Golf Club Atlas
GolfClubAtlas.com => Golf Course Architecture => Topic started by: Jeff_Mingay on December 10, 2010, 09:17:07 AM
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Comments at another thread, from Ian A. and Tim Nugent specifically, just got me thinking about one of my favourite subjects: How building architecture and golf course architecture can some times relate.
How about this quote from Howard Roark, the main character in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead:
Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are made by the need to impress.
Am I odd, or can anyone else relate this relatively simple, yet complex comment about building architecture to golf course architecture?
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Jeff,
I just commented on "ornamentation" on the other thread which was a term specific to architecture. They build the buildings to stand up and meet space requirements, and at the end, decide what kind of facade there will be (and if budget is an issue how much) Architects like MiesVR at different times decided that there was no need for ornamentation, and thus usually left it off. A lot of what we did in the 90's etc. could be left off, sort of the definitions of minimalism, although that gets kind of clouded sometimes.
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Good book that Jeff... Very inspiring...
I constantly relate it to golf course architecture.
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Your house is made by its own needs. Those others are made by the need to impress.
The first part sure sounds like a description of a good members course to me. The second part...not so much.
Nice quote!!
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Howard Roark, The Tom Doak of fictional building architects. ;D
Jeff, could it be that if an architect builds his own house/course, he does not have to 'Crystal Ball' what he thinks other want and will be satisfied with? He only has to answer to himself. The need to survive in the business and, in these times, feed a family, causes them to revert to the mean, to do what is considered basically safe, but embellished with some bells and whistles. The need to impress kicked in.
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I understand, Tim. But, like Howard Roark, I guess that's what (some of us) try to fight. It's not always easy. I know.
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Tim,
I don't recall that quote exactly, but I took it as him describing one of his clients, less extravagent houses. Nor do I think satisfying your ownself in design is the easiest thing to do, since we have so many influences we like and have to narrow it to one. I trust you and the wife have tried to redecorate your house, or you do the landscaping at least once, eh?
Slightly OT but I recall one of those college design field trips to FLW's first house in Wisconsin. It had some ornamentation, etc. but I couldn't help but notice that somehow, he had aligned the second floor bathroom right over the dining room and a big ugly cast iron pipe came down right next to the dinner table.....like many of us, he learned there are some practicalities to design in any field.
And, as your Dad said often, you have to get the basics right for it to be a good design. I do see a lot designs of all types that don't function well, but which are highly ornamental and attractive. Or, form follows function and anything else is just a bonus.
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Jeff,
For the sake of discussion, I think there'd be varying perspective on the cast iron pipe you describe. It makes me think of the ditches at Oakmont for example. They're functional, like that cast iron pipe. Some think Oakmont's ditches are cool, and attractive in a quirky way. But I know others, with different perspective, wonder why they're open rather than piped and covered.
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Tim,
I don't recall that quote exactly, but I took it as him describing one of his clients, less extravagent houses.
It's been too long since my last read, but I believe the quote Jeff provides was during the conversation between Roark and Austin Heller where Roark describes to Heller why he (Heller) enjoys his house so much, and so personally.
We had a fairly long thread a long time ago about The Fountainhead and gca - as I recall, Tom D took umbrage at the notion that he is a Howard Roark type character, but at the time he hadn't read the book and was relying on the (flawed) descriptions of the book and Roark. So tread lightly!
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Howard Roark would hate this site.
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Howard Roark would hate this site.
Gotta disagree. Roark spent a good bit of time enjoying conversations with Heller and Wynand, there's no reason to believe he couldn't find enough common ground with some on here to enjoy the site in some manner.
He might dislike certain people on the site, but I don't see that he would hate the site.
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I'd relate the "own needs" to playability. Focusing on the fun factor. And the need to impress would be the golf course which is high on framing (aesthetics) without much substance.
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The first thing that I thought after reading the tile of this thread was, "who is the Peter Keating" of golf course architecture???
