Reading in USA Schools / A2A by that NSA-attracting author name

[Michael Bailey]

It's possible Ms Surfus was speaking bucca-lingually...

I try to read like Will Rogers, never met a book I didn't like

However, I scooted through Fountainhead and AS and "For the New
Intellectual" once long ago and haven't found an urge to return,
whereas in a sense I have never finished reading GR and V and his 1990
book (a personal favorite) and M&D and Lot 49 and the stories, and
looking forward to the next one of Pynchon's books
ie, I agree with you

In her defense, Soviet Russia was a pretty harsh place to grow up

Mises, and I think Rothbard too, was friendly with her but fell
out...those guys could write a bit themselves - too bad they never
turned to fiction
(Rothbard in particular had alliances and fallings out all over the
place, even with the New Left at one point, believing their anti-war
anti-intrusive-government stance had some merit, but abandoned them
because of their irrationality)

she (Ayn Rand) influenced also Alan Greenspan at one point, I think,
back when he was pro-gold

In the movie "Dirty Dancing" the evil waiter tries to turn Baby's
sister on to I think "The Fountainhead" saying "It changed my life"


On 3/26/06, Will Layman <WillLayman at comcast.net> wrote:
> I simply cannot believe that anyone would even vaguely equate the overblown
> bullshit of Ayn Rand with Pynchon.
>
> Even if you don't much like Pynchon, you'd have to admit that the cat can
> WRITE.  Whereas Ms. Rand was little more than a temporarily hip polemicist
> with a libertarian chip on her shoulder whose sentences, characters and
> storylines are each as forced and clumsy as a dog playing the saxophone.
>
> As a parent and teacher, I can tell you that they are NOT reading Rand in
> the schools today.  And thank goodness for that.
>
> -- Will
>
> On 3/26/06 10:23 PM, "Michael Bailey" <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 3/26/06, Henry Musikar <hmusikar at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> >> Doo, doo-doo doo-doo, doo-doo,
> >> Reading in the USA
> >>
> >> http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/education/14175174.htm
> >>
> >> Henry
> >>
> >
> > from the article:
> > "In 1999, novelist Francine Prose decried the move toward digestible
> > literature."
> > -- with such a name, excellent career choice!
> >
> > also this (referring to the College Board's "101 Great Books" for
> > college-bound students):  "Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, James Agee,
> > Herman Melville and Thomas Pynchon all make the cut, but not the
> > perennial favorites of school districts like Amy Tan, J.R.R. Tolkien
> > and Ayn Rand."
> >
> > Brings back some memories.
> > This was pre-Amy Tan but gee, Tolkien and Rand - nobody read those in
> > class!  Lord of the Flies maybe...
> >
> > One girl from our school took Ayn Rand to heart, majored in physics
> > and philosophy in college, and worked at Bell Labs and NASA later.
> >
> > But she certainly didn't read TF or AS as an assignment!  I remember
> > reading AS in my grandma's house, kinda wincing at times ("Hey
> > Frisco!"  "Hey Slug!") and skimming the long speeches...best part for
> > me was the cigarettes with the dollar sign logo...I guess I wondered
> > if all those smart people were so all-falutin' smart how come they
> > couldn't convince the rest of humanity to go their way...and also did
> > they never screw up, was it always somebody else's fault?
> >
> > Still, hard to fault good old Ayn Rand - as Bonnie Surfus wrote,
> > "Rand, who died about 5 years ago, had rather a cult following,
> > particularly for her _The Fountainhead_ and _Atlas Shrugged_; the latter,
> > a title that is brilliantly simple yet so FULL.  In terms of Pynchon, you
> > can most likely "see" something of the associaten simply by considering
> > this title alone.  But the book is rather short and it _is_ compelling
> > reading, so you may want to have a look."
> > http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9410&msg=391&keywords=bonnie%20sur
> > fus%20atlas%20shrugged
> >
> > But they're making them read Ayn Rand in school now?
> > And Tolkien?  Gosh, that was practically subversive not so long ago...
> >
> > (Was anybody else bummed out about Peter Jackson taking most of the
> > poetry and songs out in favor of more battle scenes?  (still enjoyable
> > tho - but no Tom Bombadil? He's only, like, the coolest cat in Middle
> > Earth!))
> >
> > Kids these days!
> > ---------
> > In between trying to move ahead in IJ, I've had a couple peeks at
> > "From Asininity to Assassination" by "Pyro Atomic Bomb"
> > Much in there brings to mind TRP's official opuses, but one thing that
> > may not even be significant is the citation of "Bodin" (French
> > philosopher who argued against revolution because progress occurs only
> > during political stability)
> > I've always held that Pig Bodine is meant among his other conjurations
> > to remind us of Bodin's valuable contributions
> >
> >
> > --
> > "Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
> > -Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose
> >
>
>


--
"Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
-Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose