Category Archives: Ayn Rand

The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration)

The Continuing Scourge of Tenant Harassment: If You Don't Like It, Move. The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration) Today's landlord, schooled by the libertarian, free market philosophies of Adam Smith, John Locke, and Ayn Rand, uses the mantra, If you don't like it, move. Landlord harassment is today's way of making tenants dislike staying enough that they decide ...

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The Continuing Scourge of Tenant Harassment: If You Don't Like It, Move. - The Nonprofit Quarterly (registration)

Pacific Standard

Do Unto Others? SureIf They're in Our Social Circle Pacific Standard That said, the researchers point out that this impulse seems to provide the seeds of Ayn Rand's "objectivist" moral ideology. That way of thinking, embraced by such top Republicans as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, argues that, while directly harming ...

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Do Unto Others? SureIf They're in Our Social Circle - Pacific Standard

In my time at Jesus College, Oxford (1956-58), I must have passed Eric Kenningtons evocative bust of T.E. Lawrence scores of times. It stood in the college lodge, on Turl Street, and portrayed a famous alumnus who had led an early life as an archaeologist before he became a British officer and legendary leader of the World War I Arab revolt against Turkish rule.

What I knew only dimly was that a much-traveled American journalist named Lowell Thomaswho had briefly taught elocution at Princetonwas often credited with the creation of the Lawrence legend, a legend sensationally magnified a generation later by David Leans magnificent film. As viewers of that vivid movie know, Lawrence assumed the leadership of the Arabs under King Feisal. He affected Bedouin costume, becoming an accomplished desert fighter.

Lowell Thomas, for his part, appears in the movie under a pseudonym as a sassy, cynical reporter named Bentley who appears on the scene after General Sir Edmund Allenbys conquest of Damascus, and follows the Arab host on its primary errand: blowing up railroad tracks and slaughtering Turkish soldiers. Its final scenes show a Lawrence a bit crazed by the experience.

The case can be made, writes Mitchell Stephens here, that no individual before or since has dominated American journalism as did Lowell Thomas in the late 1930s and, in particular, the early 1940s. Thomas brought to his craft a resonant voice and a gift for clear exposition. His breakthrough in audio-visual presentation came after the wars end, in a dramatic magic lantern show that drew thousands in 1919 London, New York, and other cities. Though it originally headlined Allenbys exploits, the once obscure Lawrence was an enormous hit, and the program was retitled With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia.

Thomas and his era were well met. They developed together the first phase of radio news broadcasting, whose dominance was prolonged by the postponement of television manufacture by war priorities in World War II. Apart from voice and diction, it was Thomass lifelong wanderlust that was his trump card; and it is well capturedcaricatured may be the more precise termby the bumptious figure of Bentley in Lawrence of Arabia.

Thomass corporate sponsor on NBC radio was Sun Oil. He was paid directly by the sponsoring company, a journalistic practice that would now be deemed irregular and (according to this biography) exposed him to occasional commercial pressures. The author notes one instance when Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed his Four Freedoms and conservative critics such as Sen. Robert Taft and novelist Ayn Rand complained. In a letter of June 8, 1943, Thomas received a caution from his primary contact at Sun Oil, suggesting that he omit further mention of the Four Freedoms. That caution was reinforced by a friendly letter from J. Howard Pew, president of Sun Oil, congratulating Thomas on the popularity of his broadcasts but advising that Roosevelts Four Freedoms be recast in terms of free-enterprise doctrine.

Thomas also narrated the pioneering Movietone newsreels, a medium whose oratorical voice and noisy nationalism would today ring strange in the age of television, the ultimate cool medium.

But to return to the association that first won him fame, it is, perhaps, a question of who created whomwhether Lowell Thomas created Lawrence of Arabia or Lawrence created Lowell Thomas, the showman and broadcaster. The two chapters about Lawrence of Arabia, though they take up only 33 pages, are certainly the most vivid and interesting and the authors notes indicate that this isnt his first treatment of Lawrence.

