Sunday, October 31, 2021

Random Thoughts for November

 

Random Thoughts for October 2021

Robert A. Hall

Feel free to post or forward.

 

Health Update: On October 5, we learned that our grandson, who had been with us, tested positive for COVID. The VA tested me and I got my results right away—positive but no symptoms. Bonnie requested a test from her PCP at SSM. No response. VA calls me every three days to check in. So she got one at CVS. Also positive with no symptoms. Quarantined for 20 days until 10/25.

 

Rescheduled colonoscopy for 10/28. Stitches from removal of large cyst in my back out 10/26.

 

Being on quarantine gave me time to work on my genealogy. I found an ancestor who was hanged as a witch at Salem (Rebecca Nurse), another who was poisoned by his wife and another guy, and one who was hanged for joining a rebellion against Richard II. Politics was rough in those days.

 

I'm gather I’m permanently banned from Facebook. First they said they don’t allow posts selling weapons and drugs. I didn't post any such. Then they said they don't allow any posts about suicide and hurting yourself. I didn't do that either. But my account is disabled. I’ve read that Facebook is as addictive as cigarettes. So maybe going cold turkey is good for me. More time for other stuff.

 

I learned that Col. John Studt, my CO in the Marines reserves, died October 5. He was 91. Fair winds and following seas, Sir. A great Marine officer, veteran of Korea and Vietnam.

 

My friend Master Gunnery Sergeant john Lewis went to the VA for test. They put him in the hospital, where he had a stroke. Home hospice. Dead at 74 eight days after going for those tests.

 

Going green sounds great until you figure out the green comes out of your pocket.

 

A three-day weekend doesn’t mean much when you are retired.

 

Given the number of scam calls, and they large numbers of us that are too wise to lose a dollar, one would think those who lost money would wise up, giving us herd immunity. Apparently not.

 

A little examination will show that mediocrity is the child of diversity.  Democrats fail to realize this, until the incompetence stares them in the face…and they still can’t accept responsibility for it.  –George S.

 

How naive is the Biden administration? They chided the Taliban for not having women in their government.

 

When a little girl can buy an ice cream with a found blue rock from a guy selling from his roving truck, a good sign America has not gone completely mad. [That happened.] –Andy Weddington

 

A good grounding is history makes one less concerned about the tribulations of today.

 

"Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day." ~ Glen Cook

 

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." ~ Albert Einstein

 

Public arguments by this president don’t help. They persuade nobody of anything. The bully pulpit has been reduced to a walker. Nine months into his tenure, Biden is already a spent force that nobody listens to. In terms of his influence, he went directly from honeymoon to lame duck.  --Dan McLaughlin

 

After 70, health problems come in twos and threes.

 

Don't trust or take medical advice from anyone who would leave your ass in Afghanistan. [Borrowed from the net.] –Andy Weddington

 

There are a lot of people in leadership positions who do not have leadership skills.

 

The best gift you can get to have a successful life is self-discipline. And they will pay you to learn it at MCRD Parris Island and MCRD San Diego.

 

From MeWe: Due to unfortunate circumstances I woke up alive and am on my way to work.

 

If someone knows a way of making money he won’t spend his time trying to tell the world how to make money. He’s definitely going to spend most of his time making money. Unless you are his way of making money. –Tumelo B. Pule.

 

Great things never come from comfort zones. –MeWe.com

 

We had a rotten apple hidden in a bowl, so we became infested with fruit flies. We found they way to get rid of them was to put apple cider vinegar in a bowl, cover with saran wrap and hold in placed with a rubber band. Poke a few holes in the saran wrap, must be large enough the flies can get through them. Then wait. They get in, can’t get out, and drown in the vinegar.

 

Below published in Calliope by the Mensa Writer's SIG. Fall, 2021.

 

Autumn Lament

 

The boy skips ahead on the dirt road,

Impatient with an old man on a cane,

The dog bounding between us.

I point out the colors in the trees,

The hawk gracing a fence rail on the ridge,

The pink gathering in the west.

God’s artistry, I tell him,

Hoping he will remember.

But probably not.

And for a moment I imagine

This is still the country I grew up in.

 

It’s hard to be a stalker when you use a walker.

 

For Halloween, I dressed as a Taliban and hit the White House and Pentagon.

 

Has there ever been a society, including communists ones, where wealth was evenly distributed?

