The Portfolio

1. Matthew Giattino McGee 1B The Portfolio

2. The Table Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ~Matthew 10:34

3. The List • Visit Israel • Learn the ways of the Jedi • Travel the world • Fight a bear • Beat a world record • Visit a mosque • Have a roundtable discussion with an Atheist, a Protestant, and Catholic, a Jew, and a Muslim • Give political insight • Get a genius grant • Have a part on a T.V. show • Learn how to annotate • Create a funny joke that goes viral • ???? • Profit • Write a book • Be interviewed on a talk show • Be a part of a flash mob • Have a private library • Learn to play drums • Learn to forget or embrace the past • Go skydiving • Be happy with my level of education • Sign an autograph • Change a life • Take a long walk along a beach • Climb a mountain • Be quoted • Learn Hebrew • Achieve enlightenment

4. The Story I’m kind of a big deal.

5. The Writing

6. The Writing

7. The Writing

8. The Writing I Don't Mean To Brag But... Carpe Diem.My mama always said "here, eat these chocolates."I'm the king of the world.I'm the brains of the operation.I have many leather-bound books.I make Sherlock Holmes look like Bill Preston.It was I who killed the Beast.I AM talking to Robert De Niro.I drive my DeLorean at 88 mph.The force is with me.Those apes got their damn dirty hands off me.If I build it, everyone comes.I once refused an offer from the Godfather.I can handle the truth.Hasta ahora, baby.I'll be back.I do feel lucky, punk.Giattino. Matthew Giattino.I'm kind of a big deal.

9. The Writing Atlas Shrugged – An Analysis Atlas Shrugged is a novel with an average science fiction plot. However, what makes this novel different from the average “alternate universe,” “what if?” novel, is that characterization in Atlas Shrugged works to create not only the characters and plot, but also the theme and moral standing for the novel. The several ideas presented in the novel that serve as its theme are strengthened by character interactions and developments. As the novel opens, the reader is presented with a group of core characters with which to begin the moral journey that is Atlas Shrugged. James Taggart, president of Taggart Transcontinental, is all about keeping his business alive, but is faced with a difficult choice: keep his company thriving, or be faithful to a friend, a decision that, in the end, he is unable to make. Taggart represents the average businessman during that time period, having to choose between great success and moral obligations. The ideas that one should work for oneself and that productivity is a virtue are strengthened by Taggart’s inability to choose, eventually causing failures throughout his company. Another industrialist that helps move the plot and theme is Ellis Wyatt, the head of Wyatt Oil. He has almost single-handedly revived the economy of Colorado by discovering a new process for reviving what were thought to be exhausted oil wells. When the government passes laws and decrees which make it impossible for him to continue, he sets all his oil wells on fire, leaving a jeering note: "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." Wyatt is one of the first industrialists to go missing during “the Strike.” One particular burning well that resists all efforts to extinguish it becomes known as "Wyatt's Torch". Wyatt’s Torch becomes a symbol for the ongoing struggle to uphold the morals in which Rand injected into Atlas Shrugged, that one’s property is just that, and cannot be taken by a government by force without accepted retribution.

10. THE WRITING Edwin "Eddie" Willers is the Special Assistant to the Vice-President in Charge of Operations at Taggart Transcontinental. Willers represents the common man in this world of giants: someone who does not possess the Promethean creative ability of The Strikers, but matches them in moral courage and is capable of appreciating and making use of their creations. In the end, he stays with a broken-down train in the middle of the desert, like a captain going down with his ship. It is unclear whether or not the strikers or anyone else will return to save him, as he is one of the many “casualties” in the struggle between the industrial elite and the socialistic government. Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia, owner by inheritance of the world's largest copper mining empire, began working on the sly as a teenager in order to learn all he could about business. While still a student, he began working at a copper foundry, and investing in the stock market. By the time he was twenty he had made enough to purchase the foundry. He began working for d'Anconia Copper as assistant superintendent of a mine in Montana, but was quickly promoted to head of the New York office. In this way he proved that, though unlike other characters he was born to wealth and power, he could have made a successful career all by himself. He took over d'Anconia Copper after the death of his father, and secretly began to slowly destroy the d'Anconia empire so the looters could not get it. His actions were also specifically designed both to "trap" looters into relying upon, or seizing, his worthless ventures to disrupt their schemes and to try to show them and the rest of the world the inevitable consequences of looting. Henry "Hank" Readen is a self-made man who started as an ordinary worker, showed talent, founded Rearden Steel and made it the most important steel company of the country. Later, he conceived of and invented the Rearden Metal, a form of metal stronger than steel. Rearden is aware that there is something wrong with the world but is unsure of what it is, but is guided toward an understanding of the solution through his friendship with Francisco d'Anconia, who does know the secret.

