•Musikfest is no threat to young volunteers 
Bill White, The Morning Call (Allentown, PA) I was a fence-sitter [in the early-90s controversy over mandatory community service], although I decried the attempts to equate mandatory community service with slavery and suggested that opponents needed a better role model than author Ayn Rand. 08:33 AM    View blog reactions

•Choice Cuts with John Bell 
Taylor Hill , Jambands.com Interview with John Bell, of the band Widespread Panic.A: Atlas Shrugged is a freaky book, you ever read that? Q: No, Ayn Rand scares the hell out of me. A: Yeah, it’ll mess you up for a few months after reading that. 08:28 AM    View blog reactions

•Scott Herhold finds Nasmeh curiously calm 
Fredric N. Tulskyand Connie Skipitares, San Jose Mercury News On Maurice Nasmeh, a former suspect in a murder case."Sometimes I worked 12 hours a day on the case, other times I didn't touch it for days," Nasmeh said. In between, he read Kierkegaard, Ayn Rand, James Patterson and John Steinbeck. 08:23 AM    View blog reactions

•Miller downplays possible departures 
Tim Graham, Buffalo News More than ever, it appears if anyone will carry the Sabres on his back next season it will be [goaltender Ryan] Miller. On Friday, Atlas shrugged. 08:19 AM    View blog reactions

• •365 Reasons to Love Comics #179 
Bill Reed, Comics Should Be Good! Steve Ditko adopted the Objectivism philosophy originally conceived by author Ayn Rand in her novel Atlas Shrugged. There is no subjectivity– absolutes exist and are defined by reality, which is an external fact of existence. For something to exist, it has to have specific attributes. “A is A.” Something is something. In Objectivism, there can be no ego. 08:16 AM    View blog reactions

•365 reasons to love comics #175 
Bill Reed, Comics Should Be Good! [Steve] Ditko became a follower of Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, and, as far as I know, still lives by those principles. Characters like the Question and Mr. A were developed in response to these beliefs. 08:15 AM    View blog reactions

•365 reasons to love comics #17 
Bill Reed, Comics Should Be Good! The original portrayal of the Question sided with [Steve] Ditko’s own Objectivist philosophy. 08:11 AM    View blog reactions

•iPhone anticipation nears its zenith 
Madhusmita Bora, St. Petersburg Times (FL) Report on people lined up for the 6 PM Friday release of Apple's iPhone.Armed with Red Bulls, cookies, mineral water and a can of Mace, [Cali] Guzzi sat on a three-legged stool outside the AT&T store on South Dale Mabry Highway. Her iPod, Ayn Rand and a laptop will keep her company through the long hours, she said. 06:25 AM    View blog reactions

•Whole Foods CEO answers 
Lilly Rockwell, American-Statesman (Austin, TX) On John Mackey's blog responses to comments on his recent criticism of the Federal Trade Commission.[A] blog responder, zeroing in on Mackey's obvious disdain for government interference, compared Mackey to John Galt, the hero in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged," a novel that espouses a free-wheeling capitalist philosophy. Mackey responds that he loves Ayn Rand, too. 07:01 AM    View blog reactions

•Free-market BCE solution Bernier’s pipedream, not his reality 
Konrad Yakabuski, Globe & Mail (Toronto) On a proposed telecommunications merger.A free-market solution would spell doom for the Tories, nowhere more so than in Quebec. This is why many industry observers wonder whether [Industry Minister Maxime] Bernier is really in control of the telecom file at all. Indeed, many think his boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has grown wary of Mr. Bernier's free-market approach. That wariness has apparently grown with Mr. Bernier's recent hiring of Martin Masse as an adviser. The 42-year-old Mr. Masse is a former colleague from the right-wing Montreal Economic Institute and founder of Le Québécois Libre, a website that expounds libertarian values. Think Ayn Rand with a Québécois accent. Chances are that few in Rimouski have even heard of Atlas Shrugged. Most are probably quite content to see the state play protector. 06:59 AM    View blog reactions

•The Simpsons: It’s funny ‘cause it’s true 
Mark I. Pinsky, Tikkun (Berkeley, CA) In its 2000 millennium edition The New York Times [....] suggested that one of the show’s characters, the avaricious nuclear plant owner Montgomery Burns, was a better-known exemplar of capitalism than Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. 06:52 AM    View blog reactions

•Rats and tripe 
Ann Lewinson, New Haven Advocate (CT) Review of Ratatouille.When The Incredibles came out, [director Brad] Bird spent a lot of time denying that he had been inspired by the novels of Ayn Rand, but the philosophical underpinnings are similar here: Skinner, like the architecture critic Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead, is committed to giving the people what they think they want, while Remy, like Howard Roark, Rand's forward-thinking architect, knows better. Seeming to contradict the ego-enshrining Rand, Bird names his dour restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), but this emaciated epicure is unafraid to applaud true genius when he tastes it. 06:49 AM    View blog reactions

