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thejohngaltline

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Everything posted by thejohngaltline

  1. The only evidence I have to go on here are the variety of news articles I've read (each with various conjectures as to Meyer's behavior--ranging from the whole thing being a hoax to it being a gross violation of freedom of speech), the police reports (which contradict both each other and what I witnessed in the videos so drastically that I am unwilling to draw any conclusion but that they are flawed), and the video itself, which made me sick. It looked like a scene from 1984 or a low-grade sci-fi horror. I don't think they had cause to do more than kick him out.
  2. While we're at it, this popped up on a Google search. Supposedly AS bears a resemblance to a book called The Secret of the League by Earnest Bramah (1907), as well. I would read it, but the copy of Les Mis I'm currently working on is infinitely more attractive. From this website I found the following:
  3. I'm curious to read it. I wonder if they both chose the name Galt for a specific reason, a mythological figure perhaps, and the resemblances stem from this common headwater, not any direct interaction Rand might have had with The Driver? The fact that I've never heard of this from one of the many embittered Ayn Rand haters in the world makes me doubt it holds any water (not that their arguments generally do), as this is just the type of thing her critics love to cite. EDIT: punctuation.
  4. To echo Lemuel, the never regrowing a severed limb thing (or coming back from the dead, or something drastic and truly inexplicable) is a good point to get him with. Richard Dawkins touches on that point and on miracles in general in this clip from his documentary, "The Root of all Evil?" Keep in mind, though, that there comes a point when debating with someone who is simply irrational in such a fundamental way becomes a waste of your time. You know miracles are bogus, you know there is no God, and you know why you're right about both of those things. So debating with this guy might, eventually, become just a drain of your energy and prove utterly unproductive. But if you have the time and energy, then hand it to 'em!
  5. Ohh, like the new pic. : D

  6. have i told you lately how amazing you are? :)