 

Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2009 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Jarheads-Journal-Thoughts-Leadership/dp/1490500162/ref=sr_1_1?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1373907206andsr=1-1andkeywords=Old+Jarhead%27s+Journal

The Old Jarhead’s Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their heads explode. All royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

 

*****

 

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s twelve books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com. He currently works part-time as a writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA hospital, interviewing vets and writing up their life histories. During the crisis he is working from home.

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Book recommendation

 

War So Terrible: Sherman and Atlanta by James Lee McDonough James Pickett Jones 

https://smile.amazon.com/War-So-Terrible-Sherman-Atlanta/dp/0393024970/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=War+so+Terrible&qid=1635632380&qsid=147-1752272-6506641&s=books&sr=1-1&sres=0393024970%2CB008X7ADBI%2CB001ULHCOU%2C1490437746%2C1627655379%2C156025405X%2C030739395X%2C0316425168%2CB08KTJPMLR%2C0385751532%2C099895800X%2C0760340129%2C0307475999%2C1681771330%2C0345472640%2C1099879965&srpt=ABIS_BOOK

This is a well-researched, well-written, and well-balanced history of the campaign that arguably won the Civil War for the North. It exploded the myth that southern general were generally superior to northern ones. The March to the Sea gets all the attention, but it could not have happened if Johnson and Hood had defeated Sherman before Atlanta. The last chapter is a great look at Gone with the Wind, we the book of course being more accurate than the once loved, now maligned movie. This book is a must for Civil War/Military History buffs.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Autumn Lament

 Published in Calliope by the Mensa Writer's SIG. Fall, 2021.


Autumn Lament

The boy skips ahead on the dirt road,
Impatient with an old man on a cane,
The dog bounding between us.
I point out the colors in the trees,
The hawk gracing a fence rail on the ridge,
The pink gathering in the west.
God’s artistry, I tell him,
Hoping he will remember.
But probably not.
And for a moment I imagine
This is still the country I grew up in.

Sunday, October 24, 2021

St. Crispin's day tomorrow.

 Henry V - Speech - Eve of Saint Crispin's Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-yZNMWFqvM

Oh, damn, tomorrow is St. Crispin's Day. Granddad will be getting roaring drunk and having the neighbors in, showing off his scars and going on and on about York and Suffolk and Harry the King...
http://www.britishbattles.com/one-hundred-years-war/battle-of-agincourt/

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Book Recommendation--the Alamo

 

The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation by James Donovan 

https://smile.amazon.com/Blood-Heroes-Struggle-Alamo-Sacrifice/dp/0316053732/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1DZ5CE3YPXJ8K&dchild=1&keywords=the+blood+of+heroes&qid=1634668372&s=books&sprefix=the+Blood+of+Heroes%2Caps%2C191&sr=1-1

There are hundreds of books about the siege of the Alamo. Of the dozen or so that I’ve read, this is by far the best. It is well written, well researched and well balanced. It give the reader the background of what led up to the battle and what happened afterward. It also gives the sometimes-unsavory history of the key players. (Crocket comes off best.) it corrects many of the myths of the Alamo. There was only one Mexican assault which overran the garrison. Crocket did not surrender to be executed—he died fighting. I think this will be the standard history of the Alamo for years to come. If you are a history buff, I highly recommend it.

Saturday, October 16, 2021

A charity I Support

 A Special Fundraising Appeal

 

Every year in December VHF puts forth its end-of-year fundraising appeal. This year, due to a special opportunity from a generous donor, we are starting now.  The reason is that we have been given a $5,000 matching gift challenge so that every donation coming into VHF in the next couple of months will be matched dollar for dollar.  This is too beneficial an opportunity for us to pass up, so as of Monday, the 18th of October, our fund drive begins.

 

Just to keep everyone informed, this year we have surpassed all years of past giving, with two extra donations to our clients, one last Spring for over $7000 and one just recently for over $8,500, to help offset the major hardships our people have been facing due to the Covid shutdowns in Viet Nam, which have been lengthy and very thorough. Most of our clients depend on minor kinds of work, selling lottery tickets, etc, to eke out a living. The shutdowns hit them harder than most others. 

 

Of course, we did our usual January and July disbursements as well, so in total this year so far we have sent over $28,000 to help 170 families for most of the year, but now we have increased our client base to 200.

 

In addition, we also sent $2,000 to Central VN for flood relief.

 

All this was possible only due to tremendous generosity by so many people, Americans and Vietnamese.  Now our reserve funds are down a bit, so we hope to get them back up and be able to go into 2022 in good shape to keep doing our work.

 

Please make your checks payable to Vietnam Healing Foundation and mail them to

The Vietnam Healing Foundation, P.O. Box 281, Morrisville, NC 27560 or contribute through PayPal.