Chris
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None of the main characters in The Fountainhead could ever exist in real life. They are their respective ideals.
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So, who is the ideal Keating? Who are the poseurs, who have built their careers on being 'safe", and good at cocktail parties?
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Ayn Rand, is her first language English.
Nope, Russian.
I'm always surprised at those who don't care for her style, but I guess that's almost as subjective as eating or music.
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I LOVED The Fountainhead (and Atlas Shrugged)...
when I was 18. ;)
As fantasy, it's stimulating. As literature, fairly awful. As reality, silly. What's virtuous about ferocious unwillingness to compromise or collaborate?
There are periods in history where architecture that is almost all decoration remains both stunning and revered.
I don't recall, how did Howard Roarke get the financing to design and construct his buildings?
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None of the main characters in The Fountainhead could ever exist in real life. They are their respective ideals.
Not just the Fountainhead--Wesley Mouch(sic) in AS excepted.
Ayn Rand didn't go in for much nuance in her characters.
After first reading the Fountainhead in high school,I wanted to be an architect until I realized that I can't draw a straight line with the proverbial ruler.
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Howard Roark would hate this site.
Gotta disagree. Roark spent a good bit of time enjoying conversations with Heller and Wynand, there's no reason to believe he couldn't find enough common ground with some on here to enjoy the site in some manner.
He might dislike certain people on the site, but I don't see that he would hate the site.
George, in ten + years I don't think I've ever disagreed with you, but I doubt Roark would lurk or get involved with GCA.com as he already knows everything. Besides, we've got plenty of Ellsworth M. Toohey's here, and you know what Roark thinks of Ellsworth . . . He doesn't.
Is Ron Whitten the Ellsworth M. Toohey of golf architecture?
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George, in ten + years I don't think I've ever disagreed with you, but I doubt Roark would lurk or get involved with GCA.com as he already knows everything. Besides, we've got plenty of Ellsworth M. Toohey's here, and you know what Roark thinks of Ellsworth . . . He doesn't.
Is Ron Whitten the Ellsworth M. Toohey of golf architecture?
He might be too bored to indulge, but I doubt he'd hate a site populated by a bunch of devotees. If you were to posit that he wouldn't even get involved ala Bill Coore, I could see that - but I don't see Bill Coore hating this site, just not really understanding it or wanting to get involved.
Derek D, assuming your question is not a jab of some sort, Roark was an architect, not a developer - someone else did the financing.
Loved the quip, Kelly.
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Ayn Rand didn't go in for much nuance in her characters.
I was thinking this too. Nothing against Rand, or these kinds of Novels of Ideas. I tend to like them in fact -- but you can't find in them an actual character if your life depended on it. (Who are some real characters you ask? Think Ahab or Lear for creations that are not simply facets of their creators' personalities). What I get from Rand are stick figures - not people but points of view and intellectual positions of a political, philosophical, aesthetic and moral nature. The novel is one grand dialogue (or monologue) with herself and the straw-men of her own creations. Read the book as debate and it's fine; try to read it as moving human literature and it leaves me cold. Trying to draw comparisons between the characters in that book and people of the world is like trying to dance with the shadow of a shadow.
IMHO.
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Derek D, assuming your question is not a jab of some sort, Roark was an architect, not a developer - someone else did the financing.
George,
I know he was the architect. Who hired him to build a skyscraper, and then gave him a blank check to design it and fill it in any way he wished? And then blow it up when things didn't go his way? That's pretty good work if you can get it.
It kind of shows how preposterous the whole concept is.
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Derek D, assuming your question is not a jab of some sort, Roark was an architect, not a developer - someone else did the financing.
George,
I know he was the architect. Who hired him to build a skyscraper, and then gave him a blank check to design it and fill it in any way he wished? And then blow it up when things didn't go his way? That's pretty good work if you can get it.
It kind of shows how preposterous the whole concept is.
Derek:
Read Ayn Rand's noted. They explain this very phenomenon.
