The Anger of Compassion

"I'm Feeling Lucky, Librarian"

Jesse Walker has a post on open stacks, closed stacks, and "serendipity" here. Great line:

Asking a librarian to fetch a book for you is like hitting the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button.

And, since we're talking serendipity here, I discovered The Annoyed Librarian -- "possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation" -- yesterday, courtesy of Charles Hill.

Happy Birthday, Blogger

Shaveblog is now a year old, and has moved from Blogspot to using WordPress.

If the most masculine of human activities appeals to you, then give Shaveblog a spin for reads on razors, blades, creams, soaps, and more on the art of wetshaving.

Be assured, reader, that I am no shavegeek: on a recent two-week foray into wildest California, I had with me only two soaps, two creams, and three razors. Yet somehow I managed to make do.

Not your everyday update

I slipped. I overlooked this wonderful entry on the "every day/everyday" error from 1999's Sleeping Dogs Don't Lay: Practical Advice for the Grammatically Challenged, by Richard Lederer and Richard Dowis:

"I will always speak my mind. Every day," says a man in a Toyota TV commercial. The screen turns black, and the slogan materializes: TOYOTA/EVERYDAY.

The Toyota people goofed. Every day styled as two words, is an adverb that means just what it says, as in "Every day in every way we get better and better." Everyday, squished together as one word, is an adjective meaning "commonplace, ordinary," as in, "an everyday occurrence." Did the Toyota hucksters really want to say that their products are commonplace and ordinary? We don't think so.

When you mean "all days," write every day, not everyday.

(Cross-posted to Ceely's Modern Usage.)

Don't Make This Everyday Mistake Every Day

Two headlines from the same editor/writer:

Tuesday, June 7, 2005: "You Learn Something New Everyday." No, you don't. In fact, if it's new it cannot be "everyday."

Monday, April 24, 2006: "Here's a Combo You Don't See Everyday." Quite so, and with good reason.

Two more examples:

Thursday, February 23, 2006: "Here's a Byline Team You Don't See Everyday."

Friday, April 28, 2006: "It's Not Everyday."

So all of these headlines contain the word "everyday," and its use is wrong in every single case. Every one.

The offender is Kathryn Jean Lopez, an educated and intelligent woman who has, we are informed, "been praised for her 'editorial daring,'" and who "stands athwart history," in William F. Buckley, Jr.'s immortal words, at National Review and at National Review Online.

How can she be so wrong, then? Isn't "everyday" a word?

Why yes, it is.

There are two good -- and short -- treatments of this error. First, we can turn to The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, edited by R. W. Burchfield. His entry on "everyday" (found on page 270 of the 1996 paperback edition) is admirably succinct:

When used as an adj. (an everyday event, everyday clothes, etc. meaning 'commonplace, usual: suitable for or used on ordinary days', everyday is written as one word. In contexts where it means 'each day' (she went shopping almost every day) two words (every day are needed.

Patricia T. O'Connor turns her attention to "everyday" as well, in her delightful Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English. In chapter 5, "Verbal Use," she includes a section, "One Word or Two?" which includes this entry:

everyday / every day. We mix them up daily (or every day). The single word, everyday, is an adjective. It describes a thing, so it can usually be found right in front of a noun: "I just love my everyday diamonds," said Magda. The time expression every day is two words: "That's why you wear them every day," said Zsa Zsa.

How to Avoid This Error:

Time for mnemonics:

If you mean "commonplace," or "usual," notice that each is one word, and the term you need is also one word: "everyday." Okay, but how do you remember the tip? Notice that "commonplace" is one word, but made up of two words -- and so is "everyday."

If your meaning is "daily," then remember either Burchfield's "each day" or O'Connor's "time expression," and there you are: two words.

(This error is not mentioned in the first edition of Fowler, and in the Second (edited by Sir Ernest Gowers), the word "everyday" is treated as "(adj.). One word." That's it. This would appear, then, to be an error of recent vintage. Ah, for those halcyon days before rap "music," the designated hitter, and "This isn't something you see everyday...")

