Opaque Lucidity

Just in Case

I've run into several people in the past week who just can't wait to see Michael Moore's latest steaming pile, "Farenheit 9/11". If that's you, here's a little quote by that lovable little 320lb barfly from today's Mirror, a London fishwrap:

""They (Americans) are possibly the dumbest people on the planet... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks.

"We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing. ""

Now go give him your money, kids.

Atlas Shrugged, Part One

To fully understand Atlas Shrugged, you have to know a little bit about the book's author, Ayn Rand. Rand was born in 1905 in Czarist Russia. As a young girl, she witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution which brought the Communists to power. Her father was a shop owner, so she saw firsthand what happens when an economy becomes centrally-controlled.

Rand went to college in the new Soviet Union, an experience that left her with a deep distrust of academia. The universities were run by uneducated Bolsheviks who expelled all the real educators in favor of people who taught courses full of Marxist-Leninist ideology. Rand received permission to visit some relatives in New York in 1926. She never returned to the Soviet Union.

With that in mind, let's look at this book. Atlas Shrugged is, on the surface, a very simple story. The main character is Dagny Taggart, a fiercely independent woman who is the Vice President of Taggart Transcontinental, the largest railroad in the United States. In this world (set in Rand's future; that is, ten years in the future from 1957, when the book was published.), most of the nations on the planet have turned to socialism, including the title "People's State of" in their name. The United States, the only remaining capitalist republic, is in a slow, depression-like economic decline. But there are bright spots of hope, industries run and managed by people with an "old-style" work ethic. Taggart Transcontinental is just such a company, despite the efforts of Dagny's brother, the man who runs the railroad. He is inflicted with what I call wealth guilt; he is a socialist with millions.

As the economy worsens, the "enlightened" people in education and government begin to sponsor legislation intended to give everyone a "fair" shot at business success. At first, these laws are essentially unenforceable and easily worked around; later, they become more and more specific, eventually targeting individual industries and, seemingly, individuals. As these laws make running a legitimate business more and more difficult, something extraordinary begins to happen: the people of vision and hard work begin to disappear.

I won't delve into that last point much because to tell you any more would ruin the ending of the novel. Suffice it to say that these disappearances play a central role in explaining the point of the book. And what, you may ask, is the point? Objectivism. Objectivism is the word Rand used to describe her philosophy. It is the belief that greed has been misunderstood in modern society; to her, trying to acheive as much as possible (money, property, etc.) actually helps society. Anything that stands in the way of human beings working and acheiving to their greatest potential should be eliminated. These roadblocks (according to the book) include personal income taxes, any sort of regulation on business, and no federal government services beyond those intended to maintain interstate infrastructure and the defense of the nation.

I'll speak more about my thoughts concerning Objectivism and the book in the second part of my review. I know you can hardly wait ;-)

Barren

No good post today and probably not tomorrow either; this is the last week of the month and work has been busy. I didn't get home tonight until 7 (normally I'm home at 4) and just don't have anything of interest to talk about. Hang in there.

Gatherings

My oldest brother and his family are in town this week, so my immediate family and their children all gathered at my parent's house yesterday for dinner. The only person missing was my other brother and his family, so we had quite a crowd. Mom and Dad were out of town over Father's Day weekend, so we had a belated gift-opening and the like.

I enjoy these family gatherings now more than I ever have. Part of it is because I think I appreciate my family more than I did when I was younger. It took me getting out into the world and seeing people who didn't have close families to realize how fortunate I am. But what's more is that I enjoy the time I get to spend with our nieces and nephews. They are intelligent, courteous and hard-working people who renew my faith in our future. They are not the surly punk at the local drive-through who will stumble through life feeling as if the world owes him something; they will lead the future.

Off the Tracks

I have a confession to make: I like Bill Clinton much more than I like Al Gore. My reasoning is fairly simple: Bill Clinton was always looking out for Bill Clinton. While his judgement on issues of morality may be, well, flawed, I believe that he wasn't nearly the danger that Al Gore would've been had he won the 2000 Presidential election. I say this because I believe, in all seriousness, that Al Gore has gone insane.

