Dear Judy,

When her boyfriend broke up with her, a young girl — 17 — committed suicide. She is (was) the daughter of a longtime friend. And to put it candidly, my friend was a so-so mother. Always criticizing the girl, never praising her, telling her she was "fat" or that her grades weren't up to par. Like that.

So I really think my friend's attitude contributed to that poor girl's suicide. My friend talks about it a lot, obviously, keeps pinning the tragedy on the boy who broke off with her daughter. And keeps saying she was always "a good mother."

What should I say? If anything? Should I correct her? In my mind she was an awful mother, and maybe she should acknowledge that.

Lidia

Dorothy Parker: If I trusted you behind the wheel and I wasn't already sipping a martini, you'd have just driven me to drink.

Ayn Rand: How does this serve your rational self-interest? You are a fool.

Freud: Seriously?

Leopold and Loeb: Our superior intellect impels this kind of honesty. Carry on.

Saint Paul: I hate women.

Agamemnon: You know, "acknowledging it?" Doesn't really help that much.

Joan Crawford: Maybe she was fat.

Hume: Honesty is part of letting go. It is seeing the need to let go. (The desire for humility comes from admitting that one is prideful.)

Innocent III: The only sinner here is the miserable girl who's now in hell. Let's pray for her.

Edith Piaf: It was love! IT WAS LOVE, I SAY!

H.L. Mencken: Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. And you make me glad to be dead.

Judas: You're a good friend.

Aurelia Plath: Go to hell, go directly to hell.

[Jack Kerouac was not apparently available for comment at this time.]

A Second Opinion, The Oversharing Widower And A Guilty Mother [Obit]

Earlier: What To Do When You're In Love With Your Sister's Widower?

"How Do I Keep My Sullen Daughter From Alienating My Wealthy Boyfriend?"

Greenspan was a Rand disciple, and his criticism of laissez-faire capitalism had the Objectivists in a tizzy. They were also excited about the increased popularity of Atlas Shrugged, which depicts an economic collapse brought on by socialist regulations. New Yorker writer Lizzie Widdicombe quotes Objectivist Paul Bell, who says:

I learned from Ayn Rand many years ago that contradictions do not exist in reality. Is Alan Greenspan an Objectivist or a statist? Is he controlled by the power in Washington, or did he go there to spread free-market ideals?

We're not sure what these questions have to do with the existence of contradictions, and we're also not sure what the plot of Atlas Shrugged has to do with reality. Asked what Ayn Rand would say about the current financial crisis, fitness consultant Francisco Villalobos said, "I told you so." Which is a little bit like when you tell someone they're going to get hit by a car, and then they get cancer. I told you so!

Another Objectivist's answer to the what-would-Rand-say question is even weirder. "I'm eighty-four and still smoking," this Randian ventriloquized. But Rand was 77 when she died, and would be 104 if she were alive today.

Rand's followers are already planning for their dominion over the streets of post-apocalyptic New York. One suggested that, "when civilization collapses, we'll just have to organize an Objectivist gang." Since Objectivists can't count, though, we're not too worried.

Ayn Crowd [New Yorker]

Both Salon's Broadsheet and New York Magazine recently mentioned the site, which features personal ads like this:

You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice. If you’ve seen the meatbot, the walking automaton, the pod-people, the dense, glazy-eyed substrate through which living organisms such as myself must escape to reach air and sunlight. If you’ve realized that if speech is to be regarded as a cognitive function, technically they aren’t speaking, and you don’t have to listen.

And this:

I love intelligent, sassy girls, particularly those working in consulting or investment banking (but other fields are great too). Really, nothing is hotter than an accomplished girl in a suit, as long as she is willing to settle down and have my children. I want a girl who will support my ambitions against the naysayers in society.

And, my personal favorite, this:

My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don’t know very many).

My boyfriend (probably in an effort to prove to me that he is really not one of these people) points out that on no other dating site would you see the phrase, "people see me as a socially inept loner." Another odd wrinkle: although Salon blog Broadsheet mocked The Atlasphere, Salon writer Lynn Harris appears to endorse it — if that's what the blurb "My personal favorite [niche dating and social networking site]" really means. For all we know, Atlasphere could be her favorite pizza topping — or her favorite place to make fun of assholes who think they're the center of the universe.