Undoubtedly, however, Thomass desert rendezvous in November 1918 struck journalistic gold and established a professional trajectory that made him the voice of Americathe voice of and for the middle class and its developing thirst for a form of news more quickly satisfied than by newspapers and magazines. Stephenss claims for Lowell Thomas are reinforced by his globetrotting and his determination to penetrate exotic landseven Tibet, after the Communist takeover in China, to which he and his son trekked at the price (in Thomass case) of broken bones, to interview the isolated 14-year-old Dalai Lama.

Thomas left broadcasting too early to rival the mega-television successes of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, Edward R. Murrow, and others. But his memory is not without its nostalgia. One who grew up in the classic age of radiothe era of the University of Chicago Roundtable, Quiz Kids, Kraft Music Hall, and The Bell Telephone Hour, and not least Arturo Toscaninis NBC Symphony, not to mention popular stars such as Jack Bennycannot resist adding that Thomass era was of an excellence no longer heard on commercial radio or television.

But was Lowell Thomas the voice of America? I must admit a failure of auditory memory. The later voices of Cronkite, Brinkley, Murrow, Eric Sevareid, and others echo in the memory. Even H.V. Kaltenbornanother oil-company-sponsored newscaster-commentator (and my fathers bte noire)retains his staccato echo. But the voice of America is fading out like a dim radio signal, at least for me. Perhaps Thomass voice, midwestern in origins, was destined to become the standard timbre of all electronic communicationand is now lost among all the others.

Edwin M. Yoder Jr. is the author, most recently, of Vacancy: A Judicial Misadventure.

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Lowell Thomas, the Original 'Voice of America' - The Weekly Standard

Location: Mount Kisco, New York

Price: $1.999 million

Bennett Cerf is best known as the 20th-century powerhouse publisher who co-founded Modern Library and Random House in New York. His authors included William Faulkner, Eugene ONeill, John OHara, Ayn Rand, James Michener and Truman Capote.

Along with a Manhattan apartment, he and his wife, the actress Phyllis Fraser, maintained a 10-acre estate in suburban Westchester County for many years. Their former home, a classic Colonial Revival in Mount Kisco, is now on the market.

Cerf also wrote humor books and had a starring role as one of four panelists on the CBS weekly show Whats My Line? for most of the 1950s and 60s. Fraser was also a journalist and childrens book publisher. So friends and frequent houseguests were often literary or political luminaries or well-known stars from Hollywood and Broadway.

These house guests included the likes of Frank Sinatra, John F. Kennedy and Theodor Seuss Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss), according to Jessica Chan of William Pitt Julia B. Fee Sothebys International Realty.

More:A Seaside Nantucket Compound Moonlights as the Perfect Summer Getaway

Because he was married to an actress, the house was a central location for entertaining some really prominent people, Ms. Chan said. It was the center of the literary and entertainment worlds.

There is still an original brass plate on the front door that reads Cerf. The house is known as The Columns for its two-story columned veranda at the back. Old-timers also know it as the Cerf-Wagner estate because his widow married former New York City Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. after Cerfs death in 1971 and they made it their part-time home until Wagner died in 1991.

The current owners bought the house from the Cerf family in 1993, Ms. Chan said.

Its such a huge house, almost like a compound, she said, mentioning that one Thanksgiving, the current owners had 25 overnight houseguests.

The interior has been renovated throughout, but they kept all of the original period characteristics of the house, Ms. Chan said. Its the best of both worlds.

More:A 19th-Century Princeton Home with Original Details Throughout

Original architectural features of the 1927 house include hardwood floors, high ceilings, a grand center-hall staircase, crown moldings and five working fireplaces.

All of the windows have been replaced, and plumbing and utilities updated, Ms. Chan said. The bathrooms have all been renovated, but they were done to look like the 1920s.

This house is a good balance of modern versus old, but its a move-in-ready house, she said. Some old houses need so much workthis one doesnt.

The Stats

The 5,789-square-foot house has eight bedrooms, seven full bathrooms and one half bath. It sits on 9.63 acres. There are also two guesthouses.

Guest House A is around 800 square feet with one bedroom, two bathrooms and a living room with kitchen, Ms. Chan said. Guest House B is smaller, a studio with a bathroom.

Both have been beautifully renovated, she said. Guest House A is the historical one where people like Frank Sinatra frequently stayed.

More:A Penthouse on Lake Como with A Musical History

Amenities

Amenities include a swimming pool, large flagstone patio, tennis court, two-hole golf course, greenhouse, rolling meadows, two ponds and frontage on the scenic Kisco River. There is also detached three-car garage.

