Fenriz

One radio talk show host who I know is an admirer of Ayn Rand is Tammy Bruce. In fact, one of her books, The New Thought Police, contains a suggested reading list in which she includes three of Rand's books.

One public intellectual who I think I think is pretty despicable is Cornel West. West is a professor of religion who speaks a lot on racism and American "imperialism." His philosophy draws heavily from Anton Chekov, Karl Marx, Nietzsche, and other existential philosophers. He has also been an ideological ally of people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and other racial opportunists. One of his books, Race Matters, is required reading at college campuses. Cornel West and Friends by Mike Adams

Sun Tzu was certainly NOT a mystic. In Chapter 13 Sun Tzu says: "And so the means by which an enlightened sovereign and a wise general act, and so are victorious over others and achieve merit superior to the multitude's --- this is foreknowledge. Foreknowledge cannot be grasped from ghosts and spirits, cannot be inferred from events, cannot be projected from calculation. It must be grasped from people's knowledge."

I'm sorry that you feel that way. The wisdom contained in the Art of War is deceptively simple, which is probably why first-time readers who simply browse through a few chapters in the book are not particularly impressed by it.

You might want to check the book out yourself, particularly the Denma Edition. And also look at www.sonshi.com which is an excellent site devoted to Sun Tzu's book.

I believe that you're talking about the movie L.A. Confidential, not Mulholland Drive.

Saddam Hussein's son Uday was, without a doubt, the most horrifying person that I have ever read about. If there is only one thing you would need to know about Uday in order to understand the kind of monster that he was it was his sadistic abuse of the Olympic athletes in Iraq. Link to article here: Iraqi athletes relay tales of abuse by Saddam Hussein's son Uday The stories about Uday's abuse brings to mind the Objectivist definition of Envy/Hatred of the Good for Being the Good: "Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by one's own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable." -- Ayn Rand. Professional athletes tend to be people with genuine self-confidence derived from real achievements, which is why Uday hated and envied them. Uday had no genuine achievements, only a spoiled upbringing.

Quite a lot of uninformed people seem to equate the "cult" of Objectivism with the cult of Scientology.

Hmmm... An interesting sentiment there. Would you also use the Unabomber's Manifesto as a "launch pad" to do your own research on the Industrial Revolution and the rise of technology in Western civilization?

I know that Larry Elder is an admirer of Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. He is also a "small l" libertarian.

Arnold is a firm believer, like a lot of professional athletes, in the power of visualization as a tool to improving performance. In his book Encyclopedia Of Modern Bodybuilding he devotes a chapter to the importance of visualization and mental imagery as a necessary tool to concentrating and making the most of a work-out.

Actually Lucas has admitted that he drew a lot of ideas from Joseph Campbell's works, particularly from Primitive Myths and Oriental Myths as well as from The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Check out a book called Star Wars: The Magic of Myth by Mary Henderson. By the way, this is a really great forum.

I think that one of the major reasons why the United States has the best armed forces is that it is a volunteer army. People choose to become soldiers in the U.S. armed forces for a variety of selfish reasons: the Montgomery G.I. Bill, the opportunities to travel, a yearning for adventure, etc.

One of the most "irrational" movies that I recently came across was the Tom Cruise movie The Last Samurai. The problem that I have with this movie is that it very much whitewashes the true nature of the history of the samurai era. Anyone who does enough reading about the feudal history of Japan will see that it was very much a society dominated by the "Attila/Witch Doctor" dynamic that Rand talks about in For the New Intellectual. In fact, I strongly recommend that anyone who liked The Last Samurai should definetely check out the 1980s t.v. miniseries Shogun which I believe is a very accurate depiction of the irrationality of feudalist Japan. Shogun is available on Netflix.

If I remember correctly, the blurb on the movie poster for Gattaca said, "There is no gene for the human spirit."

The recently deceased Johnnie Cochran certainly would be near the top of my list. A disgusting man who perpetuated race hatred in order to free a savage murderer. Quite an interesting list of celebrities who showed up at his funeral... Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Charlie Rangel, and of course O.J. Simpson.

In my own personal opinion, LaVey was nothing more than a moderately interesting, if somewhat kitschy, performance artist who started a "satanic church" as a good way to get laid and make a little bit of scratch. His writings were interesting and humorous, particularly "The Devil's Notebook", but he was not a significant philosopher. Here's a particularly interesting link of information compiled by LaVey's daughter Zeena which debunks much of her father's legend: Anton LaVey: Legend and Reality

"Ready Steady Go" by Paul Oakenfold was also featured in the car chase scene in the movie The Bourne Identity. That song is on the album Bunnka, a pretty good album I might add. As far as techno music goes, I like all of the Crystal Method albums and the soundtrack to the movie Run Lola Run. Collateral was one of my favorite movies of 2004. The character of Vincent played by Tom Cruise is one of the best movie villains I've seen in a while.

"I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia." --- Woody Allen

More to the point, does it matter that Edison had a high I.Q. or that he had an optimistic work ethic?

I like that. In my own opinion, it's not the size of a person's intelligence that matters but how he or she uses it. There are a lot of people who are blessed with a tremendous amount of natural intelligence, but they squander it. From what I understand the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski had a genius-level I.Q.

I thought that the movie The Contender had some Objectivist values. In particular, there is a character in the movie who attempts a "shortcut to greatness" which sort of reminded me of Howard Roark's nemesis Peter and his desire for "prestige."