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December 15, 2011

Where's Dagny Taggart When You Need Her?

"California's proposed bullet train will need to soar over small towns on towering viaducts, split rich farm fields diagonally and burrow for miles under mountains for a simple reason: It has no time to spare." Apparently, some people in Sacramento think this is a bad thing.

"In the fine print of a 2008 voter-approved measure funding the project was a little-noticed requirement that trains be able to rocket from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles to San Francisco in no more than two hours and 40 minutes" the L.A. Times says. It certainly didn't escape my notice when I wrote about Prop 1A in October 2008. For me, that requirement was essential, after having watched the lofty promises of Amtrak's Acela gradually compromised until it became nothing more than a really pretty, sorta fast, very expensive train. I also pointed out that Prop 1A required engineering so that "Trains will not be forced to slow down when passing stations." Did nobody in Sacramento read this? It all is obviously very expensive and very desirable (IMO).

And speaking of Dagny Taggart, the Blu-ray version of Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 is available at Netflix now, so I got it and watched it, and I have this to say: it is not nearly so terrible as all the reviewers said. OTOH, it's not good. I've never made a movie, so I don't know where to lay blame for actors who rush woodenly through their lines. Are they bad actors? Were they being encouraged to pick up the pace to keep the movie under 1½ hours? Were there scowling Objectivists lurking in the shadows behind the cameras making them nervous?

The novel needs to be made into a mini-series, which would give it the breathing space it needs. The smart producer would make John Galt's speech one full episode in the mini-series. This would allow those who are not fans of Objectivism or Ayn Rand to easily skip over that. Heresy, I know. But how many people who bought the book do you think actually read every word of that speech?

Filed under Books,California,Film/Movies,Libertarianism | permalink | December 15, 2011 at 09:20 AM

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