Visit TRA's Yahoo! Group.
Visit TRA's Discussion Forum.
View a list of TRA's allied organizations.
Submit items to TRA.
We Three Kongs:
December 19, 2005:
Dr. Edward Hudgins reviews Peter Jackson's new film, King Kong, and compares it to two prior versions. Dr. Hudgins thinks that Jackson's film better represents the adventurous, innovative spirit of the original 1933 Merian C. Cooper version, as opposed to the cynical, vapid, politically correct 1976 Dino de Laurentiis remake.
Praxeology and Certainty of Knowledge:
December 7, 2005:
G. Stolyarov II explains how praxeology-- the foundation of Austrian economics-- bridges reason and observation and allows man to obtain certain, accurate knowledge about the nature of existence.
December 14, 2005:
Despite Reginald Firehammer's extensive past promotion of James Valliant's book, The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics, Valliant and his associate Casey Fahy have betrayed Firehammer, instead heaping lavish praise upon Lindsay Perigo-- a rude, authoritarian, decadent ill-wisher toward Firehammer. This is despite the fact that it took Perigo a year to reluctantly admit the truths Firehammer has been saying all along! Mr. Firehammer writes of Valliant's and Fahy's disappointing mindsets.
December 15, 2005:
Those people who think that marriage forces people to stay with romantic partners longer than they want should themselves probably not marry, writes Reginald Firehammer. However, they have no moral right to criticize those for whom marriage-- and its accompanying happiness-- is possible, just like a tone-deaf man cannot legitimately criticize a lover of classical music. This treatise brilliantly defends marriage on the grounds of true romantic love.
December 16, 2005:
Ayn Rand was wrong to equate true romantic passion with rough, quasi-violent sexual behavior-- which any man is capable of toward a woman-- writes Reginald Firehammer. Instead, a truly strong man expresses the utmost tenderness toward the object of his love: the control of his movements to protect, preserve, and cherish his loved one is a manifestation of genuine heroic strength.
How Ideas Work Review Series: Part I
December 18, 2005:
G. Stolyarov II reviews the first chapter of Kent Worthington's book, How Ideas Work, which contains a comprehensive, systematic, and well-presented theory of logic. This chapter addresses the importance of ideas and the methods by which to form accurate ideas that correspond to reality.
How Ideas Work Review Series: Part II
December 19, 2005:
G. Stolyarov II analyzes Kent Worthington's discussion of concepts, how they are formed, the necessity of accurate definitions, and how the absence of clear definitions in the minds of most people leads to grievous "mainstream" fallacies.
How Ideas Work Review Series: Part III
December 19, 2005:
G. Stolyarov II explains Kent Worthington's theory of causality, the three causal relationships, the one-to-one pairing of cause and effect, and the full compatibility of causality and volition.
How Ideas Work Review Series: Part IV
December 20, 2005:
G. Stolyarov II discusses Kent Worthington's ideas on inference, proof, and the crucial difference between generalizations and conclusions. Once generalizations are recognized as types of propositions, not conclusions, the massive historical error leading to the crippling induction/deduction dichotomy can be shattered and a unitary method of inference discovered.
How Ideas Work Review Series: Part V
December 20, 2005:
G. Stolyarov II presents Kent Worthington's discoveries on the need for certainty as a standard for all human knowledge. Hypothesizing and science itself are impossible without the assumption that certain knowledge is possible and that man has a definite grasp of numerous truths.
Fatalistic Nihilism in Memoirs of a Geisha:
December 19, 2005:
Wendy D. Bateman reviews a work of utter nihilism, Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, where the protagonist uses "fate" as a justification for cruelly mistreating a good, productive, rational man who loves her in favor of a decadent, irresponsible man without values. Sayuri objectifies herself completely and feels no qualms about it; she is the quintessential nihilist, constructed by an equally nihilistic leftist academician author.
PBS Continues to Probe into Biased Film:
December 7, 2005:
Even PBS itself is beginning to realize the blatantly anti-father slant of its documentary, "Breaking the Silence," writes Wendy McElroy.The film was an improper project by its producers and the network to use public funds for the purpose of altering the law to unjustly persecute fathers.
December 14, 2005:
This coming Human Rights Day, concerned individuals worldwide should support a human right that would save millions of lives from the predator of malaria: the right to be free from irrational, absurd prohibitions on the remarkable pesticide DDT by the UN, EU, and other First-World governments, write Niger Innis and Paul Driessen.
December 16, 2005:
Father Philip DeVous has visited La Oroya, Peru, home to the Doe Run coropration-- much maligned by environmentalists and "liberation" theologists. Father DeVous has, in fact, observed that the corporation is a model for true social responsibility, consciously striving to improve living conditions in La Oroya and technologically develop the impoverished area. NGOs who have not accomplished nearly so much should cease defaming this beneficent, productive firm.
