The current SOLOHQ poll asking respondents to choose the most important facet of Objectivist activism is yielding interesting results.

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? - Mark 8:36

What makes someone give up their soul? In the decade after the publication of her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand was at the very top of her game and she began preparing another, final, novel, To Lorne Dieterling, in which she hoped to dramatise the answer to that very question. Unfortunately for all of the fans of Rand’s earlier novels, a real life drama got in the way.

By now there are actually books about Woody Allen’s philosophical
ideas—for example, by my former colleague Professor Aeon Skoble. (Indeed,
you might find interesting his single-author and edited books about
Seinfeld and even The Simpsons.) This isn’t all that surprising to those
of us who are fans of Allen, albeit sometimes disappointed ones. His work
does often contain fascinating themes, among which the most recent one,
explored in his well-received movie Match Point, is the phenomenon of luck.

Unfortunately Allen drives home the point so obviously and with so little

My first task as SOLO NZ coordinator is to announce a meeting in Auckland, at 1900 on Friday 13th January. The venue will be Ken Riddle's house at 45A View Road, Mt. Eden, Auckland. Lindsay and Tim will be there as well, and we'll be discussing plans for SOLOC 4.5. It promises to be a monumentous event in the history of SOLO - I hope to see you there!

(If you have any questions, please feel free to call me on my mobile - 027 253 6395).

I am writing this at lunch-time, Friday December 23 in New Zealand. A preposterously dark sky is being lit up by lightning flashes. Thunderclaps rend the air, and it's raining at a rate that would startle even Noah.

It's been that kind of year for SOLO!

The sun came out for SOLOC 4. Galt, did it blaze! Then, thunder and lightning, rain and more rain ... and weather-weary dejection.

I'm not going to look back on the year and pretend that it was not a great one!

Painful, yes ... excruciatingly so. But great.

How so?

The Credo speaks of sincerity, of the rejection of mind-games, of saying what one means and meaning what one says. It speaks to the "rationally exuberant and exuberantly rational." It disdains the reason/passion dichotomy. It is my provisional assessment that the floods have cleansed SOLO of those who embrace such a dichotomy. In particular, the especially pernicious notion that evil substance may be overlooked if the style is "good" (meaning "tempered") has been purged. Vileness can no longer expect to be applauded just because it is expressed politely.