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napalmnacey ([info]napalmnacey) wrote in [info]otf_wank,
@ 2010-07-21 09:17:00


Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:animals, ayn rand is a jellyfish

A tiny, weeny WTF_Nature wank...
I was unsure whether to post this here or iwank, but I posted twice, once to LOL and once to say, "Dude, you're being really annoying", so I figure it might go better here. Right.

WTF_Nature is a super fun community on LJ devoted to the crazy shit nature comes up with. Freak storms. Animals we didn't know existed. Animals that do exist but mutate. If it's in nature, and it makes you go "WTF", it's in the comm.

Yesterday, writerspleasure decided to post about a species of goby in South African waters that has turned on its natural predator, the jellyfish, and made those squishy suckers into their dinner. A really interesting subject, full of fascinating ramifications for the local ecosystem in that area. For some reason, he brought in an Ayn Rand reference.

[info]markslj is tired of this political bullshit.

Wank is soon in the waters once the first blood is shed.

[info]pazi_ashfeather makes a comment on writerspleasure's behaviour.

Thing degenerate and get mighty personal after that, all while the both of them argue about Ayn Rand. I don't know why, but people arguing about Ayn Rand always makes me laugh.

So anyway, one minute you think it's over, but those crazy kids start up the argument again in another thread. Are the Bearded Gobys Libertarians or Bolsheviks? A question for the ages!

Ahhh... Ayn Rand. *chuckle* Tiny, to be sure, but like the Bearded Goby, kind of cute as well.



(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]darksumomo
2010-07-21 03:38 am UTC (link)
I'd be really tempted to contribute some of my collection of anti-Rand quotes, but I think the other members of wtf_nature would turn on me. Besides, that would be trolling the wank. Darn.

(Reply to this)(Thread)


[info]persona
2010-07-21 04:07 am UTC (link)
I however find this relevant to my interests and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]darksumomo
2010-07-21 04:29 am UTC (link)
Srsly?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]sleepyjean
2010-08-04 12:42 am UTC (link)
Let's hear 'em! I can never get enough Rand putdowns.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]platedlizard
2010-07-21 05:34 am UTC (link)
If they're funny enough you could post them here. And if they're not so funny post to you journal and link back to it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]darksumomo
2010-07-21 02:49 pm UTC (link)
OK. Here are the funny quotes on a theme that I've found irritates Objectivists. They seem to find comparing their pet philosophy to Scientology insulting. I'm not sure what the Scientologists think of it.

http://world.std.com/~mhuben/quotes.html
Wasn't Ayn Rand a pseudonym of L. Ron Hubbard?
Mike Huben

But the trouble is that he [Alan Greenspan] had been an Ayn Rander. You can take the boy out of the cult but you can't take the cult out of the boy.
Paul Samuelson

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/JustBugsMe/AtlasShrugged

"It is an interesting exercise to compare Ayn Rand's forward to Atlas Shrugged (she claims that she is the only novelist in history to write about a new idea) with L. Ron Hubbard's forward to his Mission Earth series (he claims that if you don't find it uproariously funny you're obviously exactly the sort of shumck he was trying to ridicule, and no, he's not kidding). I am quite sure the two were never in the same room together, as the Universe would have collapsed from the accumulated hubris. On that note--"

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fountainhead_Earth

Uncyclopedia advertises itself as content free. This article lives down to the description.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]kylenne
2010-07-21 05:41 am UTC (link)
Haha, I just happened to stumble across one today that was gold. I have no idea who originally said it, I just saw it randomly on LJ:

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]fernmonkey
2010-07-21 11:47 am UTC (link)
I adore that quote.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]darksumomo
2010-07-21 02:41 pm UTC (link)
That's Kung Fu Monkey.

http://kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]kylenne
2010-07-21 06:44 pm UTC (link)
Thanks, because that was totally driving me nuts! :D

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]snarkhunter
2010-07-21 10:27 pm UTC (link)
I kind of really want to post that in my office, but I think it might offend some of my students.

I guess I'll just stick it here in my home office so that I can look at it and LOL every day.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]puipui
2010-07-21 11:05 am UTC (link)
Post here! I <3 anti-Rand quotes, but the only one I can ever remember offhand is Dorothy Parker's bit about Atlas Shrugged. ("This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.")