During a speech yesterday, Gore used the phrase "digital Brownshirts" in reference to G.W. Bush's defenders. For those of you not familiar with the term, the Brownshirts were the muscle of the early Nazi party in Germany. They were thugs, mainly out of work losers who saw Hitler as their only avenue to power. Once Hitler came to power in 1933, he all but exterminated the Brownshirts because they were of no further use to him and there were rumors of desention in the ranks. They were replaced with the SS.

Making historical comparisons is very common in politics. But comparing one's defenders to Nazis is pretty much considered to be out of bounds by anyone with a brain. Gore is becoming notorious for making wild, yelling speeches in which he brings forth all sorts of theories embraced by the hard Left in this country. While I do believe he is unbalanced, there may be a method to his madness in that Gore is all out of political clout; it is doubtful that he will ever run for another office. Thus, he has joined the likes of Ted Kennedy in the Untouchables club of the Democratic Party. It is possible, dare I say likely, that Gore is being used, much like Kennedy, to throw out the ideas that are much too dangerous for John Kerry to be associated with.

Once again, my Democrat friends: if this is true, and Gore is being used as a mouthpiece, are these the ideas you want in the White House?

The Non-Legacy

You probably saw Bill Clinton on Oprah yesterday. If not, then you probably saw him on 60 Minutes Sunday night. I didn't watch either show; I despise Oprah and 60 Minutes isn't my idea of objective journalism. But the talking heads have been playing so many excerpts over the past three days that I can't help but feel as if I saw both interviews. One thing is clear: President Clinton is still worried about his legacy.

You will recall that the last years of Clinton's Presidency was consumed with what the media lovingly referred to as "legacy building". I always found this phrase funny since a legacy is not something that is cooked up in the last six months of an eight year stint in the most powerful job on Earth. It was as if Clinton and his people believed that if they put enough spin on everything and showed it in the right light and had him doing the right things (like trying to broker a Middle East peace deal and then quietly suggest that he win a Nobel Peace Prize), then history would remember him as a giant.

Let me say for the record that Bill and Hillary Clinton are highly intelligent people. They are aware of the fact that they will occupy some place in the written history of this country. What they fail to realize is that legacy is not written by the participants; it is written by the observers. Richard Nixon is a good example of this: despite the fact that he thawed our relationship with China, ended our involvement in Vietnam and won two elections by landslides, a century from now he will be remembered only for the Watergate scandal. Thus are legacies made.

Several years ago, my brother had a visiting Chinese engineer as a guest in his home. The man was fascinated by Western culture, but much of it confused him. The discussion turned to politics and the subject of Bill Clinton came up. The man started laughing, saying that people in China only know two things about Clinton: he plays the saxaphone and had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. We know, buddy; we know. Thus are legacies made.

Rocket Man

Space Ship One has done it: a private citizen has gone into space. The flight was sub-orbital and only went a little past the minimum to be considered space (62.5 miles), but it's a great start. It has long been my belief that only private industry can give space exploration the ummmphhh that it needs.

We have always thought some international goverment consortium would go to Mars and explore the Solar System. What if it's a private company? Wow.

Hybrid

I heard a story on the Wall Street Journal Report this morning concerning hybrid automobiles---that is, cars that have a gasoline engine and some sort of battery/hydrogen fuel cell. While the reporter had some very good things to say, his summation came down to three points: first, these things are still expensive when compared to their conventionally-powered equivalents; second, the ones with street-worthy power don't get much better fuel mileage than conventional vehicles and, finally, the ones that get good gas mileage are either tiny, have no power, or both.

This is one issue on which both conservatives and environmentalists find common ground, but for different reasons. Both agree that we need to use less foreign-sourced oil. Environmentalists believe we need to use less oil period; conservatives believe we need to find domestic sources. While I have no problem drilling for oil at ANWR and other places in the United States, I think this is short-sighted. Long term, we need to look at viable replacements for petroleum and hybrid vehicles is a great place to start.