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Derek D, assuming your question is not a jab of some sort, Roark was an architect, not a developer - someone else did the financing.
George,
I know he was the architect. Who hired him to build a skyscraper, and then gave him a blank check to design it and fill it in any way he wished? And then blow it up when things didn't go his way? That's pretty good work if you can get it.
It kind of shows how preposterous the whole concept is.
Derek:
Read Ayn Rand's noted. They explain this very phenomenon.
Kyle,
Can you save me the time and give me the Cliffs Notes?
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It is a didactic novel. The characters had to be specific archtypes for the presented concepts. They were vehicles for minds.
Though Rand is often ridiculed as a novelist, she had a lucid imagination for using characters to manifest ideas.
" . . . he dived into the sky." AR
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deleted. Not worth the trouble...
Have a nice weekend, folks.
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Peter; In a debate both sides are presented in their best possible light and the other side has an opportunity to dispute either the factual or logical support. I suggest that Rand does little to present the other side except in a form that trivializes any point of view inconsistent with her own. As such it is less a debate than a manifesto thinly disguised as a novel. How one feels about the book is largely dependent on whether one "buys" the message. Anyone who thinks it has literary value has ingested a lot of kool aid.
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Did Orwell present the other side in Animal Farm or 1984?
I suppose those lack literary value as well....
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George; Orwell was a better writer and far too cynical to adopt a unifying principle that served as a solution to societal ills like Rand. Despite his socialist views, both Animal Farm and 1984 are critiques of totalitarian regimes on either side of the spectrum. Animal Farm is by its own terms an allegory. Incidentally, there are those of us who look at the political spectrum as less of a straight line moving left to right (or right to left if you prefer) and see it as more circular with those at the extremes being closer to each other than to the larger majority who are closer to the middle. Once again a foray into the off topic originall disguised as GCA related. Oh well, soon we'll have as many Fountainhead threads as Merion threads but these are more civil.
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Did Orwell present the other side in Animal Farm or 1984?
I suppose those lack literary value as well....
First,to establish my AR bona fides,I have first editions of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and own copies of everything she's ever written.I've read it all multiple times.In general,I'm a big fan.In the specific,I concede that Objectivism has some serious issues.
I agree-- with a large "but".I don't think Ayn Rand really considered herself a novelist nor,IMO,was she concerned about her place in the literary world.
She was writing manifestos of a sort.But,I don't think she ever made any pretense otherwise,and I doubt if she cared what people thought.
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Long before Sarah Palin didn't read I turned from literature for that very reason. The minute you pick up a book you order the kool aid of someone with nothing better to do than write.
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Funny how a book with apparently bad character development can leave such strong impressions of their character for discussion decades after being originally published. They've outlasted her critics. Again, the old adage rears up again: Time is the true judge.
" . . . People turned to look at Howard Roark as he passed. Some remained staring after him with sudden resentment. They could give no reason for it: it was an instinct his presence awakened in most people. Howard Roark saw no one. For him, the streets were empty. He could have walked there naked without concern. . . . "
Sourced from . . .
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_ayn_rand_books_fountainhead
For me, Roark is an image of certainty. I admire that trait, but I don't make a hero out of him for it. Some people retreat into certainty and that is a sad way to go.
Katz, from Bill Bryson's A Walk In the Woods is my hero. And Malachi Constant (Unk).
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Oh well, soon we'll have as many Fountainhead threads as Merion threads but these are more civil.
Give me time... :)
I agree Orwell is a better writer, but that does not mean Ayn's work lacks literary value, or that anyone who sees said value has drank lots of kool-aid.
There are all sorts of genres within literature. One needn't use pigs to write allegories, any more than one must use English royalty to write plays that speak of the human condition. Ayn's work conveys her message in a clear and entertaining manner and has influenced literally millions of readers. That may not fit an English profs definition of literature, but it certainly fits mine.
Glug, glug, I guess.
