•Cartoon choice backfires 
Washington Square News (NYU) Editorial on a New York University panel discussion of Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed.Freedom of speech — as has been pointed out ad infinitum since the controversy began — extends to the freedom to insult and offend. At an Objectivists’ event, they had the right to display whatever they want without bending to opponents. The Islamic Center, however, offered a number of alternatives to simply not showing the cartoons, and it would have easily been possible to arrange to show them for a short time, so those who would be offended wouldn’t have to look at them. 08:40 AM    View blog reactions

•What’s happening to boys? 
Leonard Sax, Washington Post On the lack of direction of today's young men.In Ayn Rand's humorless apocalyptic novel "Atlas Shrugged," the central characters ask: What would happen if someone turned off the motor that drives the world? We may be living in such a time, a time when the motor that drives the world is running down or stuck in neutral -- but only for boys. 08:28 AM    View blog reactions

• • •The ultimate oxymoron: Baby killers are pro-life 
James F. Csank, MichNews.com The phenomenon of baby killers rationalizing their sacred “right” as being “pro-life” is found in an essay by Leonard Peikoff, the man designated by Ayn Rand (the Queen of Greed) as her intellectual heir. 10:17 PM    View blog reactions

• •Danish cartoons inspire debate 
James Schwartz, Washington Square News (NYU) Report on a New York University panel discussion of Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed.During the discussion, [Peter] Schwartz criticized the Islamic religion, saying that it forces its followers to imprison themselves in dogmatic traditions. “The philosophy I subscribe to is objectivism, which believes reason is man’s only knowledge,” he said. 10:15 PM    View blog reactions

• •Prayer and protest 
Sarah Brummett, Washington Square News (NYU) Report on events surrounding a New York University panel discussion of Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed.The event’s sponsor, the Objectivist Club, decided to only display blank panels after NYU demanded that it close the event off to the public if it chose to display the cartoons. 10:12 PM    View blog reactions

• •Cartoons discussed but not shown at NYU event 
Bradley Hope, New York Sun Report on a New York University panel discussion of Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed.Four blank pedestals were left behind the speakers to symbolize what one member of NYU's Objectivist Club, Ryan Puzycki, called "a hijab on free speech." The Objectivist Club is devoted to the philosophy of the author Ayn Rand. 09:26 AM    View blog reactions

•What Palestinians? 
Philip Klein, The American Spectator At one point in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, the hero Howard Roark is approached by the conniving villain who wants to destroy him, Elsworth Toohey. Toohey offers Roark an opportunity to express his true feelings. "Why don't you tell me what you think of me?" Toohey asks. "But I don't think of you," Roark responds. [....] [I]n Tuesday's elections, amid record low turnout, Israeli voters collectively sent a message to Palestinians: We don't think of you. 09:23 AM    View blog reactions

• •Book World Live: Francis Fukuyama 
WashingtonPost.com Transcript of online discussion with Francis Fukuyama, author of America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy.Dallas, Tex.: I have heard that you are a follower of the Ayn Rand philosophy. Is this one of the basis for neo-conservatism? [....] Francis Fukuyama: Ayn Rand's ideas appeal to mostly male adolescents and is not a serious approach that can be dignified by the word "philosophy." They played no role in my thinking or those of other neoconservatives. 06:34 PM    View blog reactions

•Collectivism, climate change, and economic freedom 
George Reisman, Free-Market News Network There is a different, diametrically opposed philosophy, which has all but been forgotten. It is rarely, if ever, taught in our “culturally diverse” educational system, whose diversity consists in the teaching of numerous varieties of collectivism [...]. The name of this different philosophy is individualism. Its most important advocates are Ludwig von Mises and Ayn Rand. 06:29 PM    View blog reactions

•Poor Ben Bernanke 
Bill Bonner, LewRockwell.com We pity poor Ben Bernanke. We have a feeling he doesn't know quite what he's gotten himself into. Greenspan was wily, cynical, and opportunistic. He had been an objectivist, and an acolyte of Ayn Rand. He knew how the Fed worked and he knew how to look out for Number One. 06:26 PM    View blog reactions

•Open immigration 
Harry Binswanger, Immigration Daily Here is a short list of some great immigrants: Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Graham Bell, Andrew Carnegie, most of the top scientists of the Manhattan Project, Igor Sikorsky (the inventor of the helicopter), Ayn Rand. Open immigration: the benefits are great. The right is unquestionable. So let them come. 06:25 PM    View blog reactions

•Chris R. Tame: Founder of the Libertarian Alliance 
Sean Gabb, Le Québécois Libre Obituary.In all the usual debates – natural rights or utilitarianism as a foundation, or anarchism or minimal statism as an object – the Libertarian Alliance would take no collective position. Nor – though Chris was himself a committed follower of Ayn Rand – would it copy the arbitrary intolerance of the official Objectivist movement. It would instead provide a forum within which the debates could be held between friends. 10:51 AM    View blog reactions

