Captured!

Atlas Shrugged – Day 097 – pp. 1080-1089 + pp. 1090-1099

Guess what? It’s two-fer Thursday. The story between 1080 and 1089 was pretty stock stuff. If it was a movie, it’d be some kind of juxtaposition of scenes with a bit of dramatic background music.

Witness…

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Aftermath of the broadcast

Atlas Shrugged – Day 096 – pp. 1070-1079

A Christmas Miracle! I got to go home for a few days for the holiday. I didn’t pack my book. Figured it would put my luggage over some arbitrary airline weight limit. Besides, I really didn’t have the time to write what with all hugging and partying and catching up.

Weather in Chi-town cooperated. Stayed above zero (actually almost above freezing) and treated me to a pleasant layer of the white stuff I haven’t seen for sometime. It’s amazing how you miss the things you take for granted — or even learn to bitch about.

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday whether it was Christmas, Hanukkah or another celebration.

And now, on with the show…

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Ladies and Gentlemen – The John Galt Show!

Atlas Shrugged – Day 095 – pp. 1009-1069

Holy crap!!! John Galt has just taken the stage.

Actually he’s used his hulking intellect to commandeer the broadcast.

Hulk Galt say, “Puny looters!”

Certainly, a mind of this superior capacity would obviously have something to say. But Ayn Rand goes nuts. I mean freakin’ nuts. His broadcast, her — what? — diatribe?, lasts for SIXTY pages. SIXTY!

Now, I’m on page 1,009 here. You’d think Rand has gotten her point across by now. I mean, if you can’t deliver a message in this many words… Figure roughly 11 words per line with, pretty consistently 40+ lines per page means 440 words per page times 1,200 pages is in the ballpark estimate of 528,000 words!

If, as a writer, you can’t make a point in over half a million words, maybe you need to find another job.

On the other hand, that’s probably why she leaves a dissertation like this for the very end. We’re all in for a dollar by now.

Anyway, I’m not going to go ten pages at a time for this. I believe (hope) I’ve got the gist. I’m guessing I have an idea of what JG is going to talk about. So I’m going to try to point out some of the highlights of what he says over the course of the broadcast.

(Deep breath) Here we go…

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Broadcast interruptus

The news reports that reported Hank’s disappearance told everything but the story.

They said things like it was “social treason to ascribe too much importance to Hank Rearden’s disappearance.” Some denied his disappearance entirely. Others reported his untimely demise.

“It was strange she thought, to obtain news by means of nothing but denials…”

But the denials weren’t having their full desired effects.

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Best chapter in the book – pt. 3

Atlas Shrugged – Day 092 – pp. 982-991

Hank has a solution.

“If it’s production hat you want, the get out of the way, junk all of your damn regulations, let Orren Boyle go broke, let me buy the plant of Associated Steel — and it will be pouring a thousand tons a day from every one of its sixty furnaces.”

Oh, can’t do that. That’d be a monopoly.

“Well then, I’ll offer you another solution. Why don’t you take over my mills and be done with it?”

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Best chapter in the book – pt. 2

Atlas Shrugged – Day 091 – pp. 972-981

“You can accept our repentance,” said Lillian in a voice glassy with caution. “I only want you to know that whatever I’ve done, I’ve done it because I loved you.”

Hank ain’t listening to that.

Mother Rearden is approaching panic mode.

“What’s happened to you? What’s changed you like that? You don’t seem to be human anymore!”

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Best chapter in the book – pt. 1

Atlas Shrugged – Day 090 – pp. 962-971

D’ja ever read something so good that you couldn’t stop?

That’d be Chapter VI – The Concerto of Deliverance.

Rand’s finally got it going. Far as I’m concerned, this has been the best chapter in the book so far. Made the 962 pages leading up to it all worth the effort.

Plots uncovered. Schemes unraveled. Vengeance. Fight scenes. Heroic deaths. Lives saved, snatched from the jaws of death. And even a rather hokey ending for which I gladly suspended any and all sense of reality. (And, in reality, not even too hokey.)

Yeah, I read it all. But I’m still going 10 pages at a time, so suck it up. Let’s get busy.