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

How about a drinking game?
[info]darksumomo
2010-07-21 02:53 pm UTC (link)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/12/9/807430/-Atlas-Chugged:-The-Ayn-Rand-Drinking-Game
Atlas Chugged: The Ayn Rand Drinking Game

There are certain habits in Rand’s writing; repeated phrases, archetypical characters and recurring situations. Habits which beg to be immortalized in their very own drinking game.

A game I call Atlas Chugged.

The rules:

1.Every time someone asks, "Who is John Galt?", drink. It's not only the "immortal query" at the heart of the book, it’s also the opening line. So it gets you off to a quick start.

2.Every time Rand describes physical fatigue or the need for sleep as a weakness and a betrayal, drink. She uses this characterization frequently in the early parts of the book, always applied to one of her heroes. It may have been her way to show the force of their will and the power of their luminous minds over their weak flesh. Or maybe she was just cranked up on amphetamines most of the time and she was projecting.

3.Speaking of her heroes, Hank Reardon, Francisco d'Anconia, Dagny Taggart and her other heroes are handsome, beautiful people. Every time she describes one as the very embodiment of beauty and nobility, drink. Nothing says paragon of virtue like physical perfection.

4.If her heroes are beautiful, her villains have to be ugly. Every time she describes a villain as a mass of flesh, with a "shapeless" mouth or "gelatinous" eyes, drink.

5.There’s another difference between Rand’s heroes and villains. They both talk a lot, but the heroes get to talk a lot more. Every time a villain disgorges a 2 page long speech, drink. Every time a hero gets 5 or more uninterrupted pages, drink.

6.For good measure, every time one paragraph goes on for more than a page, drink.

7.Every time someone mentions the Pirate, drink. Seriously, there's a pirate. His name is Ragnar and he’s a Viking god with golden hair and a face so handsome it can never be scared. Is he a hero or villain? You get one guess.

8.Rand’s male heroes are steely men of unbending strength. Even when overwhelmed by tides of emotion, they never show it. Every time one of them is paralyzed by his feelings, but no one can tell except for the single pulsing vein in his throat, the stretched skin over a temple or how his hands cling to the edge of a table, drink.
Dagny, OTOH, gets to feel, and show, lots and lots of emotions. Every time Dagny collapses into a little feminine heap, drink.

9.There is one thing that can get under her heroes' skin: the stupidity of the people around them. Every time a character is introduced just to earn a hero's (or the reader’s) contempt, drink.
Keep an eye out for Reardon's mother and brother, Mayor Bascom, Kip Chalmers, Balph Eubank, Tinky Holloway, Lee Hunsacker, Gilbert Keith-Worthing, Paul Larkin, Eugene Lawson, Mort Liddy, Horace Mowen, Betty Pope, Drs. Potter and Pritchett, Bertram Scudder, Claude Slagenhop, the Starnes siblings, Clem Weatherby and many, many others.

Drink twice for Balph and Tinky, because their names are Balph and Tinky.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: How about a drinking game?
[info]darksumomo
2010-07-21 02:54 pm UTC (link)
10.In Rand’s world, there is only one person in the world who still does any given job well. Hank Reardon is the only man who can still make steel. Dagny Taggart is the only woman who can still run a railroad. Ken Danagger is the only man who can still mine coal. Lawrence Hammond is the only man who can still build a car. Every time one of these last-of-their-kind characters shows up, drink.

Drink twice for Hugh Akston. He’s the only philosopher in the whole world who can still think and he’s the only short-order cook who can still fry a decent hamburger.

11.I’d never even heard of a shoulder fetish, but there's one here. Rand is obsessed with Dagny Taggart’s shoulders; Her sensual, naked shoulders. Every time Rand writes of Dagny’s naked shoulders, bare shoulders or shoulders framed in fallen hair and transparent fabric so they look naked, drink.

12.Throughout the book, people are constantly doing physically impossible and self-contradictory things. Every time someone leans on a wall, totally relaxed and motionless, but with a fierce energy, springs from a chair like shot from a bow but without motion or gives a glance that has all the characteristics of a wink (yes, that’s really in there, too), drink.

