SJC JEWELRY AND DAMON DENYS' GOLD STANDARD

With this post I want to shift my readers' attention from Osama bin Laden's way of using gold to attract terrorists, to a positive and productive way of using Aurum. My friend Christer Sjöback has placed an ad for his goldsmith business, SJC Jewelry. For further inspiration, check out Damon A. H. Denys's painting, Gold Standard, at Cordair Fine Art gallery. I found out about Mr. Denys' new painting from Chris Davis' post, Tools of the Trade.

Do you want more fuel for your soul? Read the following excerpt from Ayn Rand's book, Atlas Shrugged. The quote is taken from a dialogue between Dagny Taggart and Owen Kellogg:

There was no printing on the package, no trade name, no address, only the dollar sign stamped in gold. The cigarettes bore the same sign.
"Where did you get this?" she asked.
He was smiling. "If you know enough to ask that, Miss Taggart, you should know that I won't answer."
"I know that this stands for something."
"The dollar sign? For a great deal. It stands on the vest of every fat, piglike figure in every cartoon, for the purpose of denoting a crook, a grafter, a scoundrel—as the one sure-fire brand of evil. It stands—as the money of a free country—for achievement, for success, for ability, for man's creative power—and, precisely for these reasons, it is used as a brand of infamy. It stands stamped on the forehead of a man like Hank Rearden, as a mark of damnation. Incidentally, do you know where that sign comes from? It stands for the initials of the United States." [Atlas Shrugged (1957), Part Two -"Either-Or," Chapter 10 - "The Sign of the Dollar," page 630.]