Neighborhood Notes

Orchard Road is a dead-end road, filled with beautiful housesclassic Colonials, Tudorsthat were built in the 1920s, Ms. Chan said.

Its such a safe and quiet neighborhood, she said. This house is set back from the road so no one would even know its there.

More:History Breathes New Life into this Napa Property

Its just a 10-minute walk to the Metro-North train station in downtown Mount Kisco, she said, which has many restaurants and shops.

The property actually straddles two Westchester communities, with 6.1 acres in the town of New Castle and the rest in Mount Kisco. It is in the Chappaqua school district, one of Westchesters best.

Agent Name: Jessica Chan, William Pitt Julia B Fee Sothebys International Realty

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This Classic Colonial Revival in Westchester Has Impressive Literary Ties - Mansion Global

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, is an attractive political leader in many ways.

He's a bright, articulate, upbeat, youthful, energetic and fit native son who espouses strong social values -- sometimes. He seems to recognize poverty as a social problem that deserves federal help. He credits his Christian faith for that.

On the other hand, he leads a current national health care initiative that will severely reduce insurance for poor Wisconsinites. His motivation likely comes from his heroine Ayn Rand, a 20th century political philosopher who valued atheism, individualism, the virtues of selfishness and the folly of altruism.

Imagine the speakers conflict between the selfless altruism of Jesus Christ and the selfish individualism of Rand. His Randian self wants those who can support themselves to get off government support. His Christian self needs to support those unable to support themselves. Perhaps Jesus struggled with the same dilemma?

The great social policy problem for Ryan and the rest of us is knowing which people are truly incapable of supporting themselves. We tend to have opinions about those on government support without valid knowledge of their needs. For a Christian, getting it wrong leads to eternal damnation.

Norman Jensen, Madison

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Paul Ryan conflicted by Jesus Christ and Ayn Rand -- Norman Jensen - Madison.com

Stage trials are nothing new. Ayn Rand had a big Broadway hit with one back in 1935: Night of January 16was designed to put her philosophy, individualism, to the test. Ferdinand von Schirachs Terror, already a commercial success in Germany, does much the same: It tests the mettle of our morality with a very contemporary dilemma. In the wake of recent attacks it should feel essential. Instead, its largely academic.

Major Lars Koch (Ashley Zhangazha) of the German air force sits in a courtroom, a blank stare on his face, accused of 164 counts of murder. Eight months ago, he downed a hijacked passenger jet that was, in all likelihood, heading for a football stadium and its capacity crowd. In launching an air-to-air guided missile, disobeying orders to do so, he saved up to 70,000 lives. The law, however, states he must face trial for the lives his actions ended.

The question, broadly speaking, is whether it is ever justifiable to take one life in order to save others. Emma Fieldings prosecuting lawyer blithely argues that the constitutions owes each and every one of us our human dignity, only for the defense (an ardent Forbes Masson) to parry with the common sense argument: Koch committed the lesser evil; any of us would have done the same. Tanya Moodie presides over both with a firm judicial authority.

Von Schirach ensures the case is far from open and shut, carefully constructing a scenario that pulls in several directions at once. Details complicate the picture the indecision of Kochs commanding officers, the passengers struggling to get into the cockpit but so do emotions. Events are described with painstaking precision, right down to the four passengers sucked out of the blast holes. A dead mans wife describes collecting his shoe from the witness box. Were not just asked to decide between absolutism and relativism, but between action and consequences, intervention and inaction, individual and state.

Terror lets us into the legal system not just to witness the judicial process, but to experience it. We stand in the shoes of jurors, but no matter how seriously one takes the role, each of us, inevitably, falls short. Theres too much information to process, too much at stake to completely detach. Some details snag, others escape you. Its impossible not to tune into emotions to project remorse onto Zhangazhas steadfast certainty, to suspect the prosecution of welling up. How much are you swayed by rhetoric over facts? How much are you persuaded by a soft-spoken woman arguing against a brusque Scottish bloke? The decision, when it comes, comes from the gut, no more or less rational than the pilots pull on the trigger.

