In an earlier podcast, you were questioned concerning Ms. Rand’s Russian-accented English and the difficulty of others to understand her. I have a tape cassette of Ms. Rand reading her “The Simplest Thing in the World”. I could not imagine anyone else reading this peice better. She was brilliant and the story is one of my favorites. More importantly, I found her voice wonderful.
Did she say anything concerning Henry Dorn to you? What other characters in Romantic Comedy does he compare to?

Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

Most Rationally,
Edmund Bonczyk, $

PS. Your piano studies have inspired me to tackle Helmholtz’s “Sensations of Tone”. The local university has an edition dating 1895. As always, may The Best Within Us Bless you and yours.

I am now 18, and have realized that a number of things I did as a young teenager were immoral. Here is one example: While playing with plastic BB guns with friends, I trespassed in two different properties, leaving a number of small white plastic BB’s in both. The BB’s are probably now covered up by accumulated dirt and plant matter. It is beyond question to me that the trespassing was immoral, but I am not sure what action I should take now.

I also have accidentally done things that may have harmed property of others: Once while hiking I accidentally dropped my water bottle, and it rolled down the hill out of sight. It may have landed in a private property.

And lastly I have done things that caused minor harm to the property of others, but which I found acceptable nonetheless: I flew a paper airplane off of a hill, and it landed somewhere in a residential area, probably in a yard.

I am trying to decide whether I should now go to the trouble of giving the owners of these properties money to clean up. In most of the mentioned cases, finding and compensating the injured party would be exceptionally difficult and time-consuming.

I have thought about the story regarding Abraham Lincoln, in which he walked 3 miles to return 6 cents that had been mistakenly taken from a customer. I think that such an action is rather silly and is not the behavior of a productive man concerned with matters of significance. Yet I cannot find a way to justify compromising on a principle. I suppose that this issue may be one of “how many hairs make a beard;” although it is obvious that compensation is necessary in major cases, there is a lower border of significance that is not clearly defined.

If I reduce the question to absurdity, I can see that, if I were compelled to compensate the victims of every harm I cause, I would have time for nothing else. For example, what of the gravel that shoots out from under my car’s tires and lands in roadside properties? And when I go out in public with a cold, the germs coming from my mouth and nose sometimes reach other people and attack them. When my cats go outside, they often exit my yard and “trespass” in other yards, causing I know not what mischief. When I use my basketball hoop, I create moderately loud noises of ball against backboard which reach my neighbors; and when I shot a raccoon out of one of my trees, the sound of the shotgun was deafening. Clearly there must be some delineation of how much harm is enough to warrant compensation.

I have to take a moment to thank you again for your podcasts. They are literally guiding me through my studies.

I’m reading the Bible again, after ignoring it for three decades, and themes like malevolent universe and nihilism are exactly what the Bible is all about.

I can’t thank you enough.

Your grateful student,

Gordon Webb

What are your opinions on Buddhism?

I am an Objectivist, and my boyfriend of five years is a Buddhist. While I understand and respect his beliefs, I can feel no emotion towards them.

I appreciate many of the tenets, however, I don’t feel I can support them in any capacity. Is there any answer you can give me to help me understand me confusion, or is this independent of my philosophy?