(Cross-posted to Ceely's Modern Usage.)

Piling On, Part II: Barbara Branden

"My personal life," wrote Ayn Rand, "is a postscript to my novels; it consists of the sentence: 'And I mean it.' I have always lived by the philosophy I present in my books -- and it has worked for me, as it works for my characters. The concretes differ, the abstractions are the same."

One thing I do not understand is the attitude "I don't care about Ayn Rand's personal life; it's her philosophy that's important to me." That attitude, for me, flies in the face of Rand's own 'And I mean it' sentiment. She did mean it. Or, as she put it:

that courage and confidence are practical necessities, that courage is the practical form of being true to existence, of being true to truth, and confidence is the practical form of being true to one's own consciousness.

So I've always been fascinated by Ayn Rand's life, and with good reason: Ayn Rand regarded Objectivism as a philosophy for guiding one's life, containing a system of ethics it was actually practical and possible to follow. Unfortunately the most prominent (or the only prominent) biography of Ayn Rand is Barbara Branden's The Passion of Ayn Rand. As author James Valliant has shown, The Passion of Ayn Rand is, in his words, a "monument to dishonesty."

Valliant does an excellent job of demolishing the Branden book, but has yet to convince everyone. So I'd like to add my two cents, in the form of three problems I've found in The Passion of Ayn Rand -- two of which I've seen mentioned nowhere else, and as for the third...well, I think Jim Valliant wasn't hard enough on Barbara Branden.

1. There's an incident in her book (in chapter 30, related on page 377 of the first edition) in which Barbara Branden is attempting to contact Ayn Rand's sister Nora, in Leningrad. It was 1982 and the Soviet Union was still intact.

Before telephoning, I had checked with American authorities on Russian affairs, to be certain I would say nothing that might endanger Nora with the Soviets. I was told, "There will be three of you on the telephone: the Russian woman, yourself -- and the GPU."

I doubt very much that anyone from the GPU listened in on that phone call, or that any American "authorities" warned anyone about the GPU at all. Not in 1982. That there might have been secret police creeps listening in on a call from America to Russia I do not doubt, but the GPU name was dropped in 1934.

Ayn Rand left Russia in 1926, never to return. I can imagine that perhaps she retained the habit of referring to the Soviet secret police as the GPU. Why Barbara Branden would ever do so I have no idea. That any "American authorities" above the rank of Barney Fife would do the same, almost fifty years after the name change, beggars belief. It is simply not credible.

2. In chapter 26 (page 310 of my edition), Barbara tells us:

It was during those years, from the publication of Atlas Shrugged throughout the sixties, that an influx of new people, drawn to Ayn by her novel and by NBI -- people who predominantly were accomplished adults rather than youngsters beginning their careers -- began to enter the circle of Ayn's friends.

Among the names mentioned are economist Murray Rothbard and historian Robert Hessen, and again, Barbara Branden's version can be challenged. Rothbard himself, as well as his colleague and eventual Objectivist, George Reisman, placed their first meeting as having occurred in 1954, years before Atlas Shrugged's was publication in October 1957 (Reisman was in fact introduced to Rand by Rothbard, as was Robert Hessen).

So: at least two of the names we're given actually met and were associating with Rand before the publication of Atlas Shrugged; in 1954, not "the sixties." (An odd coincidence is that Nathaniel Branden made the same boner about Rothbard in his Judgment Day.)

"Superb biography," according to the Washington Post. "Carefully researched," says a reviewer for the Los Angeles Times.

Are these two examples trivial? I can almost hear the accusations now.The book purports to be a biography: names and dates should be the bread and butter of biography, and the author should get them right. If not, we're talking about incompetence. But if getting easily verified facts wrong in a nonfiction book is trivial, then I have to wonder what's trivial and what's important, and how the matter is to be decided. And if such blunders are left in the book, why should it enjoy its reputation as "carefully researched" or -- as I fear too many readers see it -- as authoritative?

