Ayn Rand Smeared Again

(Edited by Ciro D'Agostino on 9/11, 6:14pm)

Post 121

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 2:00pm

Ciro: "Let's act like adults."

Sadly, in my 31 years on this earth, I've come to the conclusion that this is how adults act!

Post 122

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 2:20pm

Joe,
If that's the case, you have my sympathy and a recommendation. Change social circles. I'm far from the most evolved person around, but I can assure you almost none of the adults I know behave like this.
Jeff

Post 123

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 2:23pm

Linz,

I guess I've lost my key to ARI HQ, do you happen to have an extra?

Post 124

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 2:36pm

Jeff, I didn't say I was exempt from such behavior...:(

Post 125

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 2:40pm

Interesting little tidbit from this gentleman's website -- he's an old school craftsman and published this article in 1984 about mixing stains for furniture. Here's the link:

http://www.mts.net/~smythe/refinish.htm

Quoting from his article:

"Generally, I mix up more than I need and keep the leftovers for future touch-ups. For convenience, I use empty clear glass liquor bottles with screw top caps. Their caps are a good tight fit, and at a glance I can see and choose the color I want from the line-up. Add the powder to the alcohol starting with a weak mixture, say about a teaspoonful for starters. It goes into solution almost immediately..."

Google's a wonderful thing.

Casey

P.S. See how easy it is to be branded ARI, Linz? Amazing, isn't it?

Post 126

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 2:53pm

James lamented:

I guess I've lost my key to ARI HQ, do you happen to have an extra?

My dear, I am the key to ARI. Keep up, man!

Post 127

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 3:14pm

Gracious yes, how dim of me! I'll just meet you at the front door, then, with Starbucks... no, c'mon, let's tell the truth here--Jack Daniels.

Post 128

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 3:55pm

Once again Barbara has decided to violate our property right by posting through someone else. How many times do we have to go through this? Brant, you should know better. You're treading on very thin ice as far as I'm concerned. No more warnings. If she feels the need to have something posted, she can send it to us for our permission.

Barbara Branden has given up her posting privileges on this site. But as is typical, she wants to have her cake and eat it. She wants to leave in a huff to do as much damage as she can, while demanding the right to continue to post whenever she wants. She wants to publically leave SOLO, while continuing to hurl insults on our own site. And if her behavior wasn't disgusting enough already, she's already posted once through someone else, admitting then that she knew it was a violation of our wishes as the owners. And here she goes again!

One could make the argument that since she is under attack here, she should have the ability to post in her defense. That's absolutely not true. First, she has continued to badmouth SOLO via private emails, so she is not owed anything. Second, once again, she voluntarily (and needlessly) left SOLO, knowing full well she was limiting her ability to respond in the future. And third, she just has to add a jab at the end! She couldn't even violate our property rights in a graceful way. She had to be vicious about it. She just keeps sinking further.

And since we're talking about prediction, I guess I should note that I predicted Barbara craved attention too much to actually stay away from SOLO. But that was an easy one.

Post 129

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 5:16pm

I came to a completely unexpected and unanticipated insight regarding the alleged alcoholism of Frank O'Connor.

First I want to refer, reluctantly, back to the "Drooling Beast" thread. When I read James Kilbourne's article I was very upset with it and even more upset with Barbara Branden's follow on post (#3) endorsing James' article and imploring Lindsay Perigo to get help, etc. A lot of other people were upset with Barbara too.

For someone like myself, not an alcoholic, but who has a history of adult drinking to this day and who has known alcoholics, alcoholism is primarily a moral issue. You drink because you want to drink. You get drunk because you want to get drunk. Same with the so-called recreational drugs. This doesn't mean that addiction, physical and mental cannot and doesn't obtain, but primarily it is a choice. I have good reasons for believing this, but they are external to his discussion.

Barbara and James seem to think of an alcoholic being the victim of alcoholism or of forces driving him to drink. Thus alcoholism as a "Drooling Beast." But such a beast would be a powerful evil. Where is its impotence? So I don't agree with their perspective--what I imagine their perspective to be--on this. I certainly understand why Linz was so mad. I was too for the same reason!

