•Cut & paste: We seem to be forgetting that Van peddled in death 
The Australian Excerpt from an article on former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser in the January-February 2003 issue of Quadrant magazine.In a 1980 speech he unambiguously committed himself to the virtues of free competition of ideas, opinions, services and goods within an ordered community. He did invite Friedrich Hayek to the Lodge. It was not for nothing that Fraser gained his Randian reputation. 10:13 AM    View blog reactions

•Why oil company profits are just 
Paul Damon, Vermont Cynic (U of VT) Large investments are especially necessary at a time of stress upon Exxon Mobil, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell, a stress magnified by nature upon the existing pressure from a government that has gone beyond, in the words of Ayn Rand, "its legitimate functions-which are the police, the army, the law courts. When a government steps beyond these functions, it becomes an economy's destroyer." 10:12 AM    View blog reactions

•Smashing gadgets--social experiment or society crumbling? 
Michelle Meyers, CNET News Response to a trend in smashing gadgets such as iPods and Xboxes."Their response to the phenomenon a happy man, is to take his happiness and mangle it. This is what Ayn Rand so eloquently identified as, 'hatred of the good for being good.'" --The Benjo Blog 10:06 AM    View blog reactions

•No, this is the story of the hurricane 
Cathy Young, Reason Online "For too many pundits, left and right, Katrina was just another front in the culture war."Several conservative sites [...] ran a shrill screed by Robert Tracinski, editor of the Objectivist journal Intellectual Activist, who opined that the real devastation in New Orleans was a “man-made disaster” caused by “criminals and welfare parasites.” 11:23 PM    View blog reactions

•Vanishing 
Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Artnet Reviews of three photography exhibitions, including "Julius Schulman: Modernity and the Metropolis," at the Getty Research Institute.Schulman rarely included people in his compositions, so one of the most poignant images depicts a 1947 house designed by Neutra for the director Joseph von Sternberg in what was then the rural countryside of Northridge. A semi-circular metal wall embraces the end of a patio and pool where Ayn Rand and her husband Frank O’Connor recline on lounge chairs. The Fountainhead author who endorsed man’s ability to achieve greatness was marveling, perhaps, at the genius of the architect’s design. 11:16 PM    View blog reactions

• •Conservative intellectual confusion 
Grant Jones, Hawaii Reporter For centuries conservatives have denied the contradiction between altruism and capitalism. In 1960 Ayn Rand gave a lecture at Princeton University on this topic titled: Conservatism: An Obituary. 11:12 PM    View blog reactions

•A moral philosophy for progressives 
Ernest Partridge, Democratic Underground An argument for moral relativism.When we see ourselves as equals in a community of equals, with basic rights no greater or less than those of the others, we are able to assume the perspective of a benevolent but unbiased observer of that community – what philosophers call "the moral point of view." From this perspective, moral quandaries may be readily resolved – the same quandaries that are insoluble from the egocentric point of view preferred by regressives and celebrated by Ayn Rand and her disciples. 11:09 PM    View blog reactions

• •They sort of serve who only stand and wait 
Frank Mickadeit, Orange County Register (CA) On Bruce Cohen, a Libertarian candidate for Congress.While he likes some people at the Irvine-based Ayn Rand Institute, there has for decades been a rift between Randists and Libertarians because many of the former still hew to Ayn Rand's rantings about the latter, whom she called "a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people" and "intellectual cranks." (And they always speak so highly of her.) 11:00 PM    View blog reactions

• •Picking on Wal-Mart: union critics just wasting their time assailing retailer 
Ron Galloway, Hartford Courant (CT) By the producer of the documentary "Why Wal-Mart Works, and Why that Drives Some People Crazy."In "Atlas Shrugged," John Galt is a fabulous businessman and inventor, yet is constantly criticized for benefiting society as a whole through his innovation and success. In the book, the question is famously asked, "Who is John Galt?" Sam Walton is John Galt. 09:57 AM    View blog reactions

•Transformation lessons from India 
Alec Hogg, Moneyweb (South Africa) Report on a visit to India.Everywhere in Kolkata I was hit by evidence that the communists who run West Bengal have taken a leaf from the book of their cousins in China: talk Maoist but act Ayn Rand. Construction cranes are all over with a massive “New Kolkata” being created as a future technology hub to the east of the city. 09:53 AM    View blog reactions

•Military action on Iran likely to come 
Joseph McHugh, American Chronicle What an irony: The enemies of Israel looking for Israel to save the world. It is a perfect illustration of Ayn Rand’s point that the world depends on its producers, while simultaneously loathing them. 10:14 PM    View blog reactions