 

Thank you to all, and Happy Thanksgiving.

 

R J Del Vecchio, Chairman of VHF

 

The Vietnam Healing Foundation  

email: info@thevhf.org          website: www.thevhf.org          Facebook/thevhf.org

Book Recommendations

 

Book Recommendations

Swords Against the Senate: The Rise Of The Roman Army And The Fall Of The Republic 

by Erik Hildinger 

https://smile.amazon.com/Swords-Against-Senate-Roman-Republic/dp/0306812797/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1634405861&sr=1-1

A very readable history of the end of the Roman Republic and the careers of Gaius Marius and is enemy, Sulla. The Roman Constitution was unwritten and thus slowly shredded when it was convenient for politicians to do so. There is a lesson here for us.

 

The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy and the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia and Han China by Raoul McLaughlin  

https://smile.amazon.com/Roman-Empire-Silk-Routes-Ancient/dp/152677108X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+roman+empire+and+the+silk+routes&qid=1634406431&s=books&sr=1-1

An excellent and interesting history. It’s an academic book, so I wouldn’t call it light reading. But though I am well read in history, I was amazed at the number of empires, kingdoms, and warlords between the Chinese and Roman Empires during the period. I learned at lot from it. It is supposed to be a book about economics, but it is more a book about warfare between these entities. The Romans were never able to deal with mounted Steppe warriors armed with bows, especially after the Parthians and their successors obtained steel for scale armor, swords, and arrowheads from the Chinese. Eventually, the Huns undermined the western Roman Empire, leading to its fall. Worth reading.

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

voter ID

 Do Voting Laws Matter? Maybe Not: New academic research suggests that all this talk about laws that will result in voter suppression or increase turnout may be, well, academic. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Mark Niesse writes that “Academic research shows that voter ID laws have little to no effect on turnout” and that “one nationwide study found that expansions of absentee voting in some states in last year’s election didn’t alter turnout.” Taken together, these studies show that “almost all voters who want to vote will find a way to cast their ballots despite tougher ID requirements, limits on ballot drop boxes and a shorter early voting period before runoffs.” And, of course, if there’s no effect on turnout that also means there’s no discernible amount of fraud being prevented either.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

Articles on Crime

 Not sure how many you can open due to paywalls. All worth reading from the 10/4 National Review. Some may have different titles. ~Bob


The Legitimacy hypothesis by Charles Fain Lehman

​Systemic Simplistic by Hannah E. Meyers

Officer Exodus by Ryan Mills

Madison police officer shot on State Street, suffers non-life-threatening injuries

 Madison police officer shot on State Street, suffers non-life-threatening injuries

Sunday, October 3, 2021

Random Thoughts for October 2021

 

Random Thoughts for October 2021

Robert A. Hall

Feel free to post or forward.

 

Health Update: My new hip is doing okay, still hurts from time to time and I have trouble putting my right sock on. But I can walk without pain, so all good.

 

Big problem right now is I had a large cyst removed from my back. Had one removed there about 30 years ago, and it was fine. This one produces constant pain. I can’t lean against it in a car seat or chair or sleep on my back. Saturday, we were at a block party in our neighbor’s yard. It bleed through the bandage, my shirt and left a big blood stain on the chair pad. Went to the VA ER. They gave me new dressings and said I had to let the body do it’s work. The body better get on the stick! Have a surgery consult Tuesday morning. We will see. It bled through the bandage again today.

 

I’m still in Facebook jail, at least for 30 days. They said they don’t allow posts selling guns, knives or drugs. I didn’t post any such. I went on my I-phone and it said their community standards don’t allow posts about suicide or hurting yourself.. I didn’t post anything about that either. I requested a review. So far, crickets.

 

“Don’t think of it as a surrender. Think of it as a mask mandate for Afghan women.” –NR

 

There Are Still Americans Trapped in Afghanistan. Because it should be repeated every day until it is resolved, more than three weeks after the last U.S. soldier departed Afghanistan, an unknown number of American citizens, an unknown but considerable number of U.S. green-card holders, and more than 100,000 Afghan allies who qualified for Special Immigrant Visas remain trapped in Afghanistan, despite the president’s promise that, “If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out.”  --Jim Geraghty 9/23/21

 

“It is discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. –Noel Coward

 

In the administrative state civil servants “Are no longer servants and no longer civil.” –Churchill

 

"If you are going down, go down fighting. your status in hell is determined by how many side boys you send ahead to announce your coming." -Robert A. Heinlein

 

In truly Socialist Countries, sooner or later the government becomes the enemy of the people.