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The looters next plans

Atlas Shrugged – Day 088 – pp. 942-951

…And without the necessary transportation in MN, the shit starts flying.

“…farmers who had waited in the streets of Lakewood for six days with no place to store their wheat . . . had demolished the local courthouse. . . While the flour mills and grain markets of the country were screaming over the phones and telegraph wires. . .”

Dagny and Eddie worked round the clock to get any transportation to MN. It wasn’t enough.

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Soybeans and wheat

Atlas Shrugged – Day 087 – pp. 932-941

I have a question. Why hasn’t JG come after Eddie Willers yet? He’s got to be a candidate for the gulch. And his disappearance would most likely hasten Dagny’s decision..

Anyway, just before Phillip leaves, he tells Hank he’s never had any concern for his feelings. Hanks asks if Phillip has ever had any concern for his. Phillip tells Hank he has no feelings.

Of course Rand would beg to disagree as she recalls ALL the suffering that Hank has been through…

Then she describes the look in Phillip’s eyes…

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Francisco’s farewell… and trouble for Hank?

Atlas Shrugged – Day 086 – pp. 922-931

Hank’s feeling a little melancholy about it all. Like he betrayed Francisco, who was sacrificing for him.

Dagny tells him Francisco did it for them. For them all. (So what the hell are you two doing???)

What is it with these two? What is the drive not to give up? I mean, I understand the will not to give up. No quitters. But like Jim said before, they’re doers. Why not “do” where you can actually do something? Why keep trying to save the lost cause. Are they there for the little guys, like the tramp on the train, who refused to give up even though he was a lost cause too? Maybe. I guess I can see that.

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A September 2 surprise!

Atlas Shrugged – Day 085 – pp. 909-921

Somehow destroying a company like d’Anconia Copper or Rearden Steel is one thing. But destroying an innocent like Cherryl sinks the whole bunch to a new level of moral depravity.  (Not that I’m sentimental, but that bit pissed me off.)

That said, the drama is starting to pick up. I mean it was all well and good living in Atlantis for a month. But the real drama is here where the scumbags live. Hey, call me a jerk. I read the Bible and TMZ.com.

I stopped a couple pages early yesterday. Felt it was the fitting thing to do as the chapter ended with Cherryl. Time to get back on pace.

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A tragic, untimely end…

Atlas Shrugged – Day 084 – pp. 902-911

The world, as represented by ole Jimmy Taggart, is rapidly spiraling down into a moral abyss. He’s just hit it with Lillian Rearden. More or less taking advantage of a woman down on her most-undeserved luck to satisfy not a sexual but a power lust.

Yeah, he’s a sick POS. (And I’m getting the sense he’s going off the deep end.)

Anyway, back to the ever-increasing drama…

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Jim Taggart is a piece of shit

Atlas Shrugged – Day 081 – pp. 872-881

OK, for those who came in late. Things are picking up. A little. Hank and Dagny have taken the last steps they can against the looters. Jim and his cohorts are taking over the rest of the world (to loot it.)

(By the way, anyone interested in how this works in real life should read the Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. It’s essentially about how countries are bankrupted and destroyed so that the US can come in an cash in. Personally, I think she misdirects her blame at Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of economics. Well, in truth, they were all there for the events she describes, but I think she unfairly takes issue with the free market theory. What she inadvertently reveals, is its misapplication.)

All I’m gonna say is, if this story doesn’t end with a huge 21st century battle between the looters and the industrialists with handheld x-ray machines, self-sustaining motors, giant xylophones and maybe a couple light sabers and an terminator or two, I’m gonna be pissed. Anywho…

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Revelations all ’round

Atlas Shrugged – Day 079 – pp. 852-861

You know, I’m thinking. Wasn’t Hank Rearden’s motive one of self-interest too? I mean he made a choice. And he chose what he wanted to do. He knows he can re-build Rearden Metal. Maybe he was protecting a higher ideal too — Dagny. She’s the last remnant of capitalist morality in the world. Maybe this was his way of defending her as a principle. Maybe he is the moral hero of the book.

Anyway, on with the show…

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