Daily Archives: July 8, 2017

The Fountainhead, part 1, chapter 10

Peter Keating is attending a party thrown by another architect, a pompous old windbag named Ralston Holcombe who designs state capitols and other monumental buildings. He secretly despises Holcombe and is only there for appearances sake. Hes glancing at his wristwatch, calculating the time when it would be permissible to leave, when he notices another guest across the room. Its Dominique Francon:

She stood leaning against a column, a cocktail glass in her hand. She wore a suit of black velvet; the heavy cloth, which transmitted no light rays, held her anchored to reality by stopping the light that flowed too freely through the flesh of her hands, her neck, her face.

So her skin is transparent? I cant picture this scene in my head without imagining her as a glass frog, which you have to admit changes the tone somewhat.

Peter goes to find Guy Francon, asking him to make introductions. He does, but then excuses himself as soon as possible, as if he cant stand to be around his own daughter. Dominique seems to be amused:

I have waited to meet you for such a long time, Miss Francon.

This will be interesting, said Dominique. You will want to be nice to me, of course, and yet that wont be diplomatic.

What do you mean, Miss Francon?

Father would prefer you to be horrible with me. Father and I dont get along at all.

Peter tries to brush this off, insisting that he can make up his own mind about her regardless of what her father thinks. Dominique is unimpressed:

Dont say that Im beautiful and exquisite and like no one youve ever met before and that youre very much afraid that youre going to fall in love with me. Youll say it eventually, but lets postpone it. Apart from that, I think well get along very nicely.

But youre trying to make it very difficult for me, arent you?

Yes. Father should have warned you.

He did.

You should have listened.

See, that was funny! Even though Rand hardly ever writes satire, lines like this almost make me convinced that she had a hidden talent for it.

Its a common problem in fiction to make the heroes into humorless do-gooders, and this was especially pronounced in Rands case. The seriousness of their mission rules out all fun. Often, its only the bad guys who get to be clever and witty and complex, because theyre not bound by moral standards and can say whatever theyre thinking. That certainly seems to be the case here. By the time Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged, she was no longer willing to give herself that license, and we got villains who were as bland as the heroes.

Trying for a compliment, Peter tells Dominique hes been reading her column. He remembers too late that one of her latest entries was an attack on his work. Shes undaunted, apparently taking it for sarcasm:

Oh, yes, she said. The Ainsworth house. You designed it. Im sorry. You just happened to be the victim of one of my rare attacks of honesty. I dont have them often. As you know, if youre read my stuff yesterday.

Ive read it. And well, Ill follow your example and Ill be perfectly frank. Dont take it as a complaint one must never complain against ones critics. But really that capitol of Holcombes is much worse in all those very things that you blasted us for. Why did you give him such a glowing tribute yesterday? Or did you have to?

Dont flatter me. Of course I didnt have to. Do you think anyone on the paper pays enough attention to a column on home decoration to care what I say in it? Besides, Im not even supposed to write about capitols. Only Im getting tired of home decorations.

Then why did you praise Holcombe?

Because that capitol of his is so awful that to pan it would have been an anticlimax. So I thought it would be amusing to praise it to the sky. It was.

I admit Im having trouble picturing the typical reader of Dominiques column. She could be the architectural version of a catty gossip columnist or a ferocious movie critic, affording her readers the entertainment of seeing which withering insults shell unleash on the latest crime against good taste.

But apparently, thats not her idiom. More often, she praises places she hates, just for the sake of her own private amusement. So does her column appeal to bored housewives and dilettantes who dont know any better? Or is it for jaded cynics who enjoy seeing garish buildings trashed in print? It seems anything that would appeal to one of those demographics would turn off the other.

Peter asks her if she knows Ellsworth Toohey. She replies in the affirmative, and even says she admires him, despite the fact that he has principles and she has none. She calls him sheer perfection in his own way:

Sometimes, when I feel bitter against the world, I find consolation in thinking that its all right, that Ill be avenged, that the world will get whats coming to it because theres Ellsworth Toohey.

What do you want to be avenged for? She looked at him, her eyelids lifted for a moment, so that her eyes did not seem rectangular, but soft and clear.

That was very clever of you, she said. That was the first clever thing youve said.

Why?

Because you knew what to pick out of all the rubbish I uttered. So Ill have to answer you. Id like to be avenged for the fact that I have nothing to be avenged for.

Peter tries to continue the conversation, but she abruptly seems to lose interest and drifts away to talk to someone else. Later that night, he meets Guy again, who offers to drive him home while making excuses for Dominiques behavior and lamenting his failures as a father:

I never know how to speak to her. He sighed. Ive never learned to. I cant understand what in blazes is the matter with her, but something is. She just wont behave like a human being. You know, shes been expelled from two finishing schools. How she ever got through college I cant imagine, but I can tell you that I dreaded to open my mail for four solid years, waiting for word of the inevitable. Then I thought, well, once shes on her own Im through and I dont have to worry about it, but shes worse than ever.

This is a small thing, but its so telling: Dominique has no backstory, no explanation for how she came to be this way. A good author, when introducing a character, will explain or at least hint at the life experiences that shaped them into who they are now, so that we the readers can understand them and sympathize with their choices. We have nothing like that in her case.

Granted, characters with no origin and no backstory are a common trope in Ayn Rands novels. Witness Howard Roark in this one, or John Galt in Atlas Shrugged. But at least Rand writes her solitary heroes to have no families or close friends, so it makes sense that no one has insight into them.

