But by that time, the whole company might be sold off.

I can still remember when there were five mass-production breweries in the Northwest alone, each operated by a different company.

Fortunately, we now have a wealth of microbreweries, whose broad range of tasty product has long since rendered superfluous the likes of “Colorado Kool-Aid.”

Both Kerouac and Rand are better known today for their celebrity and their ideas than for their prose stylings.

But both authors’ rambling self-indulgences actually serve their respective egotisms.

Both liked to hype themselves as daring rebels, valiantly crusading against the stifling anti-individualism of grey-flannel-suit America.

Kerouac helped provide an ideological excuse for generations of self-centered dropouts and anarchists to proclaim themselves above the petty rules of mainstream society.

Rand helped provide an ideological excuse for generations of self-cenetered tech-geeks and neocons to proclaim themselves above the petty rules of civil society and rule of law.

But at least Kerouac’s devotees don’t go around declaring that the oil companies and the drug companies somehow don’t have enough power.

(P.S.: Digby has much more lucent thoughts than mine i/r/t Randmania.)