•Charity isn’t enough 
Russell Sadler, BlueOregon Charity is deliberately designed to make the well-to-do feel good about themselves during seasons we are supposed to “help others.” The rest of the year conservatives and self-styled Libertarians practice Ayn Rand’s “Virtue of Selfishness.” The poor remain an out-of-sight, out-of-mind disposable low-wage workforce to serve those who can still afford to live well. 09:32 AM    View blog reactions

•Ghost of Machiavelli lurks in letters to a rural New Hampshire weekly 
Gary Larson, IntellectualConservative.com License plates here declare “Live Free or Die.” A more succinct recap of Objectivist philosophy one could not hope to find, with apologies to my early hero Ayn Rand. This first-primary state is, dare we say?, still mostly live-free conservative, except for virtually 100% of academia. 10:44 AM    View blog reactions

•‘I have no aspirations of being No 1’ 
Daily News & Analysis (Mumbai) Profile of actress Upasana Shukla.I de-stress by reading. My favourite books are Jane Austen’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’, Ayn Rand’s ‘Fountainhead’,  Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ and Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’. 10:42 AM    View blog reactions

• •The student revolution 
Murray N. Rothbard, LewRockwell.com Reprint of article from 1969.We are particularly puzzled by that legion of "libertarian conservatives" who condemn the kids unreservedly for "initiating violence." But who has initiated violence? [....] Particularly grotesque was the Randian argument, put forward by Robert Hessen in a widely distributed article, that Columbia was private property and that therefore the students were and are everywhere violating the sacred rights of private property. 10:58 AM    View blog reactions

•Media blasts from the past 
Kevin List, Scoop (New Zealand) Like so many Ayn Randian notions though, it sounded better in theory than in real life. 10:45 AM    View blog reactions

• •Give thanks for what you have 
The Daily Times (Salisbury, MD) According to the Ayn Rand Institute, which espouses the ideals and philosophy of the late author of "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead," as well as a plethora of other fiction and nonfiction works, Thanksgiving is a day to celebrate consumerism, wealth and material abundance. 08:55 AM    View blog reactions

•Ready, set, shop! 
InformationWeek "Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday. ... The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production." -- Ayn Rand 08:54 AM    View blog reactions

• • •Thank you, Ayn Rand 
Scott Holleran, Box Office Mojo What has Ayn Rand, who stood for reason, capitalism, individual rights and self-interest, to do with the movies? The answer: not much, not yet, which partly explains and is explained by the state of movies. But the answer is also: more than you think. 08:48 AM    View blog reactions

• •Thanksgiving tribute to U.S. production 
The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg ,SC) As Dr. Gary Hull, co-editor of The Ayn Rand Reader and senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif., says: “Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday, because this country was the first to create and to value material abundance." 08:45 AM    View blog reactions

•A holiday of unique meaning(s) 
In-Forum While the writer from the Ayn Rand Institute harshly dismisses any religious meaning in the holiday, the writer from the group American Destiny apparently is unable to see anything but religious meaning. Both are a tad extreme. 08:44 AM    View blog reactions

• •Offering a holiday tribute to United States production 
Jonas Hogg, The BG News (Bowling Green State U, OH) One of the great thinkers of the 20th century once espoused, “Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday... The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.” Ayn Rand, the Russian-born American writer and philosopher understood with her foreign perspective what many American natives fail to grasp. 02:45 PM    View blog reactions

•Family, friends recount last days 
Heather Ann White, The Shorthorn (U of Texas at Arlington) On the mysterious death of student Samuel J. Lea.Cameron Kyle, photography senior and Lea’s good friend, was one of the last people to see Lea on Tuesday, Oct. 25. [....] Kyle said that they talked about normal things like schoolwork and that Lea was on an “Ayn Rand kick”. 02:41 PM    View blog reactions

•Thanksgiving brings thanks 
Chris Eckel, Daily Collegian (UMass, Amherst) I'm thankful for Jonathan Harr, Ayn Rand, Bill Bryson, and Robert Kurson, authors who remind me how powerful the written word can be. 02:23 PM    View blog reactions

•Gender’s chaotic battlefield 
Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times (FL) Commentary on topics raised by Maureen Dowd's book, Are Men Necessary?Ayn Rand's long affair with her protege Nathaniel Branden ended after Rand found out he had more than his eyes on a young model. She was outraged, thinking that her fierce intellect should have been attraction enough. It wasn't. 10:44 AM    View blog reactions