Fury

Re "Fountainhead of a New Fury": Why was there so little mention of Ayn Rand's philosophical work? Why was there no mention of the Ayn Rand Society, a branch of the American Philosophical Assn. (an organization of university philosophers, with similar branches for Plato, Aristotle, David Hume and others)? Or of the Ayn Rand Institute, right here in Marina del Rey, which conducts a yearly essay contest on "The Fountainhead" for high school juniors and seniors, and which sponsors academic work in philosophy?

This post has been updated. See below for details.  The riff that San Francisco rock band Thee Oh Sees presented at 3:50 p.m. at the closing moments of their rolling, frantic set, was still running through my head half an hour later, even though half a dozen rhythms from varying locales on the pitch of Coachella had entered it since. That's one tough damn riff, from a new song called "Dead Energy," bass-heavy, smooth-groove house beats 50 yards away in the Sahara tent. The band played a forceful bunch of songs -- at least judging by the four final ones that I saw -- that drove the tightly focused, crowd-surfing fans to adrenaline levels unimaginable the morning earlier.

Irving Cummings Jr., 78, writer and producer who created the television series "Fury" about a black stallion. Cummings produced 139 episodes of the popular late-1950s show, which starred Peter Graves along with the horse. The son of motion picture actor and director Irving Cummings Sr., the younger Cummings wrote such films as "Yesterday's Heroes" and "Deadline for Murder."

Colorado farmers are in udder disbelief. The state's legislators are considering a new law that would ban farmers from taking away natural fly swatters from their dairy cows. Some want to ban dairy operations from carrying out a process called docking -- cutting cattle tails for sanitary reasons. Critics call it animal cruelty. Farmers say it produces more sanitary milk by keeping the tail from dragging in mud and manure. Not only that, but many farmers complain that the practice is rare in their state, so what's the big deal?

The first section of William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" is such a notorious brain twister that any attempt at straightforward dramatization would be almost as foolhardy as trying to resurrect the Old South. Told from the point of view of Benjy, the Compsons' mentally challenged adult son, the narrative hopscotches with such retrospective insouciance that Faulkner was tempted to color-code passages to clarify shifts in time.

Hell hath no fury like a woman suborned. JEROLD DRUCKER Tarzana

It looks like the century is going out in a blaze of fury. RUTH KING Banning

Prior to reading your cogent editorial I confess I had become almost rabid in my fury at the media for what I considered overkill of the President's current physical problem. The net effect of your editorial was to dispel my fury and impel me to applaud your sage overview. WILLIAM DOZIER Beverly Hills

For those of us who've experienced "road rage" on the highway, having recently flown from JFK to LAX, let me offer some equivalent terms you can use when flying the friendly skies. How about "plane panic" or "flight fury?" When you come aboard and you're a "senior," the cabin crew, standing in first class, offer you a weak smile and no help as they watch you drag your carry-on bag down the aisle toward your seat in the rear. Flight fury! Those who board first grab the bin space and stow huge carry-on luggage that should have been checked.

"The Simpsons" is almost certainly the most subversive show in the history of television ("The real first family," Feb. 16), and the way in which the mainstream media have celebrated it brought to my mind a passage from James Agee's introduction to "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men," in which he implores the reader not to view his work as "art": "Every fury on earth has been absorbed in time, as art, or as religion, or as authority in one form or another.

Kudos to writer-director Antonino D'Ambrosio for taking such an eclectic and disparate number of aims, thoughts, subjects and mediums and creating the smart and inspiring - and uniquely whole - documentary that is "Let Fury Have the Hour. " A kind of think/performance piece about what's termed here "creative reaction," the film hears from a stirring swath of socially conscious artists whose work largely emerged as an anger-channeling counter to the Reagan-Thatcher era of conservative individualism.