If anything, however, the conundrum is too carefully constructed, calibrated to hang in perfect balance. It makes a fun thought-experiment, a riddlesome mind game or an undergraduate ethics seminar, but, as effective theater, its hard to shake the artifice of it all. Youre constantly aware of Von Schirachs manipulating hand. The moment you step back, you see through it. Nothings really at stake here. We are, essentially, deliberating over hypothetical hypotheticals.

The ending the judgment, handed down by the audience blows it. This being a trial, our decision stands. The judge has to defer, and the verdict goes into law. Whether we find the defendant guilty or not, we are, in effect, congratulated on making the right decision. Terror never holds us to account. It never unpicks the ramifications of our verdict, nor examines what that might say about our society. After eight previews, every verdicts been the same: not guilty. Thats huge. It means accepting the idea of self-sacrifice, and that the law can be bent to the circumstances. Terror lets us off scot-free.

Lyric Hammersmith, London; 550 seats; 35 ($45) top. Opened,June 22, 2017reviewed June 20, 2016. Running time:1 HOURS, 55 MIN.

A Lyric Hammersmith production of a play in two acts by Ferdinand von Schirach.

Directed by Sean Holmes; Set design,Anna Fleische;translated by David Tushingham; lighting, Joshua Carr; sound, Nick Manning; costume design, Loren Elstein.

Ashley Zhangazaha, Emma Fielding, John Lightbody, Forbes Masson, Tanya Moodie, Shanaya Rafaat.

Continued here:

London Theater Review: Topical Drama 'Terror' - Variety

In my time at Jesus College, Oxford (1956-58), I must have passed Eric Kenningtons evocative bust of T.E. Lawrence scores of times. It stood in the college lodge, on Turl Street, and portrayed a famous alumnus who had led an early life as an archaeologist before he became a British officer and legendary leader of the World War I Arab revolt against Turkish rule.

What I knew only dimly was that a much-traveled American journalist named Lowell Thomaswho had briefly taught elocution at Princetonwas often credited with the creation of the Lawrence legend, a legend sensationally magnified a generation later by David Leans magnificent film. As viewers of that vivid movie know, Lawrence assumed the leadership of the Arabs under King Feisal. He affected Bedouin costume, becoming an accomplished desert fighter.

Lowell Thomas, for his part, appears in the movie under a pseudonym as a sassy, cynical reporter named Bentley who appears on the scene after General Sir Edmund Allenbys conquest of Damascus, and follows the Arab host on its primary errand: blowing up railroad tracks and slaughtering Turkish soldiers. Its final scenes show a Lawrence a bit crazed by the experience.

The case can be made, writes Mitchell Stephens here, that no individual before or since has dominated American journalism as did Lowell Thomas in the late 1930s and, in particular, the early 1940s. Thomas brought to his craft a resonant voice and a gift for clear exposition. His breakthrough in audio-visual presentation came after the wars end, in a dramatic magic lantern show that drew thousands in 1919 London, New York, and other cities. Though it originally headlined Allenbys exploits, the once obscure Lawrence was an enormous hit, and the program was retitled With Allenby in Palestine and Lawrence in Arabia.

Thomas and his era were well met. They developed together the first phase of radio news broadcasting, whose dominance was prolonged by the postponement of television manufacture by war priorities in World War II. Apart from voice and diction, it was Thomass lifelong wanderlust that was his trump card; and it is well capturedcaricatured may be the more precise termby the bumptious figure of Bentley in Lawrence of Arabia.

Thomass corporate sponsor on NBC radio was Sun Oil. He was paid directly by the sponsoring company, a journalistic practice that would now be deemed irregular and (according to this biography) exposed him to occasional commercial pressures. The author notes one instance when Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed his Four Freedoms and conservative critics such as Sen. Robert Taft and novelist Ayn Rand complained. In a letter of June 8, 1943, Thomas received a caution from his primary contact at Sun Oil, suggesting that he omit further mention of the Four Freedoms. That caution was reinforced by a friendly letter from J. Howard Pew, president of Sun Oil, congratulating Thomas on the popularity of his broadcasts but advising that Roosevelts Four Freedoms be recast in terms of free-enterprise doctrine.

Thomas also narrated the pioneering Movietone newsreels, a medium whose oratorical voice and noisy nationalism would today ring strange in the age of television, the ultimate cool medium.