I now really think they were trying to help Lindsay, not attack him. But instead of helping him they attacked him for they were wrong whether Lindsay is or is not an alcoholic. I don't know of any evidence he is or of any evidence that there is really any such thing as "alcoholism," frankly.

By this I mean you drink or you don't drink and how much you drink is up to you. There is a developed physiological component of drinking where one drinks to neutralize the effect of earlier drinking and some people are more prone to have this need than others. That's why an "alcoholic" frequently starts the day with a drink or two and keeps on drinking. the DTs are real.

Barbara Branden's letters to me earlier in this thread, there by my responsibility not hers as they are apropos to this discussion, provide more sources on Frank O'Connor's drinking than her biography of Ayn Rand. Unfortunately, there are only one or two unnamed sources for any drinking he did in the mid 1950s to however long he had to share his home with his wife's lover. (Mid 1960s?)

If he had to leave the apartment twice a week and got drunk, even falling down drunk, that doesn't constitute alcoholism (as commonly understood). He could have spent five nights a week getting drunk too--no difference.

Now, the other names regarding Frank O'Connor's alleged alcoholism are the Kalbermans and the Blumenthals, the late Barbara Weiss and the maid. I was going to say that here Barbara Branden needs to provide affidavits from these witnesses as to what they saw and when.
But it doesn't matter. If these are not witnesses to his drinking behavior prior to the mid 1970s their testimony is almost completely irrelevant, for even if Frank O'Connor were falling down drunk 24/7 in the several years prior to his death in 1979, all we can say is it was a symptom of his dementia. I don't know of anyone who has been saying he did not suffer from a fluctuating and progressively worsening dementia, probably caused by reduced blood flow to the brain if not mini-strokes. Someone in such a state who knows how to drink and get liquor (whose wife is suffering from decreased physical capacity as with her lung cancer) can easily fall off into very heavy drinking. Nothing necessarily to do with alcoholism.

Frank O'Connor's alcoholism in my opinion has not been established as a fact for the historical record, not even a serious possibility, but I understand why Barbara Branden through the testimony of her friends who knew Frank in his last years, thinks he was one. No malice on her part to Frank O'Connor.

As for James Valliant's discussion of this matter in his "The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics" (pps 141-145), I think he made some true statements and points, but like the rest of the book, he overcooked his evidence through a fixation on Barbara Branden as a villain.

Nathaniel Branden provided no evidence or acceptable testimony in this matter. Just not a witness.

--Brant

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 9/11, 5:40pm)

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 9/11, 7:08pm)

(Edited by Brant Gaede on 9/12, 4:46pm)

Post 130

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 5:25pm

Joe: Those letters from Barbara posted here were completely my responsibility. I can see an objection to the last paragraph of her first letter, but I could have left it off and I probably would have if I had given it a little more thought.

I am trying to have a serious discussion here with James Valliant about Frank O'Connor. Some items were not in the public record as far as I know and I put them into that record by publishing them here.

If it is not permissible to even quote or paraphrase Barbara Branden on SOLOHQ please say so up front. I announced before I posted her letters that I was going to post one of her eMails. There was plenty of time for Linz to object prior to, and I don't see here that he has subsequently objected though he was entitled too re that last paragraph at least.

I apologize if I did something I shouldn't have, but it was done in good faith, not an attempt to violate anyone's property rights or do a run-a-round.

--Brant

Post 131

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 5:49pm

Brant, I know you are partially responsible for posting those, which is why you are under moderation (once again). But Barbara has already admitted elsewhere that she understands our policy and that posting through other people is against our wishes. She is just as much to blame (more so, since it's not her first time). Even if you were acting in good faith, she was not.

She is not allowed to post here. You may link to her own comments somewhere else. You can quote from her book if you want. We're not playing the ARI game of pretending she doesn't exist. But you will not post for her, or even pass on messages from her (same thing). I don't care if it's a direct quote or rewritten slightly. If you think something may violate the spirit of our decision, feel free to ask me in private. If she feels the need to say something, she can ask us for permission.

