The Gateway Objectivists' December Meeting:
Holiday Dinner & Ethics Discussion
Our annual Holiday Dinner begins at 7:00. Our hosts will provide the
entree. Everyone is asked to bring a side dish, salad or dessert to complete
our meal. At 8:00, we'll have a discussion of Foul Anderson's short story,
"The Sharing of Flesh," and an article by Eyal Mozes on how the story
relates to Objectivism. The article is available at http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/4082
/sof.html. Copies of the short story, for
those who didn't receive one in November, will be available at the meeting.
Saturday, December 18, 1999, at 7:00 p.m.
at the home of Jeff & Joy Kiviat
The Gateway Objectivist will be available exclusively on our
new website beginning January 2000.
Please send your e-mail address to gwobjctvst@aol.com
to receive information about upcoming meetings via our
electronic mailing list.
See the article below for more information.
At the Journal Club...
At our last meeting, everyone presented a
summation of the interesting articles in recent
journals as we held our second Journal Club.
The articles that were presented and
discussed included a Liberty piece on the lies
surrounding Waco, by R.W. Bradford; an
account of James "The Amazing" Randi
testifying before Congress in Skeptic; details of
the recent unfortunate events at Hillsdale
College in Imprimis, global financial
architecture in The Cato Journal; and the
capture theory relationship between those
who are controlled by regulations and those
who benefit from them, known as "bootleggers
and baptists," in Regulation.
One of the most interesting articles presented
was not in an Objectivist, libertarian, or
economic journal, but in Private Varnish, a
magazine of privately owned railcars. The
cover story profiled a private railcar, known
as The Dagny Taggart, which is owned by Joe
Goodell. The extensive article also included a
full-color centerspread of the car. The last
page of the article finally uncovered the
origin of the name and why Mr. Goodell chose
it. The promotional booklet for the car reads:
"The Dagny Taggart proudly reflects the high
standards of her namesake. Luxury, beauty and
competence have been inextricably combined
to present a sense of opulence, grace and the
enjoyment of life to all her guests."
On-line Newsletter Only
Starting in January, The Gateway Objectivist
newsletter will be available only on the new
website of the Gateway Objectivists. It will no
longer be mailed out on paper. This change is
taking place as a way to save money from the
costs of printing and postage.
You will no longer need to send in $10 every
year for the informative articles, compelling
columns and scathing reviews. It will all be
available for free at http://www.webdesign-jrd.com/go/index.htm. The newsletter will still
come out monthly, one week before our
regularly scheduled meetings.
Since the newsletter will not be mailed, we
will instead be sending an e-mail to everyone
on the mailing list with the topic, date, and
other information on the upcoming meeting.
You should receive the e-mail about a week
before each meeting. We ask that everyone
receiving this newsletter send their e-mail
address to gwobjctvst@aol.com so they can be
put on the electronic mailing list. Please send
us your e-mail address before the end of the
year so you can start receiving information in
January.
If you don't have access to e-mail, you can
still receive a postcard notification in the mail
.of each upcoming meeting. This will cost $3 for
the year to cover printing and postage. Please
send your check or money order payable to Jon Litton by the end of the year.
New GO website
We are pleased to unveil a new and improved
website for the Gateway Objectivists. The site
http:/ /www.webdesign-jrd.com/go/index.htm.
was created by John Drake, Internet consultant
and GO member.
The new website currently offers meeting
announcements, an on-line newsletter,
information on Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and
Links to other Objectivist sites and resources.
John is still in the process of adding new
pages, including past issues of The Gateway
Objectivist, but the site is available now for
browsing. We thank John for his hard work at
putting it together and maintaining the site.
Rand Makes the List Again
Less than a month left in the year, but the
polls aren't winding down yet. Amazon.com
has published its Millennium poll, which
allowed their customers to choose the best
books, albums and videos of the past 1,000
years,
Coming in at number eight on the best books
list, Ayn Rand's Atlas shrugged lost out to The
Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Virtue
of Selfishness was number 13 and The
Fountainhead was number 24. The best movie
was picked as Star Wars and the best album was
The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band,
There were more than a quarter of a million
votes cast.
|