From Irony to Reality in Less than A Lifetime

When our kids were all supposed to be reading Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, who could have guessed that in addition to those classics they really needed to be reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, in order to perhaps understand a little of what seems to be happening in the USA right now. I was reminded of this by an article by Stephen Moore in the Wall Street Jounal online.

I would be elated if my children and especially my grandchildren would recognize what the question "Who and Where is John Galt?" means.

My teachers all grew up in the 20s or before, so they apparently didn't know about them though Orwell was published in the late 40s. Those were the good old days. I didn't read Orwell until sometime in the 70s and Rand only very recently.

We seem to be living in interesting times. Isn't that supposed to be a Chinese curse? Even though Wikipedia can't find the Chinese source, the translation into English has found wide usage among those who consult quotation sources. According to Mr Google, bloggers, essayists and journalists all like to use it, and that is only on the first page of references.