But here's the thing: no one is buying these vehicles. Until there is a serious effort to make a true replacement vehicle that has the same looks, performance, price and cost of ownership as a conventional auto, hybrids and electric cars will continue to be a niche market. In a free market, you can not successfully guilt people into paying more money for less car.

Dad

For all of you who know the responsibility of fatherhood, have a happy and blessed Father's Day. Our two cats got me cards this year; one of them seems to have a college education and the other one is one step above illiteracy. I see that we have our work cut our for us.

Savages

Do the people who would do this deserve mercy or compassion? Can you draw a legitimate comparison between anything our nation has done in the Middle East and the behaviour of these vermin? Don't try; you don't want to argue with me about this right now.

The Emporer's Real Clothes

Now, after months of wrangling and millions of taxpayers' dollars put to apparently no good use, the 9/11 Commission has concluded that Iraq had no ties to Al-Qaida. Let's consider a few things:

-The Clinton Justice Department cited Iraqi ties to Osama Bin Laden in its 1998 indictment of him. That doesn't make the connection a gospel fact or anything, but it certainly says that a belief in this connection is nothing new.

-In an interview this week, Bill Clinton said that he agreed with G.W. Bush about Iraq. His reasoning? That if any of us were in his seat, we'd say the same thing. This leads me to believe that there are intelligence assets, probably in other Arab countries, that the White House still can't discuss. Once again, I am loathe to cite Clinton as an expert on anything, but the man was President and he was privvy to the same info that Bush is privvy to now.

-Why is the Commission looking at this in the first place? Wasn't their mandate to find out what happened on and before 9/11 and try to prevent these events from ever occuring again? How does Iraq fit? This summation, more than anything else, tells me that this whole thing has been a farce from the beginning and was nothing more than a witch hunt.

A special note to those of you considering voting for John Kerry in the fall: you have now seen, with your own eyes if you bother to read the paper, who biased this Commission has been. The Dems on it were more concerned with giving this President a black eye than actually making a difference in ensuring that there are no more 9/11s in our future. Is this what you want? And if so, why?

Talk amongst yourselves.

Lost

I lost a very large post earlier, for reasons which remain unknown. I don't think I'll have time to re-type it today; I'll try for it tomorrow. I just don't want any of you to think I'm cutting you short on posting, what with me being reduced to talking about coffee yesterday (at least Hash enjoyed it). ;-)

Java, Java, Java

(The above title is to be sung to the tune of "Badger, Badger, Badger"---if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here)

I want to talk about something that is close to my heart and, I suspect, meaningful to many of you: coffee. I didn't start drinking coffee until I was about 22, and I've been making up for those lost years ever since. Now that I work during the day, I make two pots of coffee as soon as I get to work: both caffinated, both strong. This is at 7AM.

By 7:15AM, when I go to get a cup of steaming goodness, someone has made a pot of decaf and has displaced one of my manly pots and placed it on the front burner. I don't mind the displacement, since the coffee maker is shared by about 80 employees on the lower level of the building. What I do mind is the thought of someone drinking coffee, first thing in the morning, that does nothing for them.

Now, I know that some of you are decaf junkies. You claim that the real thing makes you jittery or unable to sleep. I can understand these claims, especially if you like to drink coffee after dinner. But in the morning? You're at work, for God's sake!!! You should be jittery and wide-awake.

If you don't get help at Charter, please get help somewhere.

Big Brass Ones

I've removed the photos from this entry due to the fact that some of you are on dialup. Sorry about that.

Cedric

Kelli and I went with some friends to see Cedric the Entertainer on Saturday. It was a great show in that the opening acts were both very, very funny; this isn't something you see in many comedy tours. Cedric was as good as always, although I have to say that I like his older material a little better.

This was one of the few times in my life when I have found myself to be a racial minority. Most of the crowd was black, a fact that I didn't really pay attention to until the intermission. We had good conversations with our row mates, as you would expect when you're crowded into little seats like some sort of upright veal.