Post 132

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 5:54pm

I should let dead things lie in the background, but given some things that have been said on this thread, I want to make sure that one thing is unequivocal. Shortly after the 'Drooling Beast' thread, and after I had learned that Barbara had been moderated, I became upset with the moderation, for reasons that I've already explained, and I posted some of Barbara's words on the thread and in a "quote". Those words were from a private email she had sent to me trying to clarify some things and answer a question I had posed in the thread. I had no idea at the time I made the post that her responses were being moderated. Since my post was an attack upon James' article and position, she tried to convey his answer to me. This was understandable, because I was attacking him. Anyway...long story short, I was angered, I posted part of her email, and I have since moved on. The one thing that I want to clarify, hammer down, illucidate...call it what you wish, is the fact that BARBARA BRANDEN never asked me to post her words on this site. It was done by my own initiative. I hear some saying that she has been trying to attack SOLO through back-door tactics. This may be the case in some instances, I simply do not know, but it was absolutely NOT the case when I posted her email. I will take whatever furor and whatever shit is thrown my way for MY actions and posts, but I will never allow Barbara to suffer the consequences of what were my independent actions.

Post 133

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 5:55pm

Brant,

Minor point: not even Ms. Branden claims that there are ANY witnesses to his alcoholism in the 1950s, at all. Even in the late 1960s, her evidence is confined to a single, unnamed person who only was said to have "sometimes" joined O'Connor for drinks, who never reports seeing him intoxicated, and who was described oddly in her book as a "recovered alcoholic," i.e., whose own judgment on the issue, perhaps like Mr. Kilbourne's, is somewhat questionable, in any event.

I am happy to leave to others final judgment on Ms. Branden's degree of malice or good will in her various, specific accusations against O'Connor, Rand, or Linz.

And, while it is true that Mr. Branden offers no evidence on the topic, he is more than delighted to repeat the accusation in his published memoir. In his FULL CONTEXT interview, Branden confidently assures us that O'Connor had a "serious" alcohol problem and that Barbara told the story of this "accurately" in her biography.

(Edited by James S. Valliant
on 9/11, 6:04pm)

Post 134

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 6:14pm

Casey cited a Googled source:

"Generally, I mix up more than I need and keep the leftovers for future touch-ups. For convenience, I use empty clear glass liquor bottles with screw top caps. Their caps are a good tight fit, and at a glance I can see and choose the color I want from the line-up. Add the powder to the alcohol starting with a weak mixture, say about a teaspoonful for starters. It goes into solution almost immediately..."

Casey,
Are you saying that you believe Frank mixed powdered furniture dyes, stored them in booze bottles, and then later mixed them with alcohol and used them as a subsitute for artist's paints?

Or are you saying that he mixed artist's paints to a consistency thin enough to store in booze bottles, yet did so as a complete waste of time and materials since his actual painting method was to use paints that were too thick to pour into and retrieve from booze bottles? And, judging by the size of his canvases, are you saying that he often mixed and stored thousands of times as much paint per color than what he used during his entire painting career?

If Frank was using the booze bottles for mixing and storage, why did no one report seeing paint (or powdered furniture dye, if that's your theory) in them? Artist's paints (and powdered furniture dyes) are expensive. Is the idea that Frank may have drank so unthinkably shocking that you'd rather have us believe that he was a bumbling fool who wasted hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars mixing and storing unnecessarily large amounts of unusably thin furniture dye-based paints in bottles which he would then conveniently empty and clean out before guests arrived?

J

Post 135

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 6:25pm

Joe, I agree to abide by your policy as you have just stated even though I think it's a little too restrictive. If something comes up again I'll run it by you first.