13.To be fair to Rand, there is some good stuff buried in Atlas Shrugged. Her description of life in the collectivized 20th Century Motor Co. is a dead-on description of life in a totalitarian state and I liked Dagny's encounter with Owen Kellogg after the Comet was abandoned. At least once per chapter, find something for which Rand deserves credit and drink.

14.Every time someone smokes, drink.
Atlas Shrugged was written in the '50s so it's not surprising that Rand glamorizes cigarettes. Characters smoke incessantly. They smoke to clear their heads, celebrate victories and mask defeats. Cigarettes represent the fire of the human mind. A cigarette even serves as Dagny's first concrete clue that a conspiracy exists.

Still, I have to wonder how heroic Francisco will look in 30 years dragging a green bottle of Reardon Gas-brand oxygen everywhere he goes.

15.Rand's descriptions of love making are truly screwed up; vicious acts of near-sadism. Reardon essentially masturbates using Dagny's body as a tissue and she likes it. Even when Dagny experiences the perfect physical bliss of sex with John Galt (and yes, that's in there too), it's pretty creepy.

Every time you throw up a little during a sex scene, drink. Or at least rinse your mouth out.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: How about a drinking game? - [info]darksumomo, 2010-07-21 02:55 pm UTC
Re: How about a drinking game? - [info]erototoxin, 2010-07-26 02:24 am UTC
Re: How about a drinking game?
[info]queencallipygos
2010-07-22 04:28 pm UTC (link)
Seriously, there's a pirate. His name is Ragnar and he’s a Viking god with golden hair and a face so handsome it can never be scared.

....Okay, call me crazy, but I seriously want to see someone write slash fiction about Ragnar and Jack Sparrow, just to see Randians' heads explode.

Also because the idea of a Viking Pirate named Ragnar just tickles me in a place I can't reach.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: How about a drinking game?
[info]erototoxin
2010-07-26 02:26 am UTC (link)
Is his last name Ok?

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]barankhy
2010-07-21 05:39 pm UTC (link)
From How NOT To Write A Novel: "While the outer world of one bad novel shares much in common with the worlds of other bad novels - buildings, trees, cats - every unpublished author seems to have hit upon a message that is unique to them - and will stay that way, if there's a God in heaven. The ranks of would-be novelists are filled with Holocaust deniers, men who question whether women have souls, followers of Ayn Rand. This is a priceless tool in avoiding publication. The overall message of any bad novel should make the staunchest First Amendment absolutist long for the Thought Police."

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]dragonfangirl
2010-07-22 06:45 am UTC (link)
I kind of want to frame this and put it on a wall.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]aaron_agonistes
2010-07-21 10:17 pm UTC (link)
Okay, that's hilarious. I tried reading Atlas Shrugged once, and I seriously chucked it across the room.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]snarkhunter
2010-07-21 10:28 pm UTC (link)
Oh, Parker. Your wit knew no bounds.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


[info]warrioreowyn
2010-07-22 01:00 am UTC (link)
Never read Rand, but I felt that way about Gone with the Wind. Spent five minutes kicking it around the room when I finally finished reading it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)


[info]darksumomo
2010-07-22 02:33 am UTC (link)
My ex-wife told me that to understand her I had to read Gone with the Wind and pay particular attention to Scarlett O'Hara. After one or two pages, I put the book down, never to pick it up again. I could not stand Scarlett. Within two years, we were divorced.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]snarkhunter, 2010-07-22 12:40 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]librarianmouse, 2010-07-22 03:49 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]erototoxin, 2010-07-26 02:25 am UTC
(no subject) - [info]darksumomo, 2010-07-27 04:09 am UTC

[info]snarkhunter
2010-07-22 12:41 pm UTC (link)
I threw Tess of the D'Urbervilles when I finished reading it the first time. (I've had to read it more than once...and am actually teaching it this fall despite my loathing.)

Of course, it's actually a good book, if one with a completely wretched and infuriating story.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

(no subject) - [info]bluenakedlady, 2010-07-26 05:52 pm UTC
(no subject) - [info]cmdr_zoom, 2010-07-22 06:52 pm UTC
*hopeful*
[info]taktuk
2010-07-22 03:44 am UTC (link)
You could always contribute them here.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: *hopeful*
[info]darksumomo
2010-07-23 07:56 pm UTC (link)
I keep trying to post more, but JF is being robust.

(Reply to this)(Parent)


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