3. The book has an index entry for Frank O'Connor which reads "signs Rand's movie review, 364." Reading page 364 (in chapter 30), we find this sentence:

She still referred to him as a hero from her novels -- she subjected him to the indignity of signing his name to a review of Lillian Gish's The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me which she had written -- but that part of her life not spent on writing for The Objectivist and struggling with the dilemma of understanding Nathaniel, now once more revolved around Frank.

James Valliant has already dealt with Rand's "dilemma of understanding Nathaniel" in the early seventies: there wasn't one. Unless Rand began lying to herself in her own journals, after their 1968 break she suffered no such dilemma of understanding, as Valliant has demonstrated.

On the question of whether Frank O'Connor signed a movie review actually written by Ayn Rand, I think Jim Valliant actually goes too easy on Barbara Branden! Here are his words:

Although Ms. Branden asserts -- without evidence -- that it was Rand who really wrote the article on film history with O'Connor's by-line published in The Objectivist, Rand nowhere is said to have credited her husband with any great achievement (apart from the aid he rendered to Rand herself) or major career goal. (The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, page 157)

Actually, if we look at the review itself, we have all the evidence we need to come away with a harsher judgment of Barbara Branden. It appeared in the November 1969 issue of The Objectivist, and can be found on page 743 of my bound volume of that journal as it was published by Palo Alto Book Service in 1982 (the one available from the Ayn Rand Book Store seems to be the same size as mine, but I haven't seen it).

At the head of the page labelled "Books," we read: "Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me by Lillian Gish with Ann Pinchot," and, near that title, "Reviewed by Frank O'Connor (as told to Ayn Rand)."
Now, I know two things about this already: Ann Pinchot wrote the Gish book, and Ayn Rand wrote the review of it. Nobody is fooling anyone else (nor does anyone seem to be trying to), and nobody is being subjected to any "indignity," not Lillian Gish by Ann Pinchot and not Frank O'Connor by Ayn Rand.

"As told to" is a pretty common publishing term, in use for decades, and on some prominent material, too. Check out the by-line, for example, for The Autobiography of Malcolm X," or this definition provided by Yahoo! Education: " Written by a professional author based on conversations with the subject: an as-told-to memoir."

The simplest and most likely explanation is that Frank O'Connor, who was not a professional writer, had his views about the Gish book and the early film industry -- an industry in which he was employed for a number of years -- and discussed them with his wife, Ayn Rand, who was a professional writer. She then put them into written form, the result of which was published in The Objectivist with the "as told to" line. What part of Occam's Razor is the problem here?

Are we to be told that this too is trivial? That it's not part of an attempted smear or is actually just an understandable error? How honest such an "error" can be is doubtful, in my view: on page 281 (chapter 24) we are informed that after earning a graduate degree, Ms Branden was "working in the editorial department of St. Martin's Press." And yet she doesn't know, or presumes her readers won't know, what "as told to" means. That Barbara Branden wouldn't know, after having worked in the editorial department of a publishing house, again strains credibility.

Enough is enough.

"American authorities" warning people about the GPU -- in 1982. (Hey, better watch out for those Chekists!) Getting dates wrong about people moving into and out of Ayn Rand's life -- in what is, after all, a purported biography. Vicious accusations made in spite of easily found evidence to the contrary. Distortion after distortion, on top of everything James Valliant wrote about in his book.

The Passion of Ayn Rand has been in print for twenty years. Too many people are "informed" about Ayn Rand and about Objectivism from this book. It was made into a movie for Showtime, and, according to amazon.com, there are at least 20 books which cite this one. We still need a satisfactory Rand biography. It's time for the final nails to be driven into this one's coffin.