 

Margaret Thatcher is famous for saying, “This is no time to go wobbly.” Joe Biden was born wobbly.

 

“If you make 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.” –Churchill

 

Dame Leslie-Anne ----, KT was on my Facebook friends list, but she unfriended me. Maybe I’m too common? But hey, Princes M… and Tracy the Saint are still hanging in there.

 

“Our officers and men behaved like men who are determined to be free.” –Major General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. Are Americans today still “Determined to be free”?

Remember how we panicked when we couldn't find any toilet paper?  What are we going to do when we can't find a cop? –From the net.

 

DEFUND THE NFL & NBA: Don't watch.  Don't go.  Don't buy.  Don't discuss.  It's Not About Football or Basketball Anymore. --From the net.

As a rule, ungrateful people are unhappy people.

We are losing several hundred dead a year in Chicago. We didn’t lose an American in Afghanistan in the 18 months before Biden decided to pull out. We pulled out of the wrong place!

Have we yet learned that negotiating with terrorists is futile and leads only to dead Americans?

They say pick your battles. But often your battles pick you.

If you pray for God to send someone to vanquish evil, do not be surprised to wake with a sword in your hand.

On Saturday, 9/4, we decided to go to the Wisconsin Highland games only to discover they were cancelled for “Infrastructure Problems.” Since we were dressed and half way there we decided to go to the Bristol Ren Feste for the second time in three weeks. It was fun and little Dale loved it; Bonnie bought him two wooden battle axes. I got exhausted walking around on the uneven ground. I really got weak in the last year as arthritis prevented me exercising. A fellow recognized my Leatherneck Tartan and said Semper Fi. He has two kilts in it, and his young son was wearing a kilt in the tartan. He said when he was deployed to Iraq, a SgtMaj. Green used to wake them playing the bagpipes and wearing his Leatherneck Tartan kilt. Great way to celebrate our 29th anniversary, which was September 5th.

Saw a tee shirt on a young woman: “I love female orgasm.” Indeed.

 

Have had my Moderna COVID booster. Made me feel old and tired (LOL—I’m 75)

 

I think “Woke” is Zombie Apocalypse they have been warning us about.

 

Tee shirt at “Pints and Politics”: Everything woke turns to shit.

 

Mary Seales: "Those who are afraid to fight will be eaten by those who are not afraid.

 

David Azerrad’s definition of courage: “Bold and principled defiance of the lies of the age.”

 

I understand that there are about 400 coal-fired electricity plants in construction in the world now, mostly in China and India. And Biden is going sto stop global warming with electric cars?

 

The more pictures I see of animals in costumes, the less I’m inclined to do it to ours.

 

Based on recent experience, the country is a lot better off. Better off than it will be in a year or two.

 

“There is no cause so hopeless, no creed so mad, no idea so ludicrous that it will not attract some believers. –Bernard Cornwell, The Death of Kings, sixth book in his great Saxon Tales series.

 

Facial piercings don’t make you look attractive or sexy. They make you look stupid.

 

The thought may be as bad as the deed, but it sure isn’t as much fun.

 

“What, then has education been doing to our civilization? The very concept of IQ, of Intelligence Quotient, of the Stanford-Benet test and things similar, is, as its critics argue, a cultural construct – less a measure of potential than of capacities already developed. No surprise that persons growing up in environments that stimulate and enable the development of human possibilities do in fact develop more of these. Some studies suggest that the complex of what each generation conveyed to the next made those generations more intellectually/morally potent than their predecessors though the early twentieth century, but that this process has reversed itself over about a half century and average IQ has dropped by some 14 points. The decline seems to have come at the top of our civilizational pyramid. Speculation about the causes is less relevant than noting the effects.”  --Angelo Codevilla (RIP)

 

Saying “to be honest” sounds like you aren’t always but are making an exception in this case.

 

“A misrepresented constitution is nothing more than a political weapon. And a very attractive one for any faction that discovers rights and privileges for itself.” –Erik Hildinger, Swords against the Senate. (About the Fall of the Roman Republic.)

 

We are headed towards anarchy and anarchy is almost always followed by dictatorship.

 

The Roman Republic was not a republic, and certainly not a democracy. It was an oligarchy where the wealthy patricians and nobles held power and benefited from the use of the state. Rather like the US today.

