I meant to note this one a few weeks back, but things were busy. My old philosophy and literature teacher Andy Bernstein (I studied with him at the long-defunct American Renaissance School) has posted a public apology for the apostasy of having written something for publication in the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies (a.k.a. JARS). Those who've never read Ayn Rand might not understand the irony here, but it's heavy indeed. Rand was an advocate of reason and individualism, but you'd never know it from the near Maoist cult of personality that's been created by her true believers. Sad. Even sadder is that it was Andy who (probably unwittingly) cured me of my Randian dogmatism many moons ago. And yes, for the record, I have two articles forthcoming in JARS. Although I'm no longer a Randian, I still find her thought fascinating and worth discussing in a scholarly fashion -- something the true believers avoid for the sake of a specious intellectual hygiene. So much for reason and individualism.