•A machine gun now comes with a lesson in philosophy 
Keith Stuart, The Guardian (London) Bioshock, the forthcoming PC and Xbox 360 adventure, draws on stem cell research, art deco architecture and the writings of Ayn Rand to build its bizarre undersea dystopia. 06:47 AM    View blog reactions

•Cartoon crusader 
Cliff Doerksen, Time Out Chicago Interview with movie director Brad Bird.Q: If some people are reading a cryptocommunist message into The Iron Giant and others are reading the philosophy of Ayn Rand into The Incredibles, does that mean you’re getting it right? A: Maybe. I just don’t care to submit to some simplistic orthodoxy. Ask me about individual issues and I’ll tell you where I stand. I align myself with conservatives on some issues—I believe in individual responsibility. But I’m with liberals on a lot of others, like the environment. 06:45 AM    View blog reactions

•The Fuhrerprinzip, Why so-called conservatives embrace it 
Sean Scallon, American Chronicle Commentary on the popularity of Rudy Guliani in the Republican presidential race.Conservatism had to become more populistic to attract a broader mass of people and it had to declare itself on the side of liberty, which it had not done in the past. This is where the libertarians come in, whether it was Ayn Rand or Fredrich von Hayek, the UChicago school or the Austrians. 06:40 AM    View blog reactions

•The liberty of New York 
Brian Doherty, New York Sun Three of the five central figures in American libertarianism were, for much of their lives, New Yorkers: Ayn Rand, the Russian émigré novelist and philosopher who inspired more people toward a combined emotional/intellectual commitment to individual liberty than any other figure in the 20th century; Ludwig Von Mises [...] and Murray Rothbard. 07:15 AM    View blog reactions

• •The dangers of enforcing moral values 
Ergo, Desicritics.org (India) As a value-oriented and value-directed philosophy, Objectivism points out that the concept “value” presupposes an individual’s choice in the matter. There is no value without a volitional agent freely choosing it. 07:13 AM    View blog reactions

•Influences: What shapes the minds that make the news 
Philadelphia Inquirer Profile of entrepreneur Charnelle Hicks.Book or author other people praise but I never liked: Ayn Rand. I honestly can't say I've gotten too far past the covers of any of her books. 07:30 AM    View blog reactions

•Keating too kind on Howard record 
Christian Kerr, Crikey (Australia) (Full article requires subscription.)It’s time to wheel out the famous Singo quote from Rip Van Australia once again: "Malcolm Fraser says he admires Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand says she admires Malcolm Fraser. Neither has a clue what they are talking about." 07:22 AM    View blog reactions

•Mud season 
Rodney C. Cook, GooldSeek Some tipping points must be near as the shepherds have necessarily become more Austrian to maintain credibility as events unfold.  Pay particular attention to Greenspan.  While he has formally relinquished the imperial jawbone his uttering’s have become increasingly Randian. 07:19 AM    View blog reactions

•Jesse’s sensible political program 
Jesse Miksic, Blogcritics I’ll skip all my other minor accolades for political communication...Ayn Rand, MoveOn.org, the Situationists, and people like that. 07:17 AM    View blog reactions

•Capitalism: The only moral social system 
Edward W. Younkins, Le Québécois Libre Although Ayn Rand promulgated what [legal philosopher Lon L.] Fuller would call a morality of aspiration, derived natural rights and all of Objectivism's other moral principles by way of ethical egoism, and did not use the word "duty," she still spoke of natural rights that must be respected by every human being. 07:15 AM    View blog reactions

•Readers list their 10 favorite books 
Herald-Leader (Lexington, KY) Peter P. Cohron, Lexington: 1. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand [....] Bill Bowden, 63, publications writer/editor, Transylvania University [....]6. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. 07:08 AM    View blog reactions

•Professor gears up for 100th birthday of ‘Native Son’ author 
Sarah Bryan Miller, Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO) Interview with Dr. Jerry W. Ward, Jr. on the subject of author Richard Wright.A: In 1953, he published “The Outsider.” It’s a very powerful but difficult novel, because it is a novel of ideas. You have to deal with existentialism, Wright’s critique of communism and fascism, the concept of the Superman from Nietzsche and Wright’s long-standing interest in Freudian psychology. It’s an interesting story, but with long passages of philosophy. Q: It sounds like Ayn Rand. A: It’s a little juicier than Ayn Rand. Q: Rand’s pretty juicy in places. 06:57 AM    View blog reactions

•Free to be you and me 
Mike O'Connor, American-Statesman (Austin, TX) Review of The Age of Abundance, by Brink Lindsey.Libertarians, who laud the efficiency and freedom of the market and oppose the coercive nature of government, believe the state should limit itself to national security and crime prevention. Historically, the movement has been the domain of zealots along the lines of Ayn Rand and Alex Jones, as well as more scholarly thinkers such as Freidrich Hayek, Robert Nozick and Milton Friedman. As such, it has seldom ventured near the mainstream, where most Americans are quite happy with public education and the requirement that doctors hold medical licenses. 06:54 AM    View blog reactions