Another Freedomfest is history. Here's are two Q's and an A that give you an idea of what the crowd is like. In a panel about several people who might be liberators or tyrants which focused in on a debate about Augusto Pinochet, a woman asked, "Do you think the contrast between Allende and Pinochet comes down to a sort of Platonic ideal versus Aristotilian pragmatism?" A: "Yes, that's a good way of putting it. The South American idea of the caudillo is very like a philosopher king." Q2: "Could you explain the last question? I don't even know what a plutonialism is."

And this'll give you a picture of me in Vegas. One day I'd had a bagel at the morning break so I wasn't hungry for lunch, so I walked over to Fake Paris and had a glass of wine at the bar. "Do you know you're in a bar in Las Vegas and you're reading a book?" a blowsy bottle blonde asked me, as she placed her own order. "And I'm forty-one goddam years old. What are you reading?" I showed her Atlas Shrugged. "That's one of those smart people books," she said.

"Forty-one's nothing," I said. "You're entering the best years of your life."

"Please explain to me how that's true."

"You're now free to be who you are. It's hard to change a 25 year-old, it's impossible to change a 41 year old. You are now free to read a book in a bar in Vegas if that's what you're inclined to do."

"You're right," she said. Then she told me she would like to have sex again, but "her man" has a bad back, and I couldn't really offer her any comfort on that score. "I'm going back to the roulette tables," she said finally, "and thanks for your wisdom!"

You're welcome, skanky lady, you're welcome.