•Race card 
Brandon K. Thorp, Broward-Palm Beach New Times (FL) Theater review.Art is a lot more important than sociology, and any artist who forgets it is liable to replace drama with polemic. Case in point: Look at the windier works of Lee Blessing. Or the more overtly political screeds of Joe Strummer, the entire works of Ayn Rand, the latter-day Susan Sontag, or Stephen Spielberg's Munich. 05:37 PM    View blog reactions

•“It’s just so tacky” 
Steve Rose, The Guardian (London) The notion of the high-minded, uncompromising architects who take it upon their shoulders to single-handedly improve society - as propagated in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead - is still pervasive in the popular consciousness, if nowhere else. 11:03 AM    View blog reactions

•Oil, Nixon and Mao, soulful economists: February nonfiction 
Edward Nawotka, Bloomberg Capsule book reviews."Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement'' by Brian Doherty (PublicAffairs, $35). Doherty, an editor at Reason magazine, offers an astute, entertaining history of thinkers as diverse as Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, who both believed that the best government was the one that involved itself least in the life of its citizens. 11:01 AM    View blog reactions

• •Light ’em up 
Michael Jackman, Metro Times (Detroit) Perhaps no writer waxed as eloquent about meditative smoking as the polemical novelist Ayn Rand. In her mammoth work Atlas Shrugged, she wrote, "I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips." 10:59 AM    View blog reactions

•The doctor in the hallway news report 01.31.07 
Ben Moser, 411mania.com I've often been fascinated with Rand's ideas, but could never make myself finish one of her books. So here's hoping that I'm still going to like the idea of Angelina Jolie saluting captains of industry by the time this flick comes out. 10:58 AM    View blog reactions

•The care and feeding of campus libertarians 
Julian Sanchez, Campus Progress College progressives can take the first step [toward creating a “liberaltarian” coalition] by seeking ad-hoc, issue-specific opportunities for cooperation with their libertarian counterparts on campus. Your first thought may be: “Why bother? If I want to be called a commie, I can watch Fox News. If I want to hear someone quote at length from Ayn Rand… well, I’ll never want that.” But progressives have much to gain from reaching out to libertarians, and this may be an especially crucial time to try it. 06:57 PM    View blog reactions

•Sandler’s photos now on the Web 
Doug Moe, The Capital Times (Madison, WI) So what is UW-Madison philosophy professor Lester Hunt doing in an article in the Observer (of England) about the actress Angelina Jolie? This: Jolie is considering starring in the film version of "Atlas Shrugged," a famously controversial novel by Ayn Rand that has been in Hollywood limbo for years, but now appears to be headed for the screen. Hunt spoke to the Observer as a member of the Ayn Rand Society, which seems enthusiastic about the film project: "When people see this movie," Hunt said, "her ideas will reach more people than all of her books." 11:08 AM    View blog reactions

•This time, it’s personal 
Annika Mengisen, The Street Selfishness is a virtue, said philosopher Ayn Rand, so there's no shame in narcissism, especially if you share it with your special someone to make them feel unique this Valentine's Day. 11:05 AM    View blog reactions

•Rejecting man’s mind 
Bob Felton, Blogcritics On the "anti-intellectualism of Christian fundamentalism."Ayn Rand got it exactly right: "The anti-mind is the anti-life." Man cannot survive without the use of his mind. Fundamentalism might have been defensible when men knew nothing of the world, but to hold to it today is, at bottom, no more than a death wish. 08:27 AM    View blog reactions

•‘BioShock’ bucks convention; ‘Warcraft’ sells big & more 
Stephen Totilo, MTV Video games column.[BioShock designer Ken] Levine [has] read up on Ayn Rand and studied art history. Certainly that can fit into a video game. "You could take a bunch of liberal-arts courses and find 'The Matrix' all throughout it. What they did is they basically said, 'Let's take a tiny bit of this and sprinkle it on top of our action movie. Because it makes our action movie seem cooler.' That's what 'BioShock' is. The architecture ... (and) the Ayn Rand philosophy and the economic theory sprinkled on top." 08:18 AM    View blog reactions

• •Jimmy Wales will destroy Google 
RU Sirius, 10 Zen Monkeys Interview with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.[Q:] I want to come back to your history with Objectivism. And you can tell me whether you’re still an Objectivist or not — but it seems to me that the Open Source movement is perfectly left libertarian idea — the ideas is voluntary collaboration. Do you feel there’s any contradiction there? Or was there a process of conversion from looking at the world from an Objectivist perspective to looking at the world from an Open Source perspective? [A:] No, not for me personally. I’m still very much an objectivist to the core. I think that a lot of the tension people imagine really comes from their not having a deep understanding of some of these ideas. I think I do a better job – than a lot of people who self-identify as Objectivists — of not pushing my point of view on other people. 01:49 PM    View blog reactions

• •A palatable substitute for two-party poison 
Tyler Graf, Oregon Daily Emerald (U of Oregon, Eugene) I became attracted to libertarianism early in college, probably by the time I was a sophomore. Unlike many of my ilk, who salivated over Ayn Rand, I pointed myself in a less structured direction, far from the Randian Objectivism outlined in her poorly written books. (Objectivism is obsessed with the notion of what is "moral." Philanthropy, for example, is terribly immoral to Objectivists.) 07:43 AM    View blog reactions