Piling On, Part I: Nathaniel Branden

Nathaniel Branden would seem to have a great sense of humor. He published a book, Judgment Day, in which he copped to being a long-term liar, and he published a revised version of his memories of that period of long-term lying, My Years with Ayn Rand. And he can laugh at himself about it, too, as he shows in this recent interview:

NB: Well Rand wasn’t entirely consistent on what she thought about these subjects. I remember once being in her apartment when Leonard was there. He had acquired a new girlfriend and Ayn asked him: is it a romance, or is it an affair, or is it an enjoyable sexual encounter? I don’t remember the words verbatim, but she gave him a choice of three. She also said it in a way that implied that any answer was acceptable. And Leonard almost fell off the sofa in shock. He said, “You mean you would approve?” Ayn said, “Why not?” Anybody who had read her books would also have fainted. You’re shocked, aren’t you?

AM: I am.

NB: So if ever I were to publish that story, the forces of evil would say it’s one more example of what a liar Nathaniel Branden is. But it happened. So there’s a lot of confusion about sexuality among Objectivists.

Get that? Only the quaint "forces of evil," nudge nudge wink wink, those conspiracy-mongering, tinfoil-hat-wearing goobers, would actually judge Branden to be a liar simply because he, well, lied. A lot. And for years. How...how judgmental. How moralistic.

(And, dear reader, ask yourself: Did this story actually shock you? Really?)

But he's still at it, Branden is, still at the lying and still attempting to profit from it, and there are people out there -- forces of good, I guess? -- helping him in that endeavor. That is, he's still out there telling lies, and there are people out there -- I suppose I'm supposed to think of them as good people, you know, Superman, the Federation so ably served by Kirk and Spock and Picard, whatever -- who know this and are abetting him.

Do remember this, this question right here, when we get to the end.

In 1962 a book, Who Is Ayn Rand?, by Nathaniel Branden and Barbara Branden, was published, with a paperback edition issued in 1964. The book, in both editions, is long out of print. I have no idea how long either edition remained in print. I do know that I have seen very few copies of either edition in my life.

In an interview appearing in the October 1971 issue of Reason magazine, Branden stated: "I wish that the book [Who Is Ayn Rand?] had never been written.... I speak for Barbara Branden as well as myself in saying we repudiate that book."

A few years ago, however, Branden "allowed (as he informs us)" the principal essay in that book, "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged," to be reprinted as a pamphlet. I was living in Egypt when my interest in Objectivism was rekindled, and it was only internet access (such as it was in Egypt) which allowed me to pursue that interest. The only Ayn Rand book I ever saw in Alexandria was a battered (but sold as new) paperback edition of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, which I bought for something under thirty pounds. No other choice there.

But I discovered Prodos and The Free Radical and a far more active Ayn Rand Institute than I'd remembered -- and I bought the Branden pamphlet. I remembered having read Who Is Ayn Rand? -- the first piece of Objectivist literature I ever did read-- in the early Seventies, and being impressed by that moral revolution of which Branden wrote, and by the brief Rand biography in the book written by Barbara Branden. I only knew of morality, in 1974, as something brought by the Catholics and other churches, and had never heard of egoism or eudaimonia. Besides, I was learning to play the guitar and I wanted to be Keith Richards, and the Catholic church promised only to stand in the way of that, thank you very much.

Yes, I was very interested in this moral revolution, and after reading Who Is Ayn Rand? I went to check out the rest of the Objectivist corpus. All of it. I began with Atlas Shrugged and I was hooked after that.

Branden writes, I read at the beginning of his pamphlet, "Except for a few cuts of superfluous words or sentences, the essay is reproduced in its original form," and he ends his introduction with the words,

I have allowed this essay to be republished as originally written because Ayn Rand thought so highly of it as an introduction to her moral philosophy and because, therefore, I believe students of her work will find it of historical interest -- and also because there is much here with which I continue to agree.

But after years of Branden's backing and filling, and especially after buying and reading James Valliant's book, The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, I decided to compare the pamphlet version line by line with my own 1964 paperback edition. Now why, gentle reader, did it occur to me to do this? Well, from the Nathaniel Branden Institute (1958) and his Basic Principles of Objectivism course to "In Answer to Ayn Rand (1968)" to his Reason interview (1971) to his cute little "Benefits and Hazards" (1982) talk to Judgment Day (1989) to its revisons in My Years with Ayn Rand, why...well, it seems that Dr. Branden has acquired a little habit, that habit being to, uh, dissimulate, just a bit, and to blame others for that dissimulation. So I just thought to pursue some checking.

