text: "Inside is the story of a right friendly land, Where people were quick to lend a free hand. With the best of intentions they passed many laws, To fix what they felt were quite fixable flaws. But the fixes, they found, were too much in the end, For bureaus and programs and taxes they penned. Once the lessons were learned, here's what they knew: The contentment of many can't come from the few."

I recently saw this movie with a friend, and I loved it. I won't reveal many details, to avoid spoiling anyone else's experience, but this story is a great example of what can happen to people who chose to avoid reality. Much of the characters' pain (and not just the two men) come from their attempts to deny the obvious, and from their refusals to live for their own sake.

When I was in high school, Anthem was one of the novels required for my English class. I loved Rand's ideas.. and when I mentioned this during class discussion, my teacher made a remark to the class along the lines of "This author has written other books, but you guys shouldn't try those until you're older. They'll warp your minds.." and then turned to me, and added "But you can go ahead and read them now." Now, I'm still not certain if she was implying that I had the capability to understand the ideas she thought the others too 'young' to handle... or if she was simply saying my mind was already 'warped'.. but either way, I moved on to AS and then FH and have loved Objectivism since!

Personally, I have no use for roses, perfume or jewelry. Does this somehow make me less feminine? A romantic gift is not simply one plucked from a list of generic 'romantic gifts'. Whether or not a gift is romantic is dependent on what the giver and receiver consider romantic. -Chrisey (Oh! And so far as the steak goes.. my last lover was a vegetarian. One gift that I loved giving him was a full body massage (I'm a massage therapist in training ) If inspiring sexual desire is the goal of a 'romantic' gift, this idea certainly worked well for us!) *Edited to fix quote... newbie poster that I am....