Artifact: Free-Market Meat Market [NY Mag]

Does My "Fountainhead" Turn You On, Baby? [Salon]

People often wonder what the fallout of a Crap Email is like. We don't often know! This guy contacted us once, thinking his ex-girlfriend had changed her name to Anna Holmes, even though her name was not Anna; when he finally figured out the deal he good-naturedly defended his doghouse-building skills and retreated back into his proverbial own. Truthfully, he seemed really nice, and I felt a little bad. The same cannot be said for "Christopher Davis," the Ayn Rand prostrating author of last week's "I Am, Right Now, Involved In Something More Important," which many of you felt to be the Douchiest Email Of All Time. Here is definitive proof it was not! A tale told in two parts: one note sent to his ex girlfriend after discovering his Crap Email on our site, one sent to us. (And yes, I bought Ayn Rand's journals last weekend and have been crafting a primer on why she is to be avoided. Although that will seem rather unnecessary in a moment.)

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 7:15 PM, Christopher Davis wrote:

Well done, Class Act.

For the record, I did rather dig you, but on the whole I found you . . . insufferable. And my ex going crazy on you — well, I'm sorry you had to go through that, but, Christ, that's a lot for *me* to deal with. You were already high maintenance enough, but if I had to do damage control every time someone I had no control over sent you a crazy, unsubstantiated email, it just Wasn't Going to be Worth It. I had school to think about. Or was it work? (I honestly don't remember when this was). In any case, something Very Much More Important Indeed, and you just Weren't Being Competitive.

But, honestly, you **remembered**? And you **kept the email?** I didn't even remember your **name**. You've sent me emails before now, and since then, haven't you? And I thought they were spam and deleted them. ("Who the hell is Cynthia O'Brien? Probably a phishing scam." That's what went through my head.)

The thing I don't get, is why this got to you so. You must have really liked me. Which, I mean, if the point is "look out for Ayn Rand fans", then I guess if I wasn't so gosh-darned attractive, brilliant, and good in bed, it wouldn't ever really be an issue, now, would it?

-oh, whatever

—-— Forwarded Message
From: Chris Davis
Date: 30 Jun 2008 20:55:22 -0500
To: moe
Cc: anna

Hi Moe!

This is Chris Davis, whose letter you reprinted in your article,
"Crap Email From a Dude: 'I Am, Right Now, Involved In Something More
Important,'" which one can see here:

http://jezebel.com/5020396/i-am-right-now-involved-in-something-more-importa
nt

Now, I could be writing to tell you that your feature is tasteless,
promotes sexism, and secures its readership by offering slanderous and
sensationalized accounts of events not only to which your staff writers are
not party, but of which they (or you) do not undertake to make yourselves
fully informed before offering your shamelessly inflammatory
editorializations.

But! that is not why I am writing at all!

No, I am actually just writing to direct you to cease and desist
immediately, under peril of potential legal action, your continued
publication of my intellectual property, the exclusive rights to which I,
as the sender of the correspondence in question, retain, which you are
currently publishing without my permission.

Your use of my intellectual property does not constitute "fair use" for the
following reasons:
1. You have reprinted the entire work in question, and not just a portion.

2. The use is not transformative — you printed the work in question word
for word and in its entirety, and there is no question of a lack of
constructive comment or criticism, but rather the purpose of the reprint is
to incite and inflame the passions and frustrations of your readers, for
the purpose of drawing them continually to your website.

3. Per #2, given the target audience of your website and the likelihood
that they have experienced similar situations in their lives, it can safely
be assumed that your sole purpose in reprinting the copyrighted work in
question is to further your revenue by strengthening the loyalty of your
readership, and not for purposes of parody, comment, or criticism on the
artistic merits of the original work.

If you do not comply with this directive within 15 days of the time you
receive this e-mail message, I will reserve the right to initiate civil
litigation for some portion of the revenue that has resulted from the sales
of advertisements that have appeared on the article in question.

Cheers!
— Chris

"Sometimes we all go a little overboard at the mall," the announcer intones empathetically in one spot. "Take an honest look at your shopping habits," advises financial planner June Walbert in another ad. "Do you shop to make yourself feel better?"

Sometimes we fantasize about what women's magazines would be like if they, too, were taxpayer-supported, freed from the shackles of Maybelline ads that force them to "dumb down" their copy and run the same five life tips over and over again. This story is sort of the journalistic equivalent of a huge Ayn Rand turd in the middle of our utopian vision. We are so depressed, we probably need to buy something.

Soldiers, Beware: Mall May Be Risky
Ayn Rand [Wikipedia]