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JME -
Can't say I disagree with any of your post. I wonder if many of the great writers were concerned about their place in the literary world.
Nice post, Norb.
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George,not one great author(or any other artist) ever cared about his/her place in the literary(or any other) world--until after someone made them "great".
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George,not one great author(or any other artist) ever cared about his/her place in the literary(or any other) world--until after someone made them "great".
Tom Doak cared or his Mother would have kicked his ass all the way into a professorship.
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This is "so Golf Club Atlas", 2010. Funny. I returned to literary critics circle :D
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George; Don't mistake the intent of my post. A novel does not have to be a literary masterpiece in order to have impact. I'll give you an example from the left since my comments are not grounded in any political philosophy; at least this time. The Jungle, written by one of the leaders in the socialist movement in the USA during the first half of the 20th century, Upton Sinclair, is an abysmal piece of writing. But because Sinclair had done his "muckraking" homework, the expose of the conditions in the meatpacking industry made it popular and influential while its greater purpose, to attack capitalism, was largely ignored. Sinclair proved that his literary ineptitude was not a fluke with a series of moderately popular spy novels, the Lanny Budd series, where he continued to espouse socialism and a belief in paranormal phenomena with writing that,with luck, might have garnered a "C" for a sophomore in high school.
Of course the difference is that Sinclair's influence arose out of factual revelations which transcended his stylistic failings. My problem with Rand, putting aside any philosophical differences, is that she presents very little that is new, either factually or philosophically, so that there is little reason to overlook what I consider to be a writing style that is less than pedestrian. If I want to read a novel that seeks to espouse a unified theory for viewing one's life and work, I would hope that it presents something new or at least a unique approach to these timeless questions. If not, it should stand on its own as a literary work. For me, Rand's books fail in creating that interest just as they failed the first time I read them over 40 years ago. In a different forum, we could discuss the underlying philosophy which I believe oversimplifies problems in the real world. It is easy to knock down straw men of one's own creation but at least, if that is one's intention, one should do so with style.
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deleted again.
This time I'm done. :) Have a nice weekend.
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George - this is very unlike you, two self-deleted posts in one thread. (How very Roarkian of you! :))
It's good to have honest and civil differences of opinion -- though I have to admit I am very glad that so formidable and respected an intellect and writer as SL is on my side ;D
Good weekend to you too.
Peter
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I'm objective enough to know when I've lost control of my own emotions. :) Time for a beer!
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George...I just got back to this thread after work. C'mon, what is with the delted posts? I would have loved to read them.
Also, to Derek's question, "Who hired him to build a skyscraper, and then gave him a blank check to design it and fill it in any way he wished? And then blow it up when things didn't go his way? That's pretty good work if you can get it. "
Sounds like Rees Jones. :-*
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The thing that must unfortunately be considered with so many of FLW's designs is that they have serious flaws. Fallingwater is gorgeous, but was almost Falling Into The Water before being stabilized at huge expense. And the leaks are de rigueur for his flat roofs.
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I usually avoid these kinds of threads because I don't want to get into a heated disagreement. Kudos for keeping the conversation so nicely civil. But I had to add a quick anecdote with regard to Frank Lloyd Wright: I was at the Guggenheim one afternoon -- a building which I always consider to be a beautiful piece of environmental sculpture and an absolutely awful art museum. Anyway, I was in need of a bathroom break and eventually found one shoehorned into a corner somewhere. After barely squeezing into the lone stall, the only way you could actually sit down was to spread your legs apart to allow room for a structural column that was right in front of the toilet. So I negotiated that obstacle and looked up at the column, which was about a foot from my face, and in pencil someone had scrawled, "Thanks, Frank."
Thought that was hilarious.
