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Stephen Colbert is right to be afraid of bears. They lie. At least Smokey did. All those years he told us that “only you can prevent forest fires,” and then, as an adult, I learned the truth, that a lot of forest fires are caused by lightning. In fact, controlled fires supposedly can be beneficial.

Perhaps realizing that the message about forest fires is no longer compelling, the people behind the Smokey Bear campaign have a new ad campaign, dropping the use of the term “forest fires.” Here’s a Smokey Bear commercial with a Disney tie-in, but note that despite the mention of “the forest” it doesn’t feature Bambi, and it refers only to wildfires.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/DEC/SmokeyBear.flv 480 360]

The word “wildfire” makes me think of a sappy 70’s song about a horse, but I think they’re referring to the fires that have ravaged California in recent years. Of course, a big part of the problem in recent years has been the build-out of real estate. Not only does it increase the potential of risk to people, it squeezes out wildlife. But after being misled by the Forest Service for decades, why should I automatically believe the statistic that 9 out of 10 wildfires are caused by humans?

When Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize for Economics a couple of months ago, I said it’s time to leave Milton Friedman behind. Now somebody at Newsweek is wondering the same thing I am about Ayn Rand. Can her ideas survive the economic crisis?

Ayn Rand, full of her fetishes and obsessions, sure wrote some strained and stilted dialogue in her screenplay for The Fountainhead, which was expertly directed and photographed, yet is anything but a typical 40’s Hollywood movie.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/DEC/Fountainhead2.flv 480 360]

Here is an excerpt from the novel, taken from the scene where Dominque follows Howard to his room:

He asked: “What do you want?”
She answered: “You know what I want,” her voice heavy and flat.
“Yes, but I want to hear you say it. All of it.”
“If you wish.” Her voice had the sound of efficiency, obeying an order with metallic precision. “I want to sleep with you. Now, tonight, and at any time you may care to call me. I want your naked body, your skin, your mouth, your hands. I want you — like this — not hysterical with desire — but coldly and consciously — without dignity and without regrets — I want you — I have no self-respect to bargain with me and divide me — I want you — I want you like an animal, or a cat on a fence, or a whore.”

Hey, that’s quite an offer. The free market at work! Ayn Rand wrote a couple of great trashy novels, with literary and political pretensions. College boys ate it up, and somehow her aspirations were legitimized beyond Hollywood. I say embrace Rand as the romance novelist she was, who obsessively painted portraits of her idealized leading man, and stop giving credit for her work being anything more than that.