It's times like this that reinforce my belief that we, as Americans, are all basically the same. We generally find the same things to be funny, we all have the same sort of love/hate relationship with our jobs, we all wish we were doing better but, when we stop and think about it, we're pretty glad for what we've got, etc., etc. So why is it that we are told that there is a huge gap among races in this country? In my opinion, the answer is simple: it's very, very profitable for certain segments of our population.

Let me be clear about one thing: racism is alive and well in this country. I have seen it in every place of business I have ever worked, including the Navy. However, to say that race relations in this country are not better today than they were forty years ago is to cheapen the accomplishments of all those who sacrificed (sometimes their lives) in order to advance the cause of civil rights. But if you listen to the Al Sharptons and Louis Farrakhans of this society, you would think that mainstream America today is worse than Alabama in 1963. Why? Because imagine what these men and women of the professional downtrodden class would do if they didn't have the cause to fight for. Not only do they have to cry about discrimination, they have to make sure that many, many people in our society agree with them.

As a further example, I give you the Democrats. 90% of voting African-Americans vote for Democrats in national elections. It has been this way since the days of FDR. This is because rich white guys like John Freakin' Kerry (who probably only has black people in his presence when they're cleaning) are continually pounding the podium in black churches, telling the congregation that they are victims and that only the Dems can save them. After 60 years, don't you think they would've made some progress? Of course not; progress might mean lost votes. The victim mentality must be perpetuated through the generations. And the growing black middle-class must be hidden like a crazy aunt in the attic.

This trend also goes beyond politics. The hip-hop culture that is increasingly shoved down our throats needs there to be a huge canyon between white and black kids. Otherwise, why would white suburbanites buy 50 Cent's CD? He has to be the rebel, the bad boy, the victim that was created by the Man's racist world. That way, when white kids buy it, they're giving the finger to their parents and The System, the same parents and system that they will embrace once they get out of college. Of course, by then, rebellion will be considered childish and they will love corportate culture like the lemmings most of them become.

There will always be racism in this country because it is the last refuge of the idiot loser (look who belongs to the KKK is you disagree). But if we are to ever cross those last hurdles that do truly exist in the mainstream, we need to dump those who help to perpetuate the victimhood of race.

Remembering the Great Communicator

When I was a kid, I was a political and historical junkie. This was mainly because I grew up in a home in which these topics were more important than any sporting event or gossip about the neighbors. My parents kept up with current events in Washington and Indianapolis and the City/County Building because they understood, as I do now, that who gets elected affects our lives more than any baseball game ever will.

Given all this, it goes without saying that I knew who Ronald Reagan was long before he was elected in 1980. By my young estimation, and the estimation of many people we knew, he was a welcome relief from the Carter presidency. Many of you reading this are too young to remember 20% mortgage rates, 10% unemployment, the 52 American hostages in Iran and the embarrasment of our failed attempt to rescue them. It came as little surprise that Reagan won the election in November, 1980 by a landslide.

As much as I hate to admit it now, I was a scared little kid in those days. And nothing scared me more than the prospect of a nuclear war. An all-out, world-ending nuclear exchange was a very, very real possibility in my mind. I didn't understand much about what the media now call real politik, but I did understand that the Soviets had lost 20 million people in the Second World War; devastating personal loss was nothing new to them. I also knew enough about our military to know that it was in fairly sad shape, which did nothing to relieve my fears of a first strike from the East.

So here came Ronald Reagan, B-movie actor, cowboy, Californian from Illinois. As a 10-year old, he didn't do much to alleviate my fears. He talked tough about Communism, so tough that I remember asking my dad if the Russians could pick up our news broadcasts. If they hear what's he saying, I thought, they'll want to nuke us for sure. What was even more worrisome was that my parents seemed to like this man and what he was saying.

It took me learning some lessons in my own life to begin to understand the person and foreign policy of President Reagan. My life taught me that some people, bullies on the playground in particular, only understand force or the threat of force. If you stand your ground, you often don't have to throw a punch. However, you have to be ready to fight the battle; to threaten without the willingness to follow through only gets you marked as a coward.

