Amidst the clanking of silverware and china-upon-china, you may, if you tune out the din, hear the strong, idealist voice of Ayn Rand settling the guests gathered to celebrate her 100th birthday. The party started yesterday, but oddly, not a soul is leaving.
Those of us who were lucky enough to get invitations are congratulating the host for her literary accomplishments that, as Andrew Stuttaford of the New York Sun calls them, “deal in moral absolutes, [where] protagonists are the whitest of knights or the blackest of villains, caricatures of good or evil.”
So, happy belated birthday, you son-of-a-gun. I lift a highball glass of American distilled whiskey on ice to you, and pledge allegiance to your dedication to individualism, egoism (the good kind), and objectivism.