But to return to the association that first won him fame, it is, perhaps, a question of who created whomwhether Lowell Thomas created Lawrence of Arabia or Lawrence created Lowell Thomas, the showman and broadcaster. The two chapters about Lawrence of Arabia, though they take up only 33 pages, are certainly the most vivid and interesting and the authors notes indicate that this isnt his first treatment of Lawrence.

Undoubtedly, however, Thomass desert rendezvous in November 1918 struck journalistic gold and established a professional trajectory that made him the voice of Americathe voice of and for the middle class and its developing thirst for a form of news more quickly satisfied than by newspapers and magazines. Stephenss claims for Lowell Thomas are reinforced by his globetrotting and his determination to penetrate exotic landseven Tibet, after the Communist takeover in China, to which he and his son trekked at the price (in Thomass case) of broken bones, to interview the isolated 14-year-old Dalai Lama.

Thomas left broadcasting too early to rival the mega-television successes of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, Edward R. Murrow, and others. But his memory is not without its nostalgia. One who grew up in the classic age of radiothe era of the University of Chicago Roundtable, Quiz Kids, Kraft Music Hall, and The Bell Telephone Hour, and not least Arturo Toscaninis NBC Symphony, not to mention popular stars such as Jack Bennycannot resist adding that Thomass era was of an excellence no longer heard on commercial radio or television.

But was Lowell Thomas the voice of America? I must admit a failure of auditory memory. The later voices of Cronkite, Brinkley, Murrow, Eric Sevareid, and others echo in the memory. Even H.V. Kaltenbornanother oil-company-sponsored newscaster-commentator (and my fathers bte noire)retains his staccato echo. But the voice of America is fading out like a dim radio signal, at least for me. Perhaps Thomass voice, midwestern in origins, was destined to become the standard timbre of all electronic communicationand is now lost among all the others.

Edwin M. Yoder Jr. is the author, most recently, of Vacancy: A Judicial Misadventure.

Read the original:

You Were There - The Weekly Standard

Season 3 of Fargo came to a satisfying and poignant close with its finale episode, Somebody to Love. Justice is exacted, stories are told, death is doled and we get a frustratingly ambiguous, yet narratively inevitable ending.

The episode begins with Gloria Burgle submitting her resignation from the sheriff's department. Then we are taken to the IRS agent outlining the litany of transgressions the Stussy company has participated in.

Next, we see Emmit signing papers with Varga peering over his shoulder, making another deal with the devil, as it were.

The IRS agent gets a note from Burgle requesting to talk. Burgle accepts that the case is closed, but the IRS agent tells Burgle of the mass conspiracy he is close to cracking.

Dont move, Ill be right there, Burgle says enthusiastically, Wait, whats your address?

She then removes her resignation notice and takes off.

Nikki, meanwhile, is planning her revenge like a game of bridge. It is revealed that this shrewd woman has already picked up a little sign language.

After we see the title card, Emmit finishes signing V.M.s documents he is simply worn down.

Its perfectly natural, you see it all the time in the wild the smaller animal going limp in the jaws of the larger, Varga says. Food knows its food.

Varga fields a call from Nikki about the next meeting while Emmit eyes the gun in Meemos chest. He grabs the gun in a rage because he was called food. Varga distracts Emmit by giving a monologue about the evolution of technology and says the gun has a fingerprint scanner. He blasts his breath spray in Emmits eyes and Meemo blasts him with a fire poker.

Meemo and Varga go to meet up with Nikki. Their small army follows a Latino boy into an abandoned building, where they follow directions written on the ground up to the third floor. They are playing Nikkis game now. With each direction, they lose more men in their army.

Varga, the coward, hangs back in the elevator while the army checks out the storage hallway. They come to an open storage unit that reads: Leave the money, the drives are in unit 207.

Varga recieves a text from an unknown number that reads: IRS has the drivers. Get Out.

As Varga closes the elevator door on his men with a genuine look of fear on his face, a storage locker door opens. Meemo and the others are gunned down and Varga listens in horror. Nikki is waiting for him at the bottom of the elevator, but she finds an empty coat on the floor and the roof panel taken off. The weasel got away.

