The second time I read AS was right after I read it the first time. I read it outloud to my wife over a few weeks.
My father’s business partner required my dad to read it before he would invest in him.

“Within 12 hrs he was in bad shape” That is when doctors recommended Tylenol. Studies show that Tylenol inhibits the bodies ability to defend against heavy metals. Of course RFK jr was attacked for exposing the correlation. Don’t FuQ with the mighty JNJ. Glad your son is doing so much better.

That's another whole issue. Fortunately, No, this is not their issue.

But before anyone pushes back on how "safe" all of these additives are,
based on how "few" people have issues with them.

The punish IVM, but ignore deaths from Vioxx. Most people do not know
how awful SOME of these things are for SOME kids. it's wildly variable.
In one child, the red dye in his "favorite" drink was the root cause of his ADHD behavior.
After months of being good, he comes home (in trouble) from school, and is a screaming nightmare. One of his teachers rewarded him with a lollipop, he took the RED one...
And that's something else EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW.

Food addiction is REAL. And we are almost ALWAYS Addicted to a POISON.
Cigarettes, Alcohol, Sugar. These things kill you... Albeit slowly, and only at the ABUSE levels.

Someone explained it like this: Most poisons, when consumed, trigger Detox Pathways. Often times, increasing your metabolism to get rid of stuff faster. Many times this triggers either endorphins, or dopamine. Those become addictive pathways...

MSG is my favorite (sarcasm). It causes Seniors to eat 30% more calories without noticing. And we find it in EVERYTHING. It gives me headaches, but ALSO makes me RAVENOUSLY hungry. (I am talking FOOD COMPETITION type eating. It totally hijacks my brain, everything LOOKS GOOD and TASTES great and I cannot get "enough"). Luckily it is only 4-6hrs.

it tickles the addiction center of the brain in so many people.

After realizing Fluoride Lowers IQ... And watching parents scream to keep it.
I've all but given up.

I wonder if your friend's shopping cart looks anything like this, CaptainKird? This is child abuse. By the manufacturers. I'm pretty sure the parents don't know any better. It's not like anyone is trying to tell them.

https://youtu.be/RBAkW4s2-GI?t=1534

What is his lie? Do you see it? To whom is the lie directed?

OMG that is just so painful to watch! (I'm just starting it; will have to watch over a period of time.) I have a grandson who fortunately is not nearly as affected as this. And yet there are the signs.

Is it this, Abaco?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBAkW...

Abaco, thank you for sharing your story.
I am very curious... What did you leverage to help your son? (If you say MMS/CDS I will literally faint, as I just learned of them).

And what did you do to help your father?

If you wonder why I am asking... It's simple. I am usually good at spreading good ideas.
My favorite was finding information on HIV to NOT take AZT, 3TC, etc. And we got it to Magic Johnson... He stopped taking the meds because 1-2 months without the meds can't hurt, he was HEALTHY before he found out, only got "sick" after taking the drugs. Sure enough, he got better (still alive today), but he "signed papers", he cannot speak publicly or he loses everything. He just had to stop being the AIDS Czar. We've never met. I knew a friend of his (who has since passed) that knew him from Michigan State, where I went to school and also where I learned so much about the entire HIV=AIDS scam.

It's also where I learned the concept of "Forbidden Knowledge". There are things we are forbidden from SHARING. It's okay if we know them. It becomes dangerous to share them.
Careers are lost.

Anyways. I am HAPPY for you and your family. Well Done!

Finally, I have a friend whose 9yr old daughter is non-verbal autistic. And it's killing him.
He has shared custody, and he has to be super careful, because his EX will use anything against him to take away his access to her...

He seems conflicted....(read it a few weeks ago)

Just before one year old my son got four vaccines in one doctor visit, including the MMR (which is the one most often referenced). Within 12 hours he was in bad shape, and never recovered. I have videos and pics of him as a baby, of course. Like me, he was big and strong...on track to be a football player. At 8 months he was 100+ percentile in weight and height. By about two years old he was 15 percentile in weight, drooled uncontrollably, had long lost any sort of eye contact, had gut yeast overgrowth up into his mouth (his digesting track never recovered), stemmed, hit himself, toe walked, flapped his hands and was almost totally nonverbal....all the classic symptoms. I determined that vaccines were the problem after extensive biological testing and we went after that. His recovery was unprecedented. A film crew in Iceland who was starting to work on a documentary on how different countries were tackling autism heard about our success and came over and filmed him and interviewed me for the documentary - "The Sunshine Boy". The filmmakers took some of my footage from before and after the onset of autism for the documentary. They also filmed him in his recovery to show the improvement.

I am 100% sure that vaccines play a role in autism, AFL, possibly diabetes (especially childhood), asthma, dementia, and certainly Alzheimer's (with the newer mRNA). They paralyzed my dad at 70 years old. He was a vaccine addict, taking every one he could get access to. This was about ten years ago. I warned him, "Dad, you're going to get hurt." Eventually, the antibodies from all the vaccine adjuvant built up in his body and his antibodies started attacking his muscular neurons. He was totally paralyzed, on a feeding tube in an ICU. The doctor (having trained at an institution financed by Big Pharma), said, "He's had a stroke, we just can't find it. He'll be dead within a week." I had my dad's wife hand him a note from me saying, "My dad has a very rare disorder you call myasthenia gravis. His antibodies are elevated." My dad told me the story. As he laid there with a feeding tube in his throat his doctor came in with seven other doctors and said, "Your son had this note routed to me. We're going to put something in your IV to temporarily knock down your antibodies and see if he's right." I was right. One doctor said, "Do that again. I've never seen that before." My dad was unparalyzed and able to speak for a few minutes, but they knew he had something that could be treated. Bought him five more years.