• • •Jolie to film the cult ‘bible of selfishness’ 
Paul Harris, The Observer (London) Atlas Shrugged is one of the most controversial books in modern literature. It is a passionate defence of Rand's belief that the world is best served when individuals act entirely in their own rational self-interest. Or, to put it more bluntly, they act selfishly. Rand, who died in 1982, founded the objectivist school of philosophy and still has millions of followers. 09:19 AM    View blog reactions

• •Budding book reviewers 
Jillian Price, Portsmouth Herald News (NH) Review of Anthem by a 15-year-old.Rand's novel goes deep within the mind, to the true meaning of a man's freedom. The struggle of one man over the society he has been forced to serve, and over his desire to be different, makes us wonder, what is man's freedom, if not to think for himself? 09:13 AM    View blog reactions

• •Guru: Is it the Indian version of Atlas Shrugged? 
Balaji Viswanathan, Desicritics.org (India) Movie review.Guru is the story of one of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, Dhirubhai Ambani, the founder of the conglomerate Reliance Industries. [....] [T]he director ices the cake with the film depiction of Hank Rearden's extraordinary court scene in the legendary novel Atlas Shrugged. 09:05 AM    View blog reactions

•Salute to a soldier 
Greg Hardesty, Orange County Register (CA) Mark Daily planned to be in Iraq for a long time. True to form, he came prepared. The 23-year-old lugged with him tomes like "War and Peace" and "Atlas Shrugged'' when deployed in October. 09:02 AM    View blog reactions

•What should Bush say in State of the Union? 
Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck (CNN Headline News) (Television show transcript.) Interview with Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, on a proposal to eliminate the wage cap on Social Security taxes.HODGE: Well, we all want to beat up on the rich, or at least the left does, but fact is that, if we look at the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, about two-thirds of them are business-owners, so that's how you create wealth in America. [….] These are the entrepreneurs of America. And why are we beating up on them? BECK: [....] You know what I keep thinking about? I keep thinking about Ayn Rand's book, "Atlas Shrugged." [....] I mean, I keep — all I hear, when I hear this plan is, where is John Galt?  10:03 AM    View blog reactions

•Ask the expert: Entrepreneurship in Europe 
Financial Times (London) Reader questions for Julie Meyer, chief executive of Ariadne Capital.If you are looking for a list of actions to take to bring back ownership of our society into the hands of the people and out of the unaccountable political class, here’s a start: [....] Read Atlas Shrugged and give as many copies of it to people as you can afford. 07:34 AM    View blog reactions

•We the living dead 
Tim Cavanaugh, Reason "The convoluted politics of zombie cinema."The conservative blogger Tim Hulsey sees the undead as a Randian nightmare vision, a mobocracy in which “weak and incompetent corpses band together and achieve a dominance over the living minority that they could not otherwise attain.” 09:33 PM    View blog reactions

•Dissecting Rendell’s ‘Eddycare’ 
Jim Panyard, The Bulletin (Philadelphia) Call it "Eddycare." I do. It's Gov. Ed Rendell's "Prescription for Pennsylvania" to guarantee all residents of the People's Republic of Pennsylvania have health care insurance. [....] Plans like "Eddycare" are often referred to as - among other things - redistribution of wealth. And, like the late philosopher Ayn Rand said, "The goal of socialism is to make everyone equally miserable." 09:29 PM    View blog reactions

•Interview: Ronald Aronica and Mtetwa Ramdoo (Part 2) 
Desicritics.org (India) Interview with the authors of The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas L. Friedman's New York Times Bestseller.[Ronald Aronica:] Friedman is especially destructive when he opines on public matters outside his supposed expertise. His thinking seems to be anchored by Ayn Rand's social philosophy: Let the strong prevail, let the weak pay for their weakness. 11:49 AM    View blog reactions

•The cult of Lee 
Ryan Senaga, Honolulu Weekly (HI) Profile of playwright Lee Tonouchi.Tonouchi is at that point in his creative career where his work is taking on a sort of artistic philosophy, like Ayn Rand, or for lack of a better example, L. Ron Hubbard. [....] Instead of smaller pieces put into collections—like the play Living Pidgin—he should write a novel. He needs his The Fountainhead or Battlefield Earth. 11:44 AM    View blog reactions

• •Democracy thrives when all have access to its bounty 
Roy H. Senn , Utica Observer-Dispatch (NY) Letter to the Editor.A Jan 12 letter writer feels punished for being successful. [....] In his letter, he derides "moral altruism" by quoting from the high priestess of neo-conservatism, Ayn Rand. Rand's views are just plain wrong. [....] Moral altruism is what makes us stand apart from animals. Rather than the egocentric words of Rand, I recommend those of President Bush's favorite philosopher — Jesus. 11:43 AM    View blog reactions

•Asmi Sanghvi 
The Republican (Springfield, MA) Profile of high school student.Favorite Book: Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead." 11:37 AM    View blog reactions

•A mysterious affair 
James Cullum, Fairfax County Times (VA) Profile of author Austin Camacho.Camacho's main character is Hannibal Jones, a fearless black detective who wears wraparound sunglasses and always enters rooms full of hairy-backed goons fearlessly. He has a short temper but, like Ayn Rand's Howard Roark from "The Fountainhead," holds his ideals high, despite the weak morals of a society that will tempt him with the ever present easy way out. 11:34 AM    View blog reactions