R
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Howard Roark, The Tom Doak of fictional building architects. ;D
Wow, did Tom Doak blow up a course after another architect ruined his work by putting flowerbeds and waterfalls on it? I haven't been reading this site regularly so I must have missed that thread, can you post a link? ;D
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I usually avoid these kinds of threads because I don't want to get into a heated disagreement. Kudos for keeping the conversation so nicely civil. But I had to add a quick anecdote with regard to Frank Lloyd Wright: I was at the Guggenheim one afternoon -- a building which I always consider to be a beautiful piece of environmental sculpture and an absolutely awful art museum. Anyway, I was in need of a bathroom break and eventually found one shoehorned into a corner somewhere. After barely squeezing into the lone stall, the only way you could actually sit down was to spread your legs apart to allow room for a structural column that was right in front of the toilet. So I negotiated that obstacle and looked up at the column, which was about a foot from my face, and in pencil someone had scrawled, "Thanks, Frank."
Thought that was hilarious.
R
That's really funny, Ross. Hilarious :)
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I’m a fan of The Fountainhead and still recommend it to design students when I speak to them. I believe the book to be very inspirational for a young designer because it as an allegory about conviction and commitment. I read the book at 19 and took a lot of inspiration from certain ideals in the book.
I have read more than Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead. I don’t believe Ayn Rand is a great writer, but I do think she’s an “interesting thinker” and I evaluate each opinion expressed and whether I agree or disagree with the principle she has taken on. I think she wrote novels to make her essays “and teachings” reach a wider audience.
I agree with the assertion that her characters are mostly stereotypical and the writing is didactic, but I still think she makes the reader assess their beliefs and that I’ve always found stimulating. I must admit that I read the book recently and found some of the ideas to idealist to suspend belief, but that sometimes that is the “weakness’ of age and experience.
By the way this thread should be called Golf Club Atlas Shrugged. ;D
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By the way this thread should be called Golf Club Atlas Shrugged. ;D
It takes a very brave man to type this pun.
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I felt Rand said more with one word, in Atlas Shrugged" than most say with ten. I loved how she was (and still is) misrepresented in her philosophies. Kind of like how this site gets pigeonholed for having a collective belief.
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When this site was at it's most interesting we had far more writers and fewer readers. As both a Catholic and engineer I have never been exposed to the reading environment I see so many of you hold dear. The one common denominator I see in each of your lives is how as adults you see the books of your youth as misleading. I understand reading for entertainment, what I don't get is celebrating the reading mentality.
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When this site was at it's most interesting we had far more writers and fewer readers.
And why do you suppose it changed?
The one common denominator I see in each of your lives is how as adults you see the books of your youth as misleading. I understand reading for entertainment, what I don't get is celebrating the reading mentality.
Bold statements, certainly. Accurate? Doubtful.
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. . . what I don't get is celebrating the reading mentality.
I just reread Charles Portis' True Grit. I want a trophy presentation!
(Great book, BTW)
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What is the "reading mentality"?
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Wish I could live by these words:
I swear by golf and my love of it, that I will never give strokes to another man nor ask another man for strokes either.
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Steve, That's should be Ran's goal.
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I still have not read the book and have no immediate plans to do so, so, a question:
Would Howard Roark be the kind of guy to read a book about a fictional artist who stood on his principles? Or would he be too engrossed in his own work to care about a novel about an architect or artist?
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Tom. Excellent point! However, her other book is well worth it. Especially nowadays. Where the issue of government taking over industrious peoples lifes hard work is forefront.
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So is she basically an intellectuals Jeane Dixon?
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What is the "reading mentality"?
Hopefully describes those who are willing to seek information that may be outside their personal knowledge and comfort zone, in an open-minded way.
But somehow I doubt it.
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I still have not read the book and have no immediate plans to do so, so, a question:
Would Howard Roark be the kind of guy to read a book about a fictional artist who stood on his principles? Or would he be too engrossed in his own work to care about a novel about an architect or artist?
Probably the latter. But then others may see it differently. I also don't think he would have much to say to those who "didn't get IT".
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Mark David Chapman was a reader, John Lennon was a writer.