It could be a dark and stormy Oscar night. Among the historical epics, political thrillers and romantic dramas on the awards scene, several films that feature nature's fury are clouding the horizon. "Life of Pi," "Beasts of the Southern Wild" and "The Impossible" are wildly different films, but all share the mighty power of the environment and their protagonists' helplessness against it. Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" features a boy shipwrecked by a massive storm who winds up sharing a lifeboat with a deadly tiger.

Mormon feminists have hit on fashion to promote demands for a larger say in church affairs: This Sunday is  “Wear Pants to Church Day," intended as a show of solidarity for women's religious rights. Their sartorial flair has triggered some support - along with some bitter anger. The event, which was being promoted on a special Facebook page, had drawn more than 1,200 supporters, a relative handful compared with the 6 million practicing Mormons nationwide.  But by Thursday evening, the original page had been taken down and a new one posted, with this note:  “The event page got taken down due to the death threats.

LAS VEGAS - Picture the lion before the kill. Sitting comfortably in a tony suite backstage at the Mirage casino, comedian Lewis Black was in a mellow mood. A reasonably fit, aging man with black and gray hair and glasses, he seemed a bit professorial as he mulled over a question: What was his best tool to disarm a heckler? Within an hour he would be onstage, face scrunched in disbelief, arms and hands flailing in trademark fury, voice bawling with frustration and anger as he eviscerated politicians, baby boomers and social media while slaying a packed multi-generational house that had turned out to see a 64-year old man complain himself into a rage.

NEW YORK - Fallen trees blocked winding Greenwich Village streets normally jammed with tourists and taxis. Muddy sandbags squished against empty high-rises in the Financial District. The facade of a building had ripped off in Chelsea, leaving apartments bare to camera-toting crowds on the street. For a change, it wasn't just out-of-towners wandering slack-jawed at the sights of Manhattan. Facing a massive cleanup from Sandy's devastation Tuesday, New Yorkers were in a state of disbelief as they realized that America's largest city, for all its museums and Broadway shows, its noisy subways and neon-lighted squares, was no match for a super storm.

PHILADELPHIA - For a man who lives on a pier that juts into the rapidly rising Delaware River, Cain Carducci was remarkably calm Monday afternoon. Carducci, 23, planned to spend the night inside his condominium on Pier 3, a former municipal produce pier on the Delaware. He was not overly worried that Hurricane Sandy, forecast as possibly the most destructive and treacherous storm in modern Philadelphia history, would propel the river's roiling gray waters into his living room. "This building is all steel and concrete," Carducci, a respiratory therapist, said as the river pitched and roared below his second-floor condo.

The nomination of Mayor Tom Bradley for governor promises to do everything for the California Democratic Party that the nomination of Walter Mondale for President did for the national Democratic Party. The coming California gubernatorial campaign will be full of sound and fury and will signify nothing, except the pointless expenditure of vast sums of money. ROBERT S. COUGHLIN Rancho Palos Verdes

Step aside Elvis, the Los Angeles Kings return to the desert for Frozen Fury 15 on Sept. 29 at MGM Grand Garden Arena. The 2012 Stanley Cup champs take on the Colorado Avalanche, and odds are the hometown heroes will rack up another Sin City win. L.A. holds a 10-5 Frozen Fury record while Colorado is 5-8 - so choose sides wisely. Tickets range from $30 to $225 for a seat up against the glass. - Jamie Wetherbe, Custom Publishing Writer   Frozen Fury 15  Los Angeles Kings MGM Grand Hotel & Casino 877.880.

Campaign 2012, Sound & Fury Edition, has reached DEFCON level 2, with no sign of a letup any time soon. It's become vacuous enough to have Americans demanding something better (nominations accepted, see below) but first, for those who  were misguided enough to be enjoying your  vacation, Politics Now recaps what the politicians have been turning into an endless summer: First, Mitt Romney declined to release most of his tax returns, which provoked debate over whether Sen. Harry Reid, the “dirty liar,” should release his own taxes.