A bloodied Mr. Wrench comes down the adjacent elevator with the money, which Nikki gives him for his help. Nikki runs off in search of Emmit.

Speaking of Emmit, he wakes up to an empty house with a stamp stuck on his forehead. He throws the stamp, worth $10,000, on the floor and drives off. He arrives at his offices to find Ms. Goldfarb has taken over.

You work for Varga, all this time. Like a fire door that leads to another fire, Stussy says.

Its a twist that I do not care about at all. But Emmit is instructed to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy because he is $300 million dollars in debt.

We then get an explanation from the IRS agent to Burgle of what Varga did to Stussy lots. He calls it a bleed out. Narwhal acquired Stussy, borrowed millions of dollars, then sold the company for a fraction of the price while it was drowning in debt. The money borrowed is pocketed by Varga and all working in his operation while Emmit has to take care of the debt.

This whole time it was easy to assume Varga was working for some kind of criminal organization laundering money, as Burgle said, but it turns out he is simply a shrewd, ruthless businessman. The only illegal action he took was that he didnt pay taxes; he put all of the money they borrowed into offshore accounts.

Burgle is called to the scene of the massacre Nikki enacted. Burgle, with the knowledge that Nikki is out for revenge, goes to warn Emmit.

Emmit, having a terrible day, continues his unlucky streak as his car breaks down on the side of the highway. Frustrated by his lack of service, as well as the death of his car, company and brother, Emmit smashes his phone on the ground.

Nikki rolls up in a truck with her shotgun in tow.

Are you as low as you can go? she asks.

Emmit thought he couldnt go lower when he turned himself in the day before, but it turned out that wasnt the case, so he is unable to answer her question. Nikki reminds Emmit before she blasts him that he has no one who loves him. Emmit then begs Nikki to shoot him. She starts to give Emmit the quote she got from the stranger at the bowling alley before, in the coincidence of all coincidences, a cop car rolls by to interrupt the line.

Its a long story, but at the end of it we all go home, Nikki says with misplaced optimism.

Emmit apparently changes his mind about wanting to die, as he is quick to whisper to the officer that Nikki has a gun. The officer tries to diffuse the situation and draws his firearm as Nikki creeps back toward her gun. Nikki grabs the shotgun and shots ring out, dropping the officer and Nikki to the floor, leaving Emmit still standing between them.

The officer was shot in the chest. Nikki was shot in the head. With our rogue warrior killed, it is up to Burgle to exact justice the legal way.

Burgle and her son sit on the trunk of her car licking popsicles. Burgle explains what happened to Ennis to her son.

Theres violence to knowing the world isnt what you want, Burgle said.

Its a short but sweet scene, in which Burgle espouses the value of teamwork and friendship as being guiding lights in an absurd, dark world.

Elsewhere, Emmit takes his new lease on life to his wife and immediately begins crying in her arms.

We then get a move very reminiscent of the first season as the show jumps five years later. Emmit has filed for bankruptcy and pleaded guilty to tax fraud. On probation, he was welcomed back to his family. Its very sweet he is praying with his family and everything is happy. Even a recovering Sy is there! I mean, we find out he might have $20 million hidden in an offshore account, but besides that, everything is on the up and up for Emmit Stussy.

Emmit looks over the pictures of his friends and family on the fridge He opens the fridge to get the salad, and the ever-loyal Mr. Wrench shoots him in the back of the head. Is it fair? Who knows. But, as Burgle said, not everything is.

Burgle, now working for the Department of Homeland Security, enters an interrogation room to none other than Varga, now under the name Daniel Rand and the guise of a salesman. The name may be a tribute to Ayn Rand, but I like to think it is an homage to Marvel superhero Iron Fist.

Oh that this was my salvation, a weary traveler I am, Varga says.

Varga gives Burgle a series of vague statements essentially amounting to, You havent got a thing on me. Gloria informs Varga of the Stussy murder.

It is a dangerous world for men of standing, Varga says. Human beings, you see have no inherent value other than the money they earn.

Burgle asks Varga if he killed Emmit. He refuses. Burgle informs Varga that he is going to prison on charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder. She, meanwhile, will go home to her son and prepare for the state fair the next day.

Varga counters her story with one of his own: That a man will come in and tell him hes free to go. And he will leave.