• •Engraved on America’s tombstone? 
Frosty Wooldridge, American Daily Commentary opposed to the "invasion" of the US by Mexican immigrants.A noble citizen wrote me last week with quotes from the late Ayn Rand, “Which of these two variants of statism are we moving toward: socialism or fascism? To answer this question,” she said, “one must first ask: which is the dominant ideological trend of today's culture?" 02:06 PM    View blog reactions

• •Mark Cuban 
Brian Lamb, Q & A (C-SPAN) Interview transcript.BRIAN LAMB, HOST: Mark Cuban, how many times have you read ”Fountainhead?” MARK CUBAN, ENTREPRENEUR: Three complete times and untold number of little snippets and segments. And you know it’s funny because I’ll pick it up when I need motivation but then if I read too far I get too much motivation and I get too jittery so I have to put it down. 02:02 PM    View blog reactions

• • •Who stole the common good? 
Julian Edney, Swans The common good didn't just expire one day from lethargy. Humans are naturally sociable. They like to make new friends and get into things. So we're looking for a force, an idea, that's powerful enough to destroy what we do naturally. Ayn Rand's ideology was that force. 08:19 PM    View blog reactions

•Get a glimpse into the mind of Mark 
Dallas Morning News On a C-SPAN interview.Where did a young Mark Cuban find inspiration? In the works of Ayn Rand, of course. 08:11 PM    View blog reactions

• • •Rand Redux 
New York Times Excerpt from the first issue of The Objective Standard. (The journal is not Canadian as stated; it is published in Virginia.)The Objective Standard is a new Canadian journal based on Ayn Rand's philosophy of Objectivism. The first issue opens with an editorial statement that advances the magazine's point of view with admirable forthrightness. 12:22 PM    View blog reactions

•It’s a tale of two approaches 
Jenny Staletovich, Miami Herald On the "Oprah-fication of literature" that critics see in school districts' high-school reading lists stressing "easier" books at the expense of traditional classics.The College Board's 101 Great Books, suggested for college-bound students, include very few of the contemporary works that populate district lists. Willa Cather, Ralph Ellison, James Agee, Herman Melville and Thomas Pynchon all make the cut, but not the perennial favorites of school districts like Amy Tan, J.R.R. Tolkien and Ayn Rand. 12:12 PM    View blog reactions

•Frazz 
Jef Mallett, Comics.com Comic strip.Caulfield: Athletes warm up. Musicians do scales. Artists sketch. Why shouldn't I get to read a book before the big test? Frazz: Well, when it's "Atlas Shrugged," it can look a little like stalling. 10:21 PM    View blog reactions

•Matt Ruff 
William Dietrich, Seattle Times "Portraits" column on author Matt Ruff.His second [novel], "Sewer, Gas & Electric," is a takeoff on "Atlas Shrugged" in which the resurrected Ayn Rand is trapped in a hurricane lamp while the Tower of Babble is being reconstructed. 08:49 AM    View blog reactions

•Colts’ new place-kicker gets started on right foot 
Phillip B. Wilson, Indianapolis Star On football player Adam Vinatieri.Well read: Self-motivated, hard-working achiever is inspired by the 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged," written by Russian-born philosopher Ayn Rand during the Cold War. 08:44 AM    View blog reactions

•Taqueria Downtown rules! 
Pete Genovese, Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) Restaurant review.A Mr. Bill bobblehead is perched atop a candy jar; the walls are plastered with photos of basketball players, snowboarders, album covers and such messages as "Enchiladas Rule!" There is a shelf of paperbooks -- Camus, Carlos Castañeda, Ayn Rand and others -- and the house music is'60s and'70s-flashback material -- Grateful Dead, Traffic, Santana, CSNY. 08:41 AM    View blog reactions

• •Distribution of cartoons ignites controversy 
Christine Higgins, Johns Hopkins News-Letter (MD) President Dr. Yaron Brook and Senior Fellow Dr. Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute, which advocates objectivism in America, represented an individualist perspective and maintained, "The individuals at this University and every other have the right to display whatever images they like under the first amendment of the Constitution." 02:25 PM    View blog reactions

•GAO: Katrina-related contracting practices reflect waste, layers of byzantine networks 
Kathy Gill, About.com I'm [...] reminded of these prophetic words of wisdom from my late-mother: "Kathy, it's not what you know, it's who you know." I rejected that (in my view, cynical) worldview at the time (my teens), perhaps because I was flush with libertarian philosophy a la Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Rand, of course, could look at this example and say "I told you so." Or, "I warned you." 02:24 PM    View blog reactions

•Excerpt of ‘The Last Witchfinder’ 
James Morrow, USA Today Book excerpt.The precise metaphysical procedures by which a book goes about writing another book need not concern us here. Suffice it to say that our human scribes remain entirely ignorant of their possession by bibliographic forces; the agent in question never doubts that his authorship is authentic. [....] The twentieth century offers abundant examples, from The Pilgrim's Progress cranking out Atlas Shrugged, to Les Misérables composing The Jungle, to The Memoirs of Casanova penning Portnoy's Complaint. 08:55 AM    View blog reactions