Getting Back Into Google Keep: Indiana Poverty; Malcom McDowell & James Lee Burke Interviewed; Ayn Rand

 I have had some problems getting into Keep for the past few months, so I admit the following has some age to it.

25 Poorest States in America by Ashar Jawad. Indiana was 16th with a poverty rate of 10.8%. This might be explained by this stat: "Population aged between 18 and 24 with college or associate degree: 38.2%" Why do we not hold the Republicans controlling this state for such a poor showing? Saying it is because we have a majority of under-educated citizens feels sooo cynical.

Malcolm McDowell: ‘Kubrick had stewed pears and sour chicken for lunch because Napoleon did’. I think the headline says all you need to know - unless you do not know who is Malcolm McDowell. 

The family roots of Ayn Rand’s unyielding vision, a book review by Marco Roth of a writer I have never had any interest in reading.

How much compassion is due someone who quite publicly hated the very idea of compassion? This question kept haunting me as I read Alexandra Popoff’s new biography of Alisa Rosenbaum, better known to the world as Ayn Rand. The life traced out in Popoff’s retelling (also discernible between the lines of Rand’s own novels and public pronouncements) conforms in broad outlines to what the literary critic Parul Sehgal dubbed “the trauma plot,” when violence a long way back is revealed at the end to account for a person’s least likable, least explicable traits and actions. Rand, author of the single-minded and literal heavyweight classics “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” was not shy about the proximate cause of her trauma, although she would never have used that word herself. She blamed “Communism,” but that name covered a multitude of sins and doesn’t alone explain why Rand felt additionally compelled to advocate against most acts of human kindness.

A pseudo-philosopher who damaged our political life. Reading the review did not change my verdict.

JAMES LEE BURKE ON HEMINGWAY, ORWELL, AND A NEW CHAPTER IN THE AMERICAN BATTLE AGAINST FASCISM - I think the headline says all you need to know. Interesting points made about Hemingway, as I recall.

sch 11/9