Trust me. The future is certain. And when it comes you will know your place in the world, Varga says.

The lights go down on Varga, Burgle smiles, we see the door and the clock above it, and the episode ends.

The season of Fargo ends the way it began: two people in a room with differing stories, both believing theirs to be the truth. While at the beginning, the two people were debating over what already happened, now they are debating what is going to happen.

As Varga made clear: The past is unpredictable, but the future is certain.

This season finale was strong, as each character gets their own story wrapped neatly but not predictably into a bow.

Nikki is on a path of redemption, but on the way she kills a dutiful police officer, cutting that path short.

Emmit is on his own redemptive path but keeps a lot of his ill-gotten money to himself, so his is also cut short.

Burgle knows her place in the world and is confident that she has triumphed over the devil.

Varga believes he will escape and fade into the world yet again.

My only wish is that Varga got his comeuppance and, depending on how one interprets the show, whos to say he doesnt? His power, money and standing have been stripped from him and he might be headed to prison.

As is typical in Fargo and in many Coen brothers films, the mystical storylines and themes are left open for interpretation.

Season 3 of Fargo may not be the best of the series, but was inventive, took risks and definitely came close to the heights the previous two stories reached.

Excerpt from:

'Fargo' Season 3 finale recap: A mostly satisfying, but ambiguous ending - Baltimore Sun

While most students are busy enjoying their summer break, about 50 Stillwater Public Schools students chose to actively pursue credit recovery in English, math or social studies at Lincoln Academy.

Students, who range from incoming sophomores to soon-to-be graduates, had four weeks to retake a course or two they failed for one reason or another.

The self-paced program, which started May 30 and ends Thursday, allowed students to work through the coursework once credit at a time.

Katie Carlisle, 19, is thankful SPS provides this service for students.

It gives people an opportunity to redeem themselves, she said.

Carlisle failed Algebra II her senior year at Stillwater High, but was able to walk at graduation last month.

Students who are short two or fewer credits are allowed to walk at graduation, Trent Swanson, principal at Lincoln Academy said Tuesday. Two students that walked at graduation participated in credit recovery.

Carlisle will be taking her last Algebra II tests Wednesday.

If I pass the tests, Ill get my diploma, Carlisle said. If I dont pass, I dont know what Ill do.

She plans to continue her studies at Meridian Technology Center this fall where she is studying information technology.

One day she hopes to be a computer forensic investigator.

Also participating in the credit recovery program wash Nick Warne, 15, who was busy working on his last freshman English assignment on Tuesday.

He struggled with the course the first time around.

When the work got harder, I just slacked off, Warne said.

He is enjoying the format at Lincoln Academy.

I like to work at my own pace, Warne said.

Hes not sure if he will attend Stillwater High or Lincoln Academy next year for his sophomore year but he knows he wants to graduate.

Warne hopes to attend culinary school in Colorado and become a chef.

A huge dream of mine is to own my own restaurant, Warne said.

Warne and other students got help along the way from Aaron Frisby, a Lincoln Academy teacher.

I believe in self-paced learning, Frisby said. It is the way we do it here at Lincoln.

He said students read the novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand as a class and have recently been working on their writing.

Students attend class Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m.-noon and are offered a meal from the district each day. The are also given a weekend food bag courtesy of First United Methodist Church.

Swanson said the program is a great way to help students and that he has heard positive feedback from parents.

Im also appreciative of teachers for giving up time in the summer to help kids recover credits, Swanson said.

Twitter: @dbittonNP

See the original post:

Working toward graduation: 50 SPS students participate in credit recovery program - Stillwater News Press

Me, myself and I students take selfies. Photograph: Alamy

Self-love is a tricky issue, and the right amount of it has always depended on perspective. I have healthy self-esteem; youre a bit full of yourself; hes a total narcissist. But in a world where you can buy a stick to hold your phone at the approved distance to take a photograph of yourself, has it all gone a bit too far? And if so, how did that happen?

Will Storrs thoughtful and engaging book comes at the idea of the human selfs relationship with itself from many angles. Early on, he stays in a Scottish monastery and decides that spending ones time this way in the hope of heavenly reward constitutes a lifetime of self-obsession, which seems fair enough at least for these monks who dont do anything useful in the community, such as brewing beer.