So this is how I became a Reaganite. I began to think even more highly of him when I began to observe the new found patriotism that was sweeping the country. The message was simple: our best days are still ahead. The "great thinkers" on the Left considered him a simpleton, but his message resonated with the American people: in 1984, he beat the honorable but hapless Walter Mondale in every state except Mondale's home state of Minnesota.

Reagan's detractors will point to things such as the Iran-Contra affair, aid to the Contras in Nicarauga, right-wing death squads in San Salvador and the like as proof that his presidency was a mess. While some of these accusations are true, most liberals can only speak in the most vague terms such as carping about how "the rich got richer and the poor got poorer" (something that wasn't true in the first place). In the final analysis, the Reagan years were good for this country and set the stage for the prosperity of the 90's.

And so he will be laid to rest today, at sunset, in the place that he probably loved most, California. Outside of my immediate family, there are few people who I can really say I look up to as a role model. Ronald Wilson Reagan is one of those. God speed, sir, and thank you.

Ted Rall

I've written about Ted Rall here before, and I almost hesitate to give this worthless piece of trash any more space here. But he is a special breed of human being that needs to be exposed for what he is: a liberal, whoring opportunist.

You may remember Rall as the guy who drew the editorial cartoon about Pat Tillman that drew so much ire a few months ago. Now, he has posted a piece on his website (I'm not going to link it from here as that might increase his Google page ranking) lambasting Ronald Reagan, barely 96 hours since his death. Here's a little sample to get us started:

His clown-like dyed hair and rouged cheeks disgusted us. We hated him during the dark days he made so hideous, and, with all due respect, we hate him still.

I don't have the time to dissect Rall's column; suffice it to say that his grasp of recent history is tenuous at best. There is no doubt that the Soviet Union's military expendatures increased dramatically in the 1980's, steepening their death spiral towards bankruptcy and eventual decline. Rall, like so many liberals of the "enlightened" set, like to portray Reagan as some sort of caretaker over the fall of the Soviet Union. So the same thing would've happened with four more years of Carter and four of Mondale? Really?

Of course, this is exactly the reaction that Rall and others like him want. It does them good to see angry people sending him e-mails of complaint and death threats. For him, it is good for business. But in the long term, it is merely the crying of a child. It is the rock-throwing neighborhood punk all grown up with more education and sense, trying to normalize what all the professors told him. Or, and perhaps more accurately in Rall's case, it is the attempt at victory by the lonely little boy, the closeted homosexual who had no friends and was traumatized not just by the bullies, but by any real man who stood in the ring and fought his own battles instead of praying for a proxy to come stand in for him.

Now, with his proxy in front of him in the form of syndication and the support of the other hollow men who make up the Left, Rall can throw rocks at the men who shaped history and risked their reputations by standing on principle and faith. Fuck you, Rall; you're still the scared little boy.

Little Will

William came into our world yesterday. He is our nephew, one of 14 biological nieces and nephews my wife and I have. I have yet to see him, as my sister was pretty worn out by her experience yesterday (whoda thunkit?) and wasn't really up to having visitors.

This is my sister and brother-in-law's seventh child. When I tell people that number, I get the same tired responses with the speaker thinking that he is the first witty asshole to come up with it: "Don't they know what causes that?" "Don't they own a TV?" and on and on and on. What amazes me is that people will say this to my face about my sister and a man who I have known most of my life and love as a brother as if I should find the entire thing uproariously funny.

I don't think people relate to large families because they can't imagine the level of sacrifice necessary to make those children into adults who will contribute something to society. There are far too many parents out there today who had children, in my opinion, because their friends were having kids or they thought it would help their marriage. I think that many of them secretly resent their children and the changes that have been forced upon them. And a big family? Forget it!

Kelli and I are in no hurry for children. I am acutely aware of what it takes to be a good parent and I have to admit that I am way too selfish to make a good job of it. But for those people, like my sister and her husband, who are willing to make those sacrifices and live for their children, I say God Bless You for you are stronger than me.

