Times Appoints Safire Successor

[Pangloss]

http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/archive/November2004/NYTimesConcedes111804.htm

 

The article above is from a web site that's aimed at pushing conservative causes on college and university campuses, but the article itself was originally from the New York Times, and as far as I know it wasn't edited or anything. I'm just using it from that site because you can read it for free. (The Times requires not only registration, but actual *payment*, to read older articles.)

 

Anyway, I mention it here for two reasons:

 

1) The author, John Tierney, was named today by the New York Times as the replacement for departed conservative columnist William Safire. My guess is that the guy's slightly conservative, and this (news) article may reveal that a little. Since he hasn't actually produced a column yet, it's hard to say for sure.

 

2) It has some interesting statistics showing how badly Democrats outweigh Republicans amongst educators.

 

I also stumbled across this 2002 article at The Objectivist Center about Tierney, which refers to him as a "libertarian" (note that this may mean something a little different to an objectivist).

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/articles/rdonway_two-cheers-john-tierney.asp

 

It discusses the columns Tierney has apparently been writing for the Metro section (which I don't believe you can find online), describing them as "pro-capitalist, pro-freedom, pro-technology". The description of Tierney's column on rent control is an amusing read, and it's also interesting to see why the objectivists are probably not entirely thrilled with the choice.

[Coral Rhedd]

 

I also stumbled across this 2002 article at The Objectivist Center about Tierney' date=' which refers to him as a "libertarian" [/quote']

 

They certainly are different. I was both a libertarian and an objectivist in 1979. Then I was just a libertarian -- partly because I took some literature classes and realized what an appallingly contrived writer Rand actually was. Finally I became a single mother and joined that great mass of people whom I had believed I should not care about: The poor.

 

What a sea change!

 

I will enjoy reading your links nevertheless. Sometimes I like to revisit the past.

[Pangloss]

I know what you mean. While I still think of myself as being closer to libertarianism than anything else, it seems mostly useful as a way to remind myself not to go too far when thinking along liberal or conservative lines. A way to stop myself from being washed away with the tide of public opinion on specific issues. (grin)

 

On the whole, if the worst thing we can say about Ayn Rand is that her writing is a little stilted, but she made people think and her influence is still felt today, well.... that's not bad for a woman in any era, much less the 1940s.

 

And at least she reads better than Michael Crichton.

[Coral Rhedd]

Agree on Michael Crichton.

 

To be a little gossipy: What a mess her personal life was! Or rather, what a mess she made of everyone else's. Ever read the book The Judgment by Nathaniel Brandon?

 

One of the things that is interesting about Rand is how much she rejected the feminine role. And got away with it!

[Pangloss]

No, I haven't. Didn't they get a divorce, and he went on to espouse (so to speak) a different form of Objectivism, which she disapproved of?

[Coral Rhedd]

Terribly sorry. I added something to my post just as you posted. Bad habit of mine to revise once I have posted.

 

No divorce. Rand was married to a low key man, former actor, pretty boy named Frank O'Connor. She probably should have divorced him but I suspect he played a very supportive role for her. Instead, in middle age, she began an affair with Brandon who was only in his early 20s. He was studying to become a psychologist (which he eventually did) but she named him her intellectual heir. She arranged a marriage for him to a poor woman named Barbara and then she took him as a lover. When he began to think for himself a bit, she ostracized him. Actually, as she grew older, he was a little less interested in her physically -- but she wouldn't let him go. About the only way he could get free of her was to really reject her by beginning an affair with yet another woman. Younger of course.

 

The story is fascinating. To me it shows that, in her time, Rand was willing to take a very sexually assertive role and take a lover the way so many men with power and money have often done. She didn't give a damn what anyone thought of course. The fallout was awful for her inner circle. It sort of shattered that ideal of happy productivity.

 

BTW, everyone smoked. It was required.

[Pangloss]

I read about some of this in Justin Martin's biography of Alan Greenspan. Interesting times.

[Coral Rhedd]

Is the Greenspan bio a good read?

[Pangloss]

It was interesting. A good overview of his early life, and some interesting insights on his relationships with Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush (41) and Clinton.

 

It makes a nice companion piece to any investigation into the change from Keynsianism to market-based economics in the latter half of the 20th century (such as a reading of Daniel Yergin's "The Commanding Heights").

 

I would say interesting but not especially dramatic. (Which is how biographies should be, IMO. I'm firmly in the Carl Sandberg camp when it comes to that subject.)