First of all, “Optimus Prime Mover,” I think that a person who wants to take the tone of hauteur you’ve taken with me ought to have the courage of his convictions and use his real name, as I have in every post I’ve put up here. If you’re an academic, you’re protected by the canons of academic freedom and should have nothing to worry about in using your real name (not that you have anything to worry about otherwise, unless you live in Saudi Arabia or North Korea).

There’s no deficiency of reading comprehension in my post. Kimball’s post is “obviously” full of commentary on Rand. Well, I’ve asked some rather simple questions about that commentary. If Rand’s views are “thin gruel,” as he puts it, what views does he have in mind (question a)? And why are they thin gruel (question b)? His say-so has limited probative value. The claim about “thin gruel,” you’ll notice, is about Rand’s work, not Daniels’s essay. Behold the powers of reading comprehension.

I don’t need recommendations on how to read–thanks. I especially do not need them from people who themselves do not know how to read or think, despite the airs they assume on the subject. A little bit of logic should tell you that if Daniels’s piece was an attempted rebuttal of Rand (not really a review of the Heller or Burns books), and Kimball’s piece is an attempted defense of that rebuttal, Kimball’s piece has to contain criticisms of Rand, and my questions are perfectly relevant. A little more thought would have revealed the obvious: an editor would not have published a “review” like Daniels’s unless he thought its claims had merit, as Kimball clearly does. But I realize that requests for logic or thought in this forum are unlikely to go satisfied.

For future reference: I’m not the sort of person to be much intimidated by some anonymous guy’s comparing me to his undergraduates. I’m more inclined, when confronted with such a guy (or gal), to wonder about his pedagogical competence, and to wonder whether his undergraduates are getting their money’s worth from whatever he does in the classroom. If those are the questions you’d like to raise, feel free to keep writing as you have.