It was an instructive pursuit.

Most of the editorial changes were very minor: italics removed in many cases, and quite a number of instances of changing "Ayn Rand" to "Rand." But change # 31 (by my count) is not minor:

In the May, 1964 Paperback Library edition of Who Is Ayn Rand?, we read, on page 27:

The concept of an ethics based on man's metaphysical
nature is not, as such, new. Many philosophers of antiquity, as well as many of the post-Renaissance system builders, claimed to have derived their systems of ethics from such a base. In their attempts logically to connect the specific values they
advocated with their descriptions of man's metaphysical nature, one may discern two major trends.*

That asterisk takes us to a note at the bottom of the page, which reads: "I am indebted to my associate Leonard Peikoff for the identification of these two trends."

The same paragraph appears on page 19 of the pamphlet version, but -- surprise, surprise -- the note of indebtedness to Leonard Peikoff appears nowhere.

So in 1962 Branden is "indebted" to Peikoff for this "identification," but by 1971 he's repudiated it all, and wishes the book had never been written, and by 2000, it is "superfluous," and is edited out of existence. That one item of acknowledgment, see, is apparently not of "historical interest" to students of Ayn Rand's work. Oh no. Nor could it be an example of Nathaniel Branden taking credit for Leonard Peikoff's work and thought. Nope. Oh no. It is now "superfluous." Sheesh.

Quite the journey, that. Perhaps some would call it "growth." Probably take some toleration to see it, though.

Branden twice in one paragraph, then, makes the claim that the essay is published as it originally appeared in 1962, except for a "few" cuts of some "superfluous" words. It is not, and I don't think the substance of this particular change qualifies as "superfluous" material.

And who abetted this little bit of airbrushing of history? Why, the pamphlet's publisher, The Objectivist Center -- which is still selling the pamphlet.

Except that...well, a prominent Objectivist Center official, Robert Bidinotto, claims that it all just never happened. No, really, The Objectivist Center has never endorsed Nathaniel Branden nor carried any of his books or published any of his stuff. Let's hear Bobby B's own words on this, from an internet post made Wednesday, December 14 2005:

Hmm.... Gosh, folks, an outside observer -- one without any dog in this race -- might begin to wonder if all those initial proclamations of "only defending Ayn Rand against the Brandens," of organizational independence, etc., were truly sincere, or if perhaps some broader agenda is at work here. It might certainly seem that way, since no one at TOC has said a public word in defense of the Brandens views or books about Rand, since the organization has never carried their works or endorsed them, and since it has in fact meticulously avoided any attempt to enter the fray concerning Ayn Rand's private life.

Well, gosh, folks, that's it, isn't it? The Objectivist Center doesn't carry any of Branden's "works," except for the ones they do carry, and the ones they do publish. That's pretty clear, isn't it? One would truly belong to the "forces of evil" to conclude otherwise, because, gosh, folks, any other conclusion would be, I guess.."superfluous."

Right.

(NOTE: My line-by-line comparison of the two published versions of "The Moral Revolution in Atlas Shrugged" was done in October 2005 and made available via email to James Valliant and Casey Fahy, both then engaged in battle and debate on the old SoloHQ forum. While they made use of my discovery and thanked me for it, they were the ones publicly defending Ayn Rand's achievements and reputation. Thanks, Jim and Casey, for fighting the good fight.)

A Day Without Shirkers Workers

So I'm told that today was the "day without immigrants," during which they and their supporters were supposed to not go to work or school, and about which, a few points:

Uh, for a day without immigrants, they sure as hell were all over the television. Which is exactly what they wanted. So, uh, just what is it that they want? Or that the activists in question want? Are they the same? Are their interests even compatible? Has anyone thought to question this? Is anyone in mainstream media competent to even consider questioning this?