At 20 years old my son recently went out for the PGA players test when it was here in town and shot the lowest round in the event. He almost never practices. Just raw talent. Hits the ball into 400 yard par 4 holes off the tee sometimes. Something to see. Has had a few girlfriends. Drives. He's a very sweet young man. I helped a lot of families for about 15 years. Then covid happened and I never got back into it. I rarely talk about it publicly. Only here and with a few close friends. I've gone pretty Galt on the matter...In mulling this and related things over I've recently had the thought, "Vaccines, fine. Forced vaccination, bad." If you're being coerced to take a pharma product all you have to do is look at history. And if vaccines are safe and effective why are people who get fully vaccinated so afraid? If they are effective, why worry? It's a very convoluted and emotional thing for a lot of people. It's our new religion.

That's funny...

Holy smokes!!!! I'm not alone!!!!

Borrowed the audio version from the library. Was listening to in while commuting to work. Left the box on the front seat. After work I found a note in my windshield "Who is John Galt?"

Yes! And it happens without me even realizing it. Then, 20 minutes later, I'm wondering what happened....

Not just you, gharkness, a droning or unclear speaker gets relegated to background noise and my mind moves on...

I think the narrator on mine was a woman. Just didn't fit. Then again, I prefer actual reading, as I have trouble listening without my mind wandering. But that's just me.

I had a boss who had an entire cabinet in his office full of Ayn Rand books, mostly AS, which he gave away to anyone who would take them. This was long after I had been introduced to objectivism by someone who was literally not even in the same universe with AR intellectually. I also got out fast.

My boss was much like your "true bastard," as he was one himself, though our relationship was different. I wouldn't say he was a James or a Francisco (my very favorite character, even above John Galt), but just a Galt-wannabe.

As an aside, I was absolutely astonished, knowing him as I did, and his family, and his reputation, to read his obituary. I am not sure where they hired the writer but it was definitely someone with a strong background in fiction writing. If someone had left the name off the obituary, I would not have known who they were talking about.

The narrator of my CD series is Scott Brick. He is quite good, IMO. There is at least one other version with a different narrator.

I first read AS back in 1990, I was 25 at the time. I had my software engineering degrees and had been out in the world, putting those degrees to work at IBM. I found the book to be fully engrossing, a real page turner, taking just a few days to digest it all. And when I put the book down, I had only two words: "Of Course." I did not know Rand, but I thought, this author must be an engineer for she certainly has an engineering mind. The text and story flowed, much like the process of software design, coding, testing, delivery in terms of the waterfall model. It all simply added up. It could not have turned out any differently. Since that time, I have picked up the book and read it another 6 or 7 times. I have also listened to the reading of the text while on the road.

Over these past 35 years, I have been witness to the shared observation that Rand was a writer, philosopher and a prophet. When I think about books to read, I have several shelves full of them ... and yet I am drawn back to having AS sitting on my desk, in sight, and within reach. At times, when I need to hear a dose of plainly simple rationality, I will play a bit from the book -- The Money Speech, or the Story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company ... or the part where all the producers tell Dagny why they are on strike.

I enjoyed the film adaptations, given their limited budgets. I wondered what those films could have been like given the budget and directorial acumen of Peter Jackson (LOTR). Just sitting here, now, I am visualizing that scene where, with his mills under siege, Reardon hears d'Anconia's words and finally makes his decision to go on strike. And yet, the book is filled with scenes both grand in their presentation and intimate with the subtle mental changes in awareness in the characters. We are instructed in the book, and compelled to exercise in real life "Check your premise."

I was in grad school and working full-time.

I keep giving my well worn paperback copies away and buying another. I never tire of reading it at least once a year since my late 20's.I met AS through a true bastard (very naive, didn't realize it for awhile, but got out fast) who fancied himself a modern Francisco. He even gave himself a five name pedigree with a number, but from a Commonwealth nation. Once I read the book, he was gone from my life. Not a Francisco, but a James.

Read the first page and ask yourself why Eddie is lying.

Curious about the Autism. Is it the typical situation. Your child was fine, then a vaccine, then within a day or so, it was either a completely different child, or at least you saw the change coming????
Losing eye contact. Losing the smile/joy expressions in the face.

Very curious. In most "civil" environments, we are NOT ALLOWED to ask these questions.
Which is wrong. I am sorry this happened to your son. (As an example, I had a cousin who was dying from SIDS when his mom found him and saved his life. He was basically brain dead from loss of oxygen and had to be raised in an institution. She cannot discuss it, which I can understand). (Wyeth vaccine deaths were pushed under the rug, I later discovered)

I read it four times, but not recently. I probably should go back again, especially in light of all the crap going on these days.

And I made it through about ten minutes on audio, Abaco, and bailed. I could not stand the voice of the narrator.

Finish that second half !