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Re: [at-l] who is John Galt?



> John Galt was a Scottish poet who founded the city of Guelph, Ontario. 
> Proud graduate of the University of Guelph.  The other John Galt is in
> Ayn Rand's The FountainHead.  

The protagonist in The Fountainhead is Howard Roark. Confusion
between the two isn't unusual; both characters display about as
much depth and emotion as Al Gore playing poker, and they're
both magnets for babes who like rough sex.

"Who is John Galt" is a question I've been asking myself lately.
Anyway...

  Dagny leaned against the corner of the side window, her legs
stretched forward; she liked the wide, comfortable space of the
car's seat and the warmth of the sun on her shoulders; she thought
that the countryside was beautiful.
  "What I'd like to see," said Rearden, "is a billboard."
  She laughed: he had answered her silent thought. "Selling what
and to whom? We haven't seen a car or house for an hour."
  "That's what I don't like about it." He bent forward a little,
his hands on the wheel; he was frowning. "Look at that road."
  The long strip of concrete was bleached to the powdery gray of
bones left on a desert, as if sun and snows had eaten away the
traces of tires, oil and carbon, the lusterous polish of motion.
Green weeds rose from the angular cracks of the concrete. No one
had used the road or repaired it for many years; but the cracks
were few.
  "It's a good road," said Rearden. "It was built to last. The man
who built it must have had a good reason for expecting it to carry
a heavy traffic in the years ahead."
  "Yes..."
  "I don't like the looks of this."
  "I don't either." Then she smiled. "But think how often we've
heard people complain that billboards ruin the appearance of the
countryside. Well, there's the unruined countryside for them to
admire." She added, "They're the people I hate." 

[Atlas Shrugged, p.261]

--
mfuller@somtel.com; Northern Franklin County, Maine         $
The Constitution is the white man's ghost shirt.  }>:-/> --->




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