 

66% of college students say shouting down speakers is actually free speech, according to a poll of 37,000 students at 159 top-ranked colleges and universities. Another 23% believe it is appropriate to use violence to cancel speech. –Blaska’s Blog

 

On March 8, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes, “Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around wearing a mask. There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

 

Now that I’m no longer employed by the VA as a writer-editor in My Life, My Story, I just filled at seven forms to volunteer with the program. I wish that the president, senators, and Congresscritters were this well vetted!

 

Courage is also spelled ... a  c  t  i  o  n.  –Andy Weddington

 

My cat thinks the purpose of life is to sleep. At 75, I’m starting to agree with her.

 

Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2009 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Jarheads-Journal-Thoughts-Leadership/dp/1490500162/ref=sr_1_1?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1373907206andsr=1-1andkeywords=Old+Jarhead%27s+Journal

The Old Jarhead’s Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their heads explode. All royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

 

*****

 

Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s twelve books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com. He currently works part-time as a writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA hospital, interviewing vets and writing up their life histories. During the crisis he is working from home.

 

More Federal Subpoenas Issued in Russia Hoax Op

 More Federal Subpoenas Issued in Russia Hoax Op

Excerpt: The New York Times, which is all of a sudden quite interested in the chicanery of the FBI in this case and in the Capitol riot prosecutions,  identified the players referred to in the Sussmann indictment. “For 5 years, the identities of the data experts who identified the odd cyber links and theorized they could be covert Trump-Russia communications have been shrouded. They are April Lorenzen, Rodney Joffe & two Georgia Tech computer scientists, Manos Antonakakis and David Dagon.” ~ NYT. This latest set of subpoenas appear to show that Durham has more people in his sights. Indeed, as you can see for yourself, there appear to be many, many targets out there. Half the country believes there’s no such thing as equal justice under the law anymore. It would be nice to see these high-level conspiracists finally get what they deserve. After all, this all set the table not only for the 2016 election, but for Trump’s impeachments and dirtying him up for the 2020 election. That’s a hell of a blow to the body politic. [How interesting that NYT is suddenly taking this seriously. Perhaps someone’s ox has been gored that we don’t know about yet. Ron P.]

An Armor Conspired: the Global Shipping Freeze

 An Armor Conspired: the Global Shipping Freeze

Excerpt: There is an unavoidable price for the ceaseless avalanche of goods and services falling around us: it is exposure to an arrant, inherent level of complexity. Only the coordination of a superabundant array of prices, timing, capacity, and information keeps the globally-integrated supply chain functioning. A single, small misstep or error increases the likelihood of subsequent problems at every juncture in the process. The “two weeks to flatten the curve” decision along with other shortsighted, unnecessary (and, as it turns out, ineffective) policy options has generated countless knock-on effects. Those now include shortages of shipping containers, long and increasing port delays, a growing scarcity of essential supply chain components, insufficient labor, higher prices, and a mounting undersupply of final goods. [There’s a lot of fascinating information in this article explaining how the problem has come about and its costs. There isn’t much on offer here to fix it, though. Some of the costs have gone up more than 700%; not only is that a whole bunch, it will impact the retail pricing nearly everything, some items quickly, others after a while. This is definitely worth reading. Ron P.]

Review of Edward Younkins, Exploring Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand’s Magnum Opus

 Review of Edward Younkins, Exploring Atlas Shrugged: Ayn Rand’s Magnum Opus

Excerpt: As the book is a collection of standalone essays, it suffers a little from repetition; more than once, readers will ask “Haven’t I already read this?” and realize they’re reading a repetition of something that was in an earlier chapter. This space might have been used better going deeper into some of the issues the book raises. Dr. Younkins runs an institute at a Jesuit university, and I would have loved to see an exploration of the tensions between Rand’s ideas and the Jesuit tradition. I think Rand is far too dismissive of religion, but the devout are too dismissive of Rand (John Piper is an important exception)–or of individualism and capitalism. One of my “favorite” characters in Atlas Shrugged is Eugene Lawson, “the banker with a heart,” who gave no thought to profitability, bankrupted his community with his good intentions, and blamed everyone else for falling short of his lofty ideal. Younkins discusses Lawson’s folly on page 100, but I think there is a lot that remains to be said about his (ig)noble experiment and how it fits in with different ethical traditions–or doesn’t. I’m drawn to Atlas Shrugged as an economist and a Christian because it is such a piercing explanation of how much ideas matter and how much intentions don’t. [Art Carden, the writer of this book review, is an economist who dabbles in writing, not a writer who dabbles in economics. In my personal opinion, Anthem was Rand's best--but, least detailed--novel, and it was difficult for her to find a publisher for it. Ron P.]