11. THE WRITING Dagny Taggart is the Vice-President in Charge of Operations for Taggart Transcontinental, under her brother, James Taggart. However, due to James' incompetence, it is Dagny that is actually responsible for all the workings of the railroad. The key issue with Dagny's character is her struggle to reconcile the life she lives and the railroad which she loves, with the moral code of those who wish to destroy it. She believes they simply want to heap burdens upon her, for the sake of others, which she has the ability to carry. Like Hank, she believes they basically want to live, but are too stupid and incompetent to realize how their duties and altruistic projects impede that goal. It is not until she sees John Galt strapped to a torture machine that she realizes that the moral code of the looters is one of death: that they recognize what is good and necessary for life, but wish to destroy it anyway. One of the original strikers, Ragnar Danneskjöld is now world famous as a pirate. Ragnar was from Norway, the son of a bishop and the scion of one of Norway's most ancient, noble families. When he became a pirate, he was disowned and excommunicated, and there is a price on his head in Norway, Portugal, and Turkey. Danneskjöld seizes relief ships that are being sent from the United States to The People's States of Europe. As the plot progresses, Ragnar begins, for the first time, to become active in American waters, and is even spotted in Delaware Bay. People assume that as a pirate he simply takes the seized goods for himself. However, while many other protagonists take pride in making a personal profit from the proceeds of their creativity, Danneskjöld's action is to restore to other creative people the money which was unjustly taken away from them, specifically their income tax payments. He explains this is not altruism; his motivation is to ensure, once those espousing Galt's philosophy are restored to their rightful place in society, they will have enough capital quickly to rebuild the world. The proceeds from the goods he seizes are deposited in accounts opened in a bank in the names of various industrialists, to the amounts of the income tax taken from them - which are handed to them, in gold, upon their joining the strike.

12. THE WRITING Kept in the background for much of the book, Danneskjöld makes a personal appearance when he risks his life to meet Hank Rearden in the night and hand him a bar of gold as an advance payment, to encourage Rearden to persevere in his increasingly difficult situation. As a robber with ideological principles, Danneskjöld might be compared with Robin Hood, but he considers himself as the opposite of that what Robin Hood is remembered for, and indeed he considers Robin Hood as an arch-enemy which he had sworn to pursue and destroy. Rather, not Robin Hood the person, who is long dead, or even what Robin Hood stood for, giving back what was stolen by corrupt officials to those it was stolen from, but what Robin Hood has come to be remembered as the principle that it is permissible to rob the productive rich and give to the poor. The book's opening line "Who is John Galt?" becomes an expression of helplessness and despair at the current state of the world. Galt is acknowledged to be a creator and inventor who symbolizes the power of the individual capitalist. He serves as an idealistic counterpoint to the social and economic structure depicted in the novel. The depiction portrays a society based on oppressive bureaucrats and a culture that embraces the mediocrity and egalitarianism of socialistic idealism. In this popular mass ideology, the industrialists of America were a metaphorical Atlas of Greek mythology, holding up the world, whom Galt convinces to "shrug," by refusing to lend their productive genius to the regime any longer. After graduating Patrick Henry University, Galt becomes an engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he designs a revolutionary new motor powered by ambient static electricity. When the company owners decide to run the factory by the collectivist maxim, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," Galt refuses to work there any longer and abandons his motor.

13. THE WRITING During the main plot, Galt has secretly organized a strike by the world's creative leaders, including inventors, artists and businessmen, in an effort to stop the motor of the world, bringing about the collapse of the collectivist society. While working incognito as a laborer for Taggart Transcontinental railroad, he travels to visit the key figures that he has not yet recruited, systematically convincing them to join the strike. At one point in the novel, Galt takes over the airwaves to deliver a lengthy speech explaining the irrationality of collectivism and offering his own philosophy as an alternative, describing the major themes of Atlas Shrugged as well as its moral philosophy. Galt spoke against what he saw as the evil of collectivism and Christian ideas of collective sin and guilt, and said they should be replaced by enlightened selfishness and individualism. Eventually, Galt is captured by the oppressive government and is tortured and eventually put to death, solidifying his role as the novel’s Christ-like figure. John Galt serves as the physical manifestation of everything Atlas Shrugged was written to explain in regard to moral philosophy, the themes of the novel. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand is a novel in which the characters serve to move forward not only the plot, but also the themes and overall moral code presented. The origin and evolution of certain key characters in the novel explain the importance of select moral values and reveal the many themes of the work.

14. The Soul

15. The Artifacts

16. The Artifacts Dear Mommy, Sinse you yelled at me I am starting a life time gob. And when I’m dun I’ll be rich. I will onle share with A.G.(Andrew Giattino) and D.g.(Dad Giattino) Matthew

17. The Artifacts

18. THE ARTIFACTS

19. THE ARTIFACTS Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. ~Proverbs 22:15

20. An Extra Piece of Semi-original Writing To beard, or not to beard: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe itches and complaints of an outrageous mother,Or to take face against a sea of despair,And by opposing end them? To destroy: to shave;No more; and by a pluck to say we endThe head-ache and the thousand natural hairsThat chin is heir to, 'tis a perfectionDevoutly to be grow’d. To destroy, to shave;To shave: perchance to grow again: ay, there's the rub;For in that shave of death what growth may comeWhen we have pulled off this mortal bind,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long beard;For who would bear the itches and complaints of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despised hair, the man's delay, The insolence of mother and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare face? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary beard,But that the dread of something underneath,The undiscover'd country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those hairs we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!The fair Beard! Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my scratches remember'd.