For her part, Dominique has a father. But even he has no idea why she is the way she is. The text mentions vaguely that her mother died at a young age, which could provide an interesting and plausible explanation of how her faith in humanity was shattered. (Imagine a scene where Dominiques mother promises to always love and care for her only to break that promise by dying, which leads Dominique to decide shell never trust anyone ever again.)

But as far as Im aware, the text never suggests this or any other explanation. It doesnt even seem interested in posing the question. Dominiques perverse nihilism is a given. Even the characters who want to cure her of it have no interest in finding out why she holds those views to begin with. This fits with Rands general style, where the characters arent really characters, but philosophical principles disguised as human beings.

Image credit: Orest via Wikimedia Commons, released under CC BY-SA 2.0 license

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The Fountainhead: Serpent's Tooth - Patheos (blog)

And it's against the rules to have a child more than 2 on your lap for a whole flight.

Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

There was little Taizo sitting in his own seat on a flight from Houston to Boston.

He's 27 months old, so this must have felt like something of a treat. His mom, Shirley, had paid almost $1,000 for his seat.

She was on her way to a teacher conference.

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Suddenly, Taizo's fun was cut short. Another passenger turned up with a boarding pass for his seat. And promptly took it.

Shirley told Hawaii News Now that she explained to a flight attendant that she'd paid for that seat. They couldn't possibly give Taizo's seat to this standby passenger, could they?

She said the flight attendant said the flight was full and shrugged like Atlas.

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Giant Rabbit Dies United also faced another controversy whenagiant rabbit being transportedon one of its planes died in the cargo duringa flight.According to The Sun newspaper, the animal, named Simon, was the son of the worlds largest rabbit -- a four-footlong continental rabbit called Darius --and was expected to have grown larger than his father.

Something very strange has happened and I want to know what. Ive sent rabbits all around the world and nothing like this has happened before," said owner Annette Edwards.

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Bride and Groom Booted From Flight Abride and groom traveling to Costa Ricafor their wedding in Aprilwere escorted off a United Airlines flight after they noticed a man sleeping in their seats and decided to move up three rows as to not wake the passenger. However, it was an "Economy Plus" seat and although the passengers said they complied to return to the seats, a U.S. Marshal removed them.

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Altercation Between American Airlines and Mother American Airlines suspended a flight attendantwhile investigating a scuffle between him, a mom and two babies. In a viral video, a woman is seen hysterically crying while holding a toddler, with a male flight attending yanking away the stroller for her second child.g a scuffle between him, a mom and two babies. In a viral video, a woman is seen hysterically crying while holding a toddler, with a male flight attending yanking away the stroller for her second child.

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Delta Worker Threatens Passengers With Jail Time EarlyMay, aSouthern California family saidthey werekicked off an overbooked Delta flightbecause they refused to give up a seat they had bought for their young son sitting in a car seat.They were asked to have their son sit on their lap for the duration of the flight.They refused, saying they paid for the seat, to which the airline staff threatened the family with jail time.

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Spirit Airlines Riot In May,Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport descended into total chaosafter nine Spirit Airlines flights were canceled, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded and increasingly irate in the terminal. The cancellations were the result of a legal dispute between the budget airline and the Air Line Pilots Association International.

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Teen Trapped in Airport Alone Overnight According to CBC News, a 15-year-old boy was "trapped" overnight in an airport alone when Air Canada rebooked him on another flight after he missed his original one. However, the flight was almost 24 hours later and the airline did not offer him any accommodation or vouchers for food. Because he is a minor, he could not get a hotel room, he says.

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Passenger Forced to Pee in a Cup Also in May,apassenger claimed she was forced to pee in a cupaboard a United flight after flight attendants told her she wasnt allowed to use the lavatory until the pilot had turned off the fasten seatbelt sign.

The woman, who had an overactive bladder, was told the flight attendant would be filing a report about the incident.

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Did I mention this was a United Airlines flight?

"I had to move my son onto my lap," Shirley told Hawaii News Now. "He's 25 pounds. He's half my height. I was very uncomfortable. My hand, my left arm was smashed up against the wall. I lost feeling in my legs and left arm."

This, by the by, appears to be against United's own rules. Any child over 2 years old has to have his or her own seat. Yet here the mother was holding her son for three and a half hours.

Moreover, the FAA warns against holding a child over 2: "Your arms aren't capable of holding your child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence."

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Shirley said she was scared to speak up more because of the United incident with David Dao, infamously dragged bloodied from a flight after refusing to be bumped.

"I started remembering all those incidents with United on the news," she said. "The violence. Teeth getting knocked out. I'm Asian. I'm scared and I felt uncomfortable. I didn't want those things to happen to me."

I contacted United and a spokesman told me: "On a recent flight from Houston to Boston, we inaccurately scanned the boarding pass of Ms. Yamauchi's son. As a result, her son's seat appeared to be not checked in, and staff released his seat to another customer and Ms. Yamauchi held her son for the flight. We deeply apologize to Ms. Yamauchi and her son for this experience. We are refunding her son's ticket and providing a travel voucher. We are also working with our employees to prevent this from happening again."

How does one scan a boarding pass "inaccurately"? It seems like a fairly simple process.

If Yamauchi's telling of the tale is accurate, surely the most disturbing thing is that no one seems to have wanted to fix the problem before takeoff.

After the Dao incident, United CEO Oscar Munoz was at pains to explain that staff would now be given more freedom to behave with common sense.

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Yamauchi says she had proof that she'd paid for the seat. She surely had two boarding passes.

Wouldn't the right thing to do have been to explain to the standby passenger that the airline had made a mistake?

Oh, you'll cry, but he paid a lot of money for his ticket too.

KITV news reports that he paid just $75.

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United gives toddler's seat to standby passenger, makes mom hold him for whole flight - AOL