Then he interviews a former East End villain called John, a bouncer who later found God. Violent aggression such as Johns, it has long been said, is somehow a product of low self-esteem. Instead, psychologists tell Storr that it is commonly a response to threatened egotism. This leads us to the central strand of his book, which is that high self-esteem per se is not actually all that desirable. As one scientist remarks: Actually people with high self-esteem are pretty insufferable. Which is unfortunate if true, because for decades it was official policy to increase it for everyone.

Storrs account begins in the 1960s, with the establishment in California of the Esalen Institute, a site of therapeutic hippy self-discovery founded by devotees of humanistic psychology, which more or less says that peoples hang-ups are caused by not being true to their authentic feelings. Storr visits the institute, which is still going today, and paints a wonderfully funny picture of how he is encouraged to give his grouchiness full reign, replying to a cheery Good morning! from another attendee with the line: Another day in twat paradise. For a time, this is wonderfully liberating. This was the me I feared the most, Storr writes. He was the lonely man, the angry man, the weirdo. He was the cunt. And, in that moment, I had a terrible realisation. I was loving being the cunt. The funny thing is, though, that the fun doesnt last, and it comes as a huge relief for the author to be nice to everyone again.

The young selfie-taking woman is clearly a victim of the culture she has grown up in, and not a horrible egotist

The problem with the idea of being your authentic self, Storr decides, is that you almost certainly dont have a single authentic self. And if it is true, as Aristotle reckoned, that you become what you habitually do, then encouraging people to be assholes is simply going to produce a lot of new assholes. That is what Storr reckons happened when promoting self-esteem got onto the official political agenda in the 1980s and 90s, both in the US and the UK. More self-esteem was said to be the key to improving educational performance and curing all kinds of social ills, from drug and alcohol abuse to welfare dependency and crime. Promoting self-esteem became central to educational policy. But in fact, the only reliable correlation between higher self-esteem and better outcomes is with exam results, and it turns out that as you might expect high self-esteem follows good exam results, rather than causing them.

Storr connects the Esalen Institute to wider socioeconomic shifts through the figure of Alan Greenspan: a devotee of Ayn Rands monstrous libertarianism, he visited Esalen and then became an influential architect of US economic policy. Thus was constructed what the author calls the neoliberal self, which is our modern cultural construction of what a person should ideally be: An extroverted, slim, beautiful, individualistic, optimistic, hard-working, socially aware yet high-self-esteeming global citizen with entrepreneurial guile and a selfie camera. Whats wrong with this? Well, If its true that we hold within us all the power we need to succeed, then it naturally follows that if we fail then its our fault and our fault alone. The neoliberal story of the self and its limitless potential is thoroughly antisocial.

And what about the internet? Storr provides some telling comedy vignettes from his stay in a house full of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. One young man runs an asteroid-mining company that has not, to date, mined any asteroids. Its never been tried, this pure libertarianism that Ayn Rand was promoting, he complains to Storr. What we need is a chance to give it a go. He wants to try it in space that sounds best for everyone.

Storr also interviews a young woman who takes selfies all day and posts them to Instagram with captions such as Hypnotising, mesmerising me. Her family background conforms to the theory Storr promotes that parental overpraise constantly telling a child he or she is wonderfully special and so forth predicts higher scores on tests for narcissism. This leads him to wonder whether all the various developments he has documented have led to the creation of an entire generation of narcissists.

This is tricky terrain. The word narcissist still carries a strong tone of moral disapproval, yet the young selfie-taking woman is evidently a victim of the culture she has grown up in rather than simply a horrible egotist. Storr is sympathetic to her, but its worth pointing out that the suggestion that an entire new generation of young people is selfish in unprecedented ways is the kind of thing that the grumpy middle-aged have been saying since time immemorial. And recently, quite a few of the young seem to have found time away from selfie-taking to vote for decidedly anti-neoliberal policies. So, although Storrs cultural history is fascinating and often persuasive, his diagnosis of where we are now might well be too pessimistic. Of course, I quite fancy myself for saying so.

Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What Its Doing to Us by Will Storr (Picador, 18.99). To order a copy for 16.14, go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min. p&p of 1.99.

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Selfie by Will Storr review are the young really so self-obsessed? - The Guardian