More Links. Atlas Shrugged. Morrissey DVD. To Hell with being nice.

You could have knocked me over with a leather cheese stick. I have been reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged for months on end. Savouring and rationing it like fine wine. And wouldn't you know it? These days, Rand's Atlas Shrugged has become the book de jour for those distressed by the regime of President Oprah. Ever strong sales of the book have tripled. Says Seablogger, Reading that book is the ideological equivalent of training with a gun. It is armament for the ordeal ahead.

Now, I got the book. All I need is to get me a gun. Although, being China, the people I need to fight are few and far between. I really am disinterested in what happens here. It is only for me to observe and comment on. I have no illusions of changing things.


Speaking of Morrissey, I did pull out a DVD of videos from his solo career that I happen to have. I watched and listened to it with Tony for about four songs. Tony was interested enough that he sat in my arms and didn't budge an inch. I hope he doesn't think that the man in the videos was his father in his younger days and that his father was somehow poncey. I watched enough videos to see his silly leftism shine through. "We won't vote Conservative because we never have!" A rhetorical victory in song there......not!


This link spoke to me about my life. The culture of political niceness has made British classrooms into disorderly torture chambers where no one learns anything, especially how to behave. But trying to be nice, authority has vanished and anarchy reigns. It seems you can't get some people to do even the smallest, you would think, reasonable civilized act except by pounding them over the head with a baseball bat or kicking them in the ass. It a lesson that life keeps slapping me in the face with whether it has been with roommates or co-workers or any other acquaintances. Most people don't play nice. And it is usually the worst of people who will insist most on niceness. Niceness is a sham. One lesson I hope I can impart to Tony is never ever be a position where people think you are a nice guy. Better to be called all the names in the book because you are like General Patton or an old-school Sergeant-Major.

Check out this link.