It looks like the ball has started rolling to get Ayn Rand’s epic made into a film after almost 50 years in print.  The word is that Angelina Jolie really wants to play Dagny Taggart.  I’m really not a huge fan of hers, but I can easily see her playing that role extraordinarily well in my mind.

[via The Liberator Online]

Yesterday I finished reading John Paul the Great by Peggy Noonan. I was less than impressed. It’s not that it is a bad book per se, but it just wasn’t that interesting to me. I prefer books that are much more biography oriented if I am going to be reading about a figure. Her book was much more about her personal experiences with things relating to the Pope.

I’ve read Witness to Hope, the weighty official biography by George Weigel, and so I guess I know many details already.

One thing that I did learn and found quite amusing was this:

At a meeting of the Synod of Bishops he made his way slowly and haltingly to the front of the crowd. He looked out at the assembled prelates and muttered what Galileo had said after being forced to recant his discovery that the earth revolves around the sun. “Eppur si muove.” And still, it moves.

One must find humor in that and recognize that the Pope himself had a sense of humor over the centuries-old issue. To me it makes those who hold up the condemnation of Galileo as one of the Church’s gravest errors seem silly. Living in this day and age, everyone knows that Galileo turned out to be correct. Even John Paul did.

Technorati Tags: pope, johnpaulii

I’m reading the book What Good Are the Arts? by John Carey and a certain passage spawned an interesting train of thought the other day. In the chapter called “Can art be a religion?” Carey writes many detailed pages about one of the most famous art worshippers of the 20th century: Adolf Hitler. The passage that got me thinking was this:

He developed a close relationship with Winifred Wagner and her children, and his annual pilgrimage to the Bayreuth Festival was one of the great festivals of Nazi culture, for which the town was swathed in swastikas.

The phrase “swathed in swastikas” was what my mind wrapped around. I could only imagine the town of Washington, D.C. and how much it is adorned in American flags. In this country, and most likely the rest of the world, people have come to be repulsed by the image of a swastika. In Germany it was merely a symbol of national pride much the same as the way flag stickers appear everywhere on bumpers and windows in this country.

I’m not exactly saying that the United States is like the Nazi regime, but it leads to an interesting comparison. I’m not a fan of any form of nationalism because it is basically blind support with no critical thinking involved. Following blindly leads people to accept almost anything in the name of national pride.

On a related note, Justin posts about how often Hitler is invoked by officials in the U.S. Government.

I read an article in the January issue of Reason that highlighted some trends in Young Adult literature.  The Giver by Lois Lowry was one of the books showcased.  I just finished reading it today.  I had started it a week or two ago but plowed through the last half of it at work today.  The story really grabbed me.  I’m a sucker for anything that bashes governmental entities.  It was also refreshing to see a kid of 12 or 13 in the novel discover the evil of others making choices for him.  I hope the kids who read this book grasp the concept.

Started reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde today. Lent and recommended to me by Stacey. One of her favorites she says. I’m only about a dozen pages into it and I’ve found at least two quotes that struck me.

The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with the desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.

Maybe I’m twisted, but this is a brilliant way of looking at things. There are so many people (girls) I wish I could get thinking this way. Yeah, I guess I’m a pervert.

Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a life-long passion is that a caprice lasts a little longer.

This one mostly struck me because of the similarity between it and a line in a Wilco song that says, “She says forever, to light a fuse…” I just enjoy it when more than one person makes the same observation and expresses it in a way that resonates with me.