Didn't think so.

I saw an older guy, a barber and presumably an immigrant (he certainly had an authentic-sounding accent, although his English was just fine) interviewed on one of the local El Paso news stations. He didn't think much of this kind of "demonstration," and in fact laughed as he opined that hey, you don't want to do your job, there are plenty of people willing to take your place. And he's right. If it's about work, about improving lives, then what the hell is the point of this kind of gesture?

Unless it's just, as a friend offered to me, just more agitprop. Which it is.

Those who went to work today: way to go. That's how things are done. Those of you who didn't: we didn't miss you. We don't need you. Good job proving it.

Idiots.

Don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out....

(For more immigration reading, check out Harry Binswanger and Arizona Watch.)

Images, Ideology, and Intolerance

Okay, so for many years now we've been told by the Mohammedans Moslems Muslims that it's incorrect to refer to them as "Mohammedans," because of course they do not worship Mohammed and such a practice maybe makes them appear to be idolatrous, which of course is offensive to Muslims.

But consider that the whole Danish cartoon flap is over fears of illustrators rendering an image of the Prophet Muhammad. Apparently we are being told, now, that such an image itself is offensive.

Sounds like idolatry to me, or pretty damn close to it. So which is it? I'm just, you know, askin'.

And they say the West doesn't understand Islam. I think I understand it all too well.

It's not easy being green?

I guess this could have been "Which color iPod am I?" But it's a choice among greens:

You Are Teal Green

You are a one of a kind, original person. There's no one even close to being like you. Expressive and creative, you have a knack for making the impossible possible. While you are a bit offbeat, you don't scare people away with your quirks. Your warm personality nicely counteracts and strange habits you may have.

(Hat tip to Out of Lascaux)

The End of Affluvia

So John Kenneth Galbraith has died. I find myself bereft of tears.

Samizdata offers us this gem of Galbraith's: "Partly, the Russian system succeeds because, in contrast to the Western industrial economies, it makes full use of its manpower." Beautifully, that statment was made in 1984.

Decades ago, R. Emmett Tyrell included Galbraith among those he described as Public Nuisances. He will not be missed.

Free speech vs. sharia

Outstanding response to the whole Danish cartoons-Islamist violence controversy: Daniel Pipes of Campus Watch and Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute: link to the video here.

What's colder than Communist cold water? Hot water!

Long-time readers will know that I'm an aficionado of Communist humor. Go thou, then, and check out this essay, "Hammer & Tickle," by Ben Lewis. Have fun!

Exactly how communist jokes functioned politically, socially or psychologically is a question as complex as the meaning of works of art. What is self-evident, however, is that since the fall of the wall the jokes have dried up. Life just isn't as funny any more. The vast enterprise of communism gave a universal quality to the meaning of the jokes that hasn't been replicated since its collapse. They subverted and they supported; they undermined and they prolonged. As Gorbachev's respect for the jokes and Reagan's obsession with them show, they were intrinsic to the whole communist experience. Jokes were to communism what myths were to ancient Greece: anonymous, oral stories which both represented and shaped people's views and actions.

Jokes may not have carried the weight of the great forces which ended communism, but they were more than mere figures of speech. Jokes kept alive in the minds of the citizens of the Soviet bloc the idea of an alternative reality, and they made light of four decades of occupation of eastern and central Europe. They may even explain why the end of communism was so sudden and so bloodless. No point anyone getting hurt over a little joke, right?

Popular Recreational Drugs

TC Luoma of Testosterone Nation is interviewed here on The Rick Amato Show, discussing (wait for it) anabolic steroids and their use.

Our Deepest Sympathies

Condolences from The Anger of Compassion (indeed, we feel the anger of compassion!) go out to Gus Van Horn, who thought he had ordered a copy of The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics from a bookseller but received The Passion of Ayn Rand. He is in our thoughts.