--Brant

Post 136

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 6:36pm

Jonathan, you have the logical onus issue backwards. It is those who ridicule the very idea that O'Connor could have ever used such bottles in any way in his work who have the laboring oar. The alleged discovery of bottles in O'Connor's studio is weak circumstantial evidence in any event, since we are forced to speculate to a significant degree as to their origins, various types, and uses generally. That it is proof that they had all contained alcohol which had all been consumed by O'Connor in the recent past is quite a leap, in any case. Whatever one's definition of "alcoholism," I think we all should expect a different quality of evidence than this for it.
(Edited by James S. Valliant
on 9/11, 6:55pm)

Post 137

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 6:49pm

Are you saying you know Frank didn't use liquor bottles to store or mix paint or thinner? You know that?

I point out this example which I got off the Internet with one Google search that took about ten seconds to demonstrate something. The fact that the very idea of liquor bottles being used for such a purpose, (furniture brushes are much thicker than artist's brushes, so how on earth could someone want a bottle with a narrow neck? Woops, guess this guy had a reason!) ought to clue you in: it's rash to go about saying such a thing is an "embarrassing" claim and the "first time in the history of art" when in fact there are a lot of things that are possible out there. This guy describes some of the utility for using liquor bottles in particular: they have good, sealing caps, have clear glass to see the pigment through, etc. It doesn't take much imagination to realize that such bottles could be and probably were utilized in all kinds of ways, as I'm sure they have been down through the decades, especially when there were less specialized accessories out there for artists.

You also seem to assume Barbara is right when she now says there were "piles" of bottles, when in her book published years ago she claims that the maid had claimed to have found "rows" of bottles, which does not suggest the quantity that "piles" now does; and the maid was angry that Barbara Branden used the second hand information to substantiate a claim of alcoholism, which the maid repudiates.

You seem to have been perched on Frank's shoulder the whole time he was painting, you know so much about the consistency of the paint he invariably used, etc. I guess you can't imagine him needing to mix enough paint all at once (so it matches everywhere he needs to use it on subsequent occasions). More than that, you not only can't imagine it, you seem to be claiming it was impossible that he ever did such a thing, that he must have mixed a new batch of very thick paint every time he worked and let it dry out and then mix more the next day while painstakingly matching the batch from the day before, etc. Or, as Barbara claims, it would be the first time in the history of art if he mixed a batch of paint and utilized a handy receptacle to store it in. Embarrassingly impossible! And he could have stored thinner in bottles to clean his brushes. Frank was a resourceful guy and there's no reason he couldn't find a good use for bottles while painting. Sorry, but you will have to come up with some sort of evidence for the outlandish claim that it is impossible for Frank O'Connor to have used bottles for some painting-related reason, since he was a painter, and could have obtained and used bottles easily. It's not enough to assert that it was impossible because you are unable to imagine a reason for him to use a bottle, especially since there IS a report that he used the bottles for that very purpose and especially since there is NO EVIDENCE for the man being an alcoholic.

Post 138

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 6:57pm

"But you will not post for her, or even pass on messages from her (same thing)...I don't care if it's a direct quote..."

Joe, these are not even close to being the same thing!

You are free to create rules like this and I will abide by them as long as I stay, but it is not a *good rule* to prevent someone who has left and is being attacked to have someone represent her point of view in a discussion, to be able to defend herself.

It's sort of like saying, you left and we have very strong moral disagreements with you. You have slandered us, so we won't even let anyone *recite* your arguments and your responses on *any matter*. It's sort of like airbrushing their response on a matter of considerable debate out of the discussion.

Phil

PS, to concretize this: 1. What if I wanted to quote her remarks on *another topic* not related to the current personal matters or the current matters on Ayn Rand or Frank O'Connor's personal life? 2. What if it were someone else who left, like Jenifer Ianollo? 3. What if she wrote something really interesting, for example a followup to her course on efficient thinking five months from now?

PPS, I just realized that you mentioned that one can quote from her book (past writings?) "We're not playing the ARI game of pretending she doesn't exist." So is the principle that nothing she says -in the future-, whether to clarify any ongoing discussion or future topic is to be allowed to be revealed on the cite?
(Edited by Philip Coates
on 9/11, 7:09pm)

Post 139

Sunday, September 11, 2005 - 7:04pm