My sister was reluctant to tell people that she was pregnant with William. But when I told my mother-in-law about the new addition, she said something that touched me to my core: "I think it's great. If all parents were as good as they are, the world would be a better place." Amen.

The Longest Day

Sixty years ago today, 150,000 Allied soldiers invaded Normandy. As with so much of our history, this day is treated as a lone event in some sort of past vacuum, as if the days before and after were somehow void of meaning. In this case, at least, nothing can be further from the truth.

The invasion that history would call D-Day was years in the planning. It started in the dark days of early 1942, soon after the US got involved in the war. Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt agreed on a "Europe first" policy in which almost all the combined Allied effort would go to the European Theatre of Operations first. The Japanese would have to be held at bay until later (this policy was somewhat modified to allow offensive actions in the Pacific, but anyone who served in that theatre will tell you how little they received compared to their brothers in Europe). The reasoning for this was multi-faceted, but two points stand out: Germany was a much stronger military power than Japan (and was on England's doorstep) and it was imperative that the Soviet Union remain in the war fighting against Germany.

Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941, violating a non-aggression treaty the two nations signed in 1939. For over a year, the German Wermacht had pushed into the country like a knife through butter. Before their offensive was finally halted, forward German units were in sight of Moscow. During this time, Stalin was screaming for the US and England to open a second front in Europe that would drain German troops away from the Eastern Front. Stalin had good reason: more than 20 million Soviet citizens died during the war; that's one out of every three human beings who died during that period.

Churchill and Roosevelt knew that Stalin would not bear the brunt of German aggression forever. However, neither country was in a position to invade western Europe in 1942. A compromise was reached---Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. This successful operation was followed by the invasions of Sicily and Italy in 1943 (Rome was liberated on June 4, 1944, two days before D-Day). However, the juggernaut of German power was still intact. An invasion of France was unavoidable.

Of course, the German generals knew that a cross-channel invasion was inevitable. They built beachside fortifications all along the French coast and put landing obstacles (think giant, bent I-beams) on likely landing beaches. There were a finite number of areas that could support a landing; Calais was the most likely since it was the closest point of land to England. This was one of the reasons why Normandy was chosen as the eventual landing site.

In the weeks before the invasion, the Eighth Air Force destroyed rail lines and bridges all throughout France in an effort to slow down any reinforcements that might be sent to defend the beachhead. In England, a phony invasion "army" was built to give the Germans the impression that Calais was the Allied destination. General George Patton, temporarily revlieved of command for slapping a soldier in Sicily, was put in command of the phantom force. He assumed command of the Third Army after it was already ashore in France.

As with every large military engagement, the plan went pretty much out the window once the forces were committed. The first problem was weather. Originally, the landings were to take place on June 5th. However, rough seas and fog in some of the airborne drop zones forced a delay until June 6th. The invasion fleet had already sailed and had to be recalled. Thousands of soldiers, already seasick, were forced to spend another night on board overcrowded transports.

D-Day itself began at midnight with the dropping of three airborne divisions into Normandy: the American 82nd and 101st Airborne and the British Sixth Airborne. These troops were to seize key roadways leading to the beach. However, many of them were dropped miles from their targets. To make matters worse, many of the troopers had stuffed their weapons into British-designed mussette bags that were ripped off by the prop blasts of the C-47s of which they were jumping out. As one of the men in the 101st put it, "I landed in France with some Hershey bars and my knife." Despite these hardships and heavy losses, the soldiers eventually captured their objectives.

By 5:30 in the morning, the 5,000 ship invasion fleet was in full view of the Normandy beaches and the secret was out. At 5:50, the battleships and heavy cruisers of the American and British navies began shelling the coastline and targets inland. Between 6:30 and 7:00, the first waves of landing craft hit the beaches. Losses were great; the numbers vary, but as many as 4,900 Americans died on the beaches at Normandy. By the end of that day, the Allies had secured a beachead more than 15 miles wide and were pushing inward. An artificial harbor was being assembled to facilitate the offloading of more troops and equipment.