  7. Hmm. I think those are a couple of really well-written paragraphs, personally! His response to proving individual rights in half a paragraph is classic. That "No one can!" mentality never ceases to astound me (man could never invent a flying machine, man could never walk on the moon, etc.) When he made the objection about people on death row, did he mean to say that they have a different "mode of survival" or that they are not entitled to certain individual rights?
  8. I think it becomes second-handed when one does something, writes a poem for example, sheerly because he wants it to be admired by someone else, rather than because it is a good, creative act that brings him joy. Keating designed (if you can even call it that) buildings merely to impress others. Roark designed them selfishly, and the admiration he received was a byproduct of that, and only came from those capable of appreciating his talent. The first and greatest reason for any action should be it being in one's rational self-interest, and receiving admiration can be a natural, happy component of that resulting inspiration--just not the impetus of it.
  9. My mom understood what it means to be efficacious, to value, and to love selfishly. But towards the end she became religious, or perhaps just more tolerant of my father's religion. In any case, 'Do it' was just one of the many priceless lessons she shared with me and my siblings. Thank you all so much for your support and kind words. It feels good to find consolation that comes from a rational source.
  10. On Friday, after a bone marrow transplant last summer and a long fight with myelofibrosis, my mother died. About a week ago her respiratory system failed, the final domino in a nightmarish trend. The doctors advised that she shouldn't be put on life support, as the odds of her survival were so slim. Because only the patient can make such a decision, several doctors went into my mother's hospital room and explained to her that it would be very unlikely for her to ever come off of the intubation before asking if she would like to do it. She couldn't speak due to an oxygen mask she had to wear, but with her last shred of energy she wrote 'Do it' on a sheet of paper. I am so proud that my mother, after so much pain and with hope for little else, chose life. I am so happy that she used her last ounce of energy to recognize the beauty and value in living, and I will never forget that final lesson she taught me. She was a wonderful woman. Below are two pictures of us, one when I was a little girl, and one taken before her bone marrow transplant.
  11. I saw an article, or, more accurately, the title of an article, in The Objective Standard about House in the winter issue. It was called "Mr. Jekyll and Dr. House: The Reason-Emotion Split as Manifested in House, M.D." by Gena Gorlin. I didn't read it since I've never really seen the show, but you might find it interesting.
  12. I was about to make a comment ranting and raving against dirty talk, but Dan's last post made me reconsider. If that is the extent of "talking dirty", where dominance/submission is established by those sort of statements, then I don't think it should even be called "dirty". It is solely dirty in that context because it involves the words f*ck and sh*t, which really have become colloquialized today. It's been some time since I brushed up on my French, but I remember that there are different words to distinguish between sex, having sex passionately, wanting someone, wanting someone voraciously, etc. I think the version of the word f*ck that we use today just accomplishes that. If we didn't have that distinction, what would a man say instead, "I'm having sex with you"? The kind of dirty talk I was prepared to lambaste is the kind that involves degrading one's partner, where insults are thrown around or one forces one's partner to speak negatively about themself. Yes, the man is in control during sex, but if he needs to call his girlfriend awful things to prove that to himself, or if she needs to hear herself degraded to feel that she is submitting, then I suggest there are seriously flawed thought processes at work.
  13. Damn, I'm starting to wonder if my calendar misquoted her! That's too bad. Thanks for saving me the bad read, guys.
  14. As a birthday gift, a coworker gave me a day-by-day calendar called "Wild Words from Wild Women." I put it on my desk and dutifully turn to a new page everyday, thus far finding such uninspiring quotes as "A kiss that speaks volumes is seldom a first edition" (I forget who said that, now) and something from Coco Chanel about jumping out a window if you're the object of passion. But today, I was delighted to find the following: It's from Anita Brookner, an author. Has anyone heard of her? I looked her up on the Wiki; apparently she's written twenty-some books that have been likened to Jane Austen's work, stylistically. I'm curious to see if her writing reflects the beautiful rationality evidenced in this quote.
  15. Great idea! Do you know about The Gutenberg Project? They have some 20,000 books with expired copyrights (in the US) up for grabs. Maybe browsing through their library would help.
  16. It seems to me that the internet has made it easier for people to "trade up" in relationships, which is not a bad thing. But it's important to keep in mind that if someone is browsing the internet for a better partner, then their current relationship is already not healthy, as Maarten pointed out. If anything, the internet may have made it more enticing for people to end their bad relationships, since it makes the task of meeting someone new less daunting, but I can't say it is necessarily responsible for these failed connections.
  17. To their credit, they did quote Aristotle. It was about a speaker's character being his best tool of persuasion (don't have the book on me now), but the Kant quotes were pretty much used as fillers, sort of tepid, wishy-washy stuff that didn't define an exact viewpoint.
  18. I've just finished the assigned reading for my public speaking class in a book entitled Between One and Many. The first few chapters were pretty predictable; how to get over speech anxiety, how to organize a speech, how to pick a good topic... And then, out of nowhere, a chapter entitled "Ethical Speaking". It opens with a description of the events that transpired on United Airlines flight 93, stating that "[The passengers] embodied the highest of ethical principles, sacrificing their own good for the greater good." The chapter continues with a section entitled "Why care about ethics?" Ironically, it suggests that ethics are in one's own best interest and should therefore be studied, despite having just established the decidedly "evil" nature of such motivation. The authors then cover the sophists, stating that all truth is relative, situational ethics, stating that principles are fine so long as one can set them aside and make exceptions once in a while, and utilitarianism, stating: (Emphasis mine.) Not surprisingly, all of this is sprinkled with quotes from Kant. Should be an interesting semester, huh?
  19. Oh man, that is appalling. I guess it's not enough to hate the good for being the good... They have to limit the good's vocabulary, too!
  20. ...Wow. Personally, I've never felt degraded by man's anatomical inclination to stand while urinating. Nor by a man triumphing in his masculinity. Where's the head-shake emoticon?
  21. I'm pro-non-trilogy. 'Who is John Galt?' is a brilliantly suspenseful element, but it would take something really intense to hold an audience's attention through three movies, not to mention the inevitable year or so between each being released...
  22. Aww, shucks. The bulk of my favorite poetry was written in the 20th century. There was, of course, some unbelievable crap, but there were also some brilliant poets that followed. I'm not sure what you mean about poets like Eliot and Pound making the crap possible. Are you just suggesting they were responsible for lowering the poetic standards? I don't know about that. Perhaps the beats wanted to emulate Eliot and so degenerated the form in doing so, but there have been too many excellent poets since them to discount the century on their behalf. It is a simile, because it uses the word 'like' to compare two things. But, it is also an analogy, the definition of which is "a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification." That stanza paints the image of two people walking "When the evening is spread out against the sky." The lazy cadence of the passage suggests a tone of directionlessness, so that the street behind them showing the meaningless distance they've come is becoming a sort of weight to bear. Looking back and seeing the progress they've made, and knowing it brought them no closer to a goal, is similar to a tedious argument. It is the same moment that comes when you are in a debate with someone who can't reason, when you pause and wonder if you can possibly gain anything from continuing the argument, and you "look back" at the course the debate has taken, winding like a path behind you, not getting anywhere. Does that make sense? I don't know anything about whether he intended to publish it or not. But that raises an interesting question. Would it make a difference? Isn't writing a poem with the audience at the front of your mind a bit secondhanded? For instance, while Rand undoubtedly wanted to share her ideas through her novels, she couldn't have written them with her audience dictating the word choice, the plot twists, and the tone. She must have known that some people would not get her novels, or that they would dismiss it, or what have you. But she wrote them for herself, and as a natural result of that the audience she would have wanted to appreciate it did. I'm in no way defending the intelligibility of "The Love Song", just stating that I don't think audience understanding should be a primary concern of the writer.
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