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Mark David Chapman was a reader, John Lennon was a writer.
On the other hand, John, you say you're not a reader and we've all read your writing...
The reality is the two are not mutually exclusive to most.
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Like most subjective things, people's views on Ayn and Howard and the rest of her characters probably say as much about them as it does about her. Actually, in this case, I'd say it says more, as people's views of Ayn are rarely based in actual analysis, but rather in how and what she has perceived to have written.
For the record, I seem to recall Howard catching up on some reading while he was lounging about Wynand's yacht. :)
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Sounds like I need to read Founatainhead. I read Atlas Shrugged and it is my favorite book. But the mental energy it took to read that thing just about killed me. 8) I suppose what doesn't kill you makes you stronger...off to Barnes and Noble!! :)
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Mark David Chapman was a reader, John Lennon was a writer.
On the other hand, John, you say you're not a reader and we've all read your writing...
The reality is the two are not mutually exclusive to most.
Damn, I thought I had finally crafted the perfect thread killer comment. Those of us who read Wikipedia and write on Twitter are neither readers or writers. The same goes for any social networking site including Golfclubatlas.
As far as the reading mentality that I find disturbing I "read" the following on Wikipedia concerning Mark David Chapman's motivation for killing John Lennon:
At some point, Chapman became obsessed with Catcher in the Rye after rereading it for the first time since high school. He was particularly influenced by protagonist Holden Caulfield's polemics against "phoniness" in society, and the need to protect people, especially children. He was holding a copy of the book when he murdered Lennon, in which he had written "This is my statement." After his arrest, he wrote a letter to the media urging everyone to read the "extraordinary book" that may "help many to understand what has happened."[44] When asked if he wanted to address the court at his sentencing, Chapman read a passage from Catcher in the Rye that describes Holden Caulfield's fantasy of being on the edge of a cliff and having to catch all children from falling. A psychiatrist at the sentencing, Daniel W. Schwartz, said that Chapman wanted to kill Lennon because he viewed him as a "phony." Chapman later said that he thought the murder would turn him into a Holden Caulfield, a "quasi-savior" and "guardian angel."
I see similarities between MDC's flawed logic and intellectuals who criticize a golf architects creation based on some idealized fiction they have created or believe they have read. I think we have all met the guys who think they are a quasi-savior of golf architecture. Of course the critics do not want to harm the architects they hate, they just want them to no longer be architects. If MDC could have only be so civil.
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Drawing a "reading mentality" inference from one example of a nutcase makes about as much sense as drawing a "movie mentality" inference from Hinckley or a "math mentality" inference from Kaczynski or any number of other silly examples - but hey, don't let that stop you, John.
Btw, all 3 of those apply to me, you might wanna watch your back. :)
Why do you think the writers left?
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For the record, I seem to recall Howard catching up on some reading while he was lounging about Wynand's yacht. :)
Maybe an early draft of Atlas Shrugged.
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John - nice post. Yes, I think what you say is true: the written word (including the best of it, especially the best of it perhaps) has the power to tear down as much as to build up, to clutter as much as to clarify, to foster fear and hate as much as peace and charity, and to confuse as much as to educate. We might laugh (and well we should) at the religious types who condemned the invention of the printing press (reasoning that the bible would soon become just one book amongst several thousands, and no longer THE book) but I think they recognized correctly that the technology of the written word was a powerful double edged sword -- allowing for hitler to spew his insanity as much as it allowed helen keller to share her hope. The challenge for people who want to write and who take such things seriously is to recognize that their words, even the best of them and most well intentioned, go out into the world and thus can become, in dialogue with the reader, something entirely different, something even dangerous and destructive. It makes a thoughtful person question whether it is a good thing to ever write anything at all; whether it isn't, in truth, much better to fall silent and so not add to the clutter and confusion of the world. But then who'd be left doing the writing?
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You guys are bonkers!!! Seriously. What are you talking about.
