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Saturday, December 14, 2013 - 12:45pmSanction this postReply
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Sad news. Those of us at the SOLO conference in LA back in the day had the good luck to be able to meet her.

Meanwhile, Harry Binswanger is apparently keeping it classy.

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Saturday, December 14, 2013 - 1:03pmSanction this postReply
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The religious need their devils, don't they, Jeff? Ugh.
(Edited by Teresa Summerlee Isanhart on 12/14, 1:04pm)


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Monday, December 16, 2013 - 5:54amSanction this postReply
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You can find Barbara Branden's posts here from the SOLO days, just by looking under People.  She was definitely high-minded in the sense that Aristotle described in the Nicomachean Ethics.

On the other matter, I have to apologize.

Yesterday was a wedding anniversary from my first marriage and I sent her a text message.  She replied that she did not know that I could text.  Old issues, I guess... Anyway, she was not far off the mark.  What is @HBinswanger?  I know that # Hash Tags are for Tweats via Twitter, those 21-character snippets that young people do.  What's the at-tag?  Is that Facebook?

I do get it that the @-tag whatever it is lets you sign up to "follow" this person who will tell you things all day long, like Miley Cyrus will tell you what clothes she is buying right now.   Do people "follow" Harry Binswanger as he goes shopping for ideas?


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Monday, December 16, 2013 - 3:27pmSanction this postReply
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Michael:

The @thing is how you 'mention' someone in a tweet, or wha happens implicitely when you select reply to someone's tweet.


So if you wanted to mention someone whose Twitter account/handle was 'thing' you would include @thing and your tweet would appear in their 'mentions' filter... or, you could just search for @thing and see all the 'mentions' of @thing.


So, sort of the 'people' variant of #hashtag.

# seems like it is for topics, @ seems like it is for account/persons.

I am really sad that I know some of this shit; I'm still wondering what the consonants are for on twitter...







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Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - 6:33amSanction this postReply
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I always wondered about Barbara Branden’s permanent silence about the message sent by the picture „The Passion of Ayn Rand,“ which was, as the credits state, based on her book “The Passion of Ayn Rand,” for while the book itself is a wonderful hymn to the glory of the great philosopher, there couldn’t be a more perfect contraption of vengeance against Ayn Rand in person as what this picture shows. This becomes evident while viewing the film and is even more enhanced when thinking about the script, which practically reduces itself to Rand’s affair with Nathaniel Branden, so much that Mirren pronounces, along the whole length of the movie, just one and only one phrase of Rand in favor of Capitalism, and this in a most senseless scene, while staring at a shopping window, as if presenting saleable goods were the essence of Capitalism, while Rand’s philosophy and her most admirable further work is silenced in toto. If Barbara’s purpose was to take a late time vengeance on Rand, the purpose was fully accomplished; else, if it covered the purpose of the script writer and the director, it remains as a peculiar silence from Barbara Branden to not have strongly come to the forefront to distance herself from what the movie basically rendered, a late time vengeance against Rand’s affair with Barbara’s then time husband.

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Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - 8:14amSanction this postReply
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Manfred,

Thanks for bringing that curiosity to light. I have not read this book, though I saw the movie once. I wonder if the book did not in fact hold itself out as a biography of Ayn Rand, notwithstanding all the press statements describing it that way. Perhaps it was only a memoir of Barbara Branden's years with Ayn Rand, with some biography of the main characters added for background. I have read much of Nathaniel Branden's memoir My Years with Ayn Rand, and that is the way his goes. It includes some biography of some of the main characters in Rand's circle, and of course, some biography of Rand. I like biographies of intellectual development, such as have been written of Newton and Kant and Nietzsche and Freud. I heard there was a touch of that in Branden's memoir, and there is, which is why I got it.

For Rand's biography, I'm looking forward to Shoshana Milgram's, which has been a long labor of love for her. From personal conversation with her, I am assured it will be about both Rand's ideas and life (to 1957).

Stephen

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Wednesday, December 18, 2013 - 8:47amSanction this postReply
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Manfred,

Barbara's opinion of Ayn Rand should be deduced from her book. She had complete control over what was printed - unlike having any control over what showed up on the movie screen.

I've heard, on several different occasions that she was extremely unhappy with the movie. The author of a book on which a movie is 'based' has almost no control at all. They can 'base' the script as loosely as they want. The script is written by someone else, and the production, the financing and administrative control are all handled by others and the movie is directed by someone else. There is no way that Barbara would have allowed that movie to be made as it was if she did have control.

Barbara was a person who loved Ayn Rand, and who loved ideas. And she and Nathaniel stayed friends long after she had published her book and he had published his. She had no desire for vengeance on anyone, and it isn't the kind of thing she would do anyway - it wasn't in her character. Look through her posts and you can see that if she didn't like something - she said so.

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Thursday, December 19, 2013 - 8:22amSanction this postReply
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@ Stephen & Steve: Thank you for your messages. You brought back peace to my worried Objectivist brain.
Stephen, please read Barbara's book. It's marvelously well written!
(Edited by Manfred F. Schieder on 12/19, 8:25am)


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Friday, December 20, 2013 - 6:53amSanction this postReply
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I really liked the documentary Ayn Rand: In Her Own Words.

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Friday, December 20, 2013 - 2:41pmSanction this postReply
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Here is my musical-pictorial tribute to Barbara. The composition "Elegy for Barbara" is my own original piece, which I finished just several days ago and dedicated to her. Hope everyone is well and enjoying the holidays. Best, REB

I can't make this message show the following URL as a link. My apologies:

http://youtu.be/uh5DOqtqYJc

(Edited by Roger Bissell on 12/20, 2:43pm)


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Friday, December 20, 2013 - 6:44pmSanction this postReply
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Beautifully done, Roger. Thank you.

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Saturday, December 21, 2013 - 6:59pmSanction this postReply
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Thanks, again, Roger. As I noted elsewhere, I cross-posted this to Galt's Gulch Online. It was well worth the mention.  Your creation was well-received.


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Saturday, December 28, 2013 - 6:06pmSanction this postReply
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I have wonderful memories of Barbara's presence here at RoR. She impressed me as a gracious and thoughtful human being. Michael is right that she reminds one of the Nicomachean Ethics and Aristotle's great soul. Given the trials and tribulations of the early years of the movement, she has come through with a great deal of dignity and humanity.

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