Before the invasion, General Eisenhower wrote two speeches: one to be used if the invasion were successful, the other to be used if it were a failure. While today is it easy to see our victory in that great crusade as a foregone conclusion, nothing was certain at the time. Our army did not have a Prussian tradition as the Germans had or the samurai spirit of the Japanese. Our army and navy were made up of citizens, men and women who, until the war came, had never worn a military uniform. But yet, when it was all said and done, they formed the greatest military that the world has ever seen. To say that they saved civilization is not an understatment; try to imagine a world in which the United States and her Allies had not won the war.

The Gipper is Gone

Out O' My Ass

There are days, like today, when I love my job. Why do I love it? Because sometimes, once in a while, I get thrown into a position in which I have to fix something right now, I am successful at fixing said thing, and people think I'm brilliant. It's not that I am brilliant, but having other think I am is pretty nice.

The topping on the cake is when I have to work my magic in front of a crowd. This morning, it was a boardroom full of people wanting to attend an online seminar. I won't bore you with the technical details; suffice it to say that the instructions we were sent for setting up a remote connection to our host weren't exactly accurate and were, as I like to put it, useless as tits on a boar hog. Eventually, I guessed at the problem and I was right. Problem solved and the Earth kept turning.

Here's the scary part: this is about the third time in a month that I have guessed at a problem and been correct. I would like to say that it's because some exceptional reasoning ability or innate knowledge, but it's not; I've just been lucky. What scares me is that people may begin to think that my skill set is a little larger than it actually is. I suppose the simple answer is to make my skills as good as my guessing.

Sorry, that was a bit whiny.

Who is John Galt?

I've begun reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. The book was published almost 50 years ago but, according to some of the reviews I read before I picked up a copy, it still has much relevance today. It's over 1000 pages long and I'm only on page 100 or so; thus, I will reserved judgement at this time. If it's as good as I'm hoping, I'll write more about it when I'm finished.

The book centers around a few people who, in earlier times, would have been called captains of industry. It is set at some vague point in the future (that is, the future in 1957) when most of the world has fallen into socialism. The United States is suffering what appears to be not just a recession, but an overall slowdown in productivity and morale. Rand leaves you with the feeling that nothing is getting done in the country.

I already have a few criticisms of the book, although I will explain why they are slight. First, Rand completely missed several future inventions that were staring her in the face by the mid 50's. First was the rise of the airplane and interstates as a means of mass transit. In the book, trains are still king and it doesn't appear as if the interstate highway system was ever built. Even fifty years ago, travel by air, while still only available to a few, was a looming juggernaut and the highway system was well underway. Second is the rise of computer technology. By the 1950's, large corporations were already using IBM "heavy iron" for number-crunching. While computers were not yet a part of everyday office life as they would become 30 years later, they were around.

Finally, Rand's characters are a little flat. So far, everyone introduced in the story is pretty one-dimensional and all-consumed by their passions (mostly work and money). It seems as if she needed a character to make one point, a character for another, etc. and their differences had to be stark in order to get the point across.

And what is the point, you may ask? To forward Rand's ideas about what she called Objectivism (do a Google search for the word and you'll be enlightened). Thus, the entire story is sort of a parable for the modern age, which is why I can overlook so much of what is wrong with her work from a literary standpoint.

As far as Objectivism itself and what I think about it, stay tuned; I want to see where she takes me. On its face, it seems a little too souless for my taste.

Thor

We have had two days of very bad storms in the past week. Sunday was the worst day of the two, with a small tornado making a brief touchdown about four blocks from our house. At one point during the storm, I stepped out onto our front porch. It had stopped raining, there was no wind, and an eiree silence hung over the scene. There was the darkest cloud I have ever seen hanging over the downtown area; I guess that's what spawned the tornado.

I can't help but laugh at all our weather forecasting technology. The local TV meteorologists were on these storms like a fat kid on a donut, pointing out the red and green areas on their radar displays and telling us which areas of town could expect what when. But you know what? When it's all said and done, we do what people have been doing in the face of bad weather since the beginning of time: we run and hide. All we have gained is the ability to warn each other. Ain't we sophisticated?