A nutcase reads a book, which I've read and enjoyed, and kills someone...and it is the books fault. GMAFB!!!! The guy is a whack job.
The written word is the only thing that can influence people, at least that is what I take away from John and Peter's post. Again, GMAFB!!! I thought Judas Priest and their backwards messages in songs was the media element that led people to evil. Or wait, maybe that was Ozzy. And George mentioned some other great ones..."movie mentality", "math mentality". Oh yeah, we could have religous mentality, cult mentality, etc, etc, etc.
The world is full of crazy people, who get lost, and do stupid things. What got them to that place certainly isn't the reading of one book, or hearing one song, or wathcing one movie. They are NUTS!!! Plain and simple.
Like George touched on with his watch your back statement, I've read Catcher in the Rye, listened to Ozzy and Judas Priest, I've watched a Clockwork Orange, and I've even done some math problems. But I haven't killed anyone who didn't deserve it!! :o Heck, John even survived a golf trip with me and is still alive to talk about it.
How about talking some golf?
Let's all chip in, build a course, blow it up, and then play it as it lies after the destruction. I can use the skills I learned in the Marine Corps demoltions training to try to sculpt the land in certain ways with the charges and we can experiment with the types of hazards that C4 and dynamite make. It will be cool...and instead of minamilism, we can call it destructionism. BABY...THIS IS GONNA BE HUGE!!!!
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Reminds me of an article in an issue of the Lampoon before it went "national." In a take off of Time Magazine, there was a satirical review of a new form of art known as "excressionism". You can figure out the rest.
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Mac - bonkers I may be, but what better place to throw out half-baked ideas for discussion than a discussion board. (I made clear earlier on that I thought a discussion about the fictional Howard Roark could not be meaningfully tied into discussion about real world golf architects -- so this thread was way OT a long time ago, in my mind.) With JK's posts, you either assume that he's joking or assume that he's being serious -- and I've found that, if i assume the latter and try to dig deeper, there is sometmes a fruitful method to his madness...or at least some fun and interesting thinking to be had. And when I mucked around a bit I found myself thinking that JK hasn't been the first one to raise the potential dangers inherent in the written word. Anyway - on to golf (well, not actually, because it's snowing here).
P
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Peter...
you are right; "what better place to throw out half-baked ideas for discussion than a discussion board"
I could have been more couth in my post and the GMAFB stuff didn't need to be there. Sorry if I offended. I do stand by what I said, I just should have said it better. My apologies if I offended John or you, Peter.
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While I'm sure it has been said before, you'd have to ask a reader, the printing press made it possible to justify the destruction of civilizations where the internet will soon give just cause to the destruction of mankind.
We just need to take a hard look at freedom of speech in the modern world not so much for what is being said as much as what is being heard.
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Mac - no, no offence taken at all; and you were right to point out what you did. I just wanted to explain a bit better what I was trying to say the first time. Btw: What I tend to do around here when I'm writing my posts is to discard the first or even second ideas that come to my mind -- those ideas tend to be either obviously rightl or obviously wrong; and then after that I just let my fingers type whatever they want in reaction to the posts that have come before. Sometimes what comes out is dumb....
Peter
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Mac,
If you feel it is important to know I was not offended either. I seriously doubt if I would know I was offended if I ever was or had been as I can not recall a moment of taken offense in my life. Defense does win championships.
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Gentlemen,
One can easily tell that snow is starting to lie thick on the ground in the Northern hemisphere when GCA threads drift, for want of a better word, in the direction of this thread. I have never read any of Ayn Rand and given the divide I seem to have saved myself some reading time! Or is my education incomplete. If reading the damn book exhausted Mac "Energy" Plumart what hope do I have of completing it. I have found that my 'reading mentality" ensures that I devour the written word voraciously but, damn it, I have a hard time internalising and remembering what I read these days! What I most enjoy is when argument and counter argument are tossed across the space so keep up the good work gentlemen. The Guardian Weekly used to do that very well.
Cheers Colin