• Lanier’s attack on open source religion 
Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet On open source software.It’s sometimes hard to define the boundary between what is, or should be shared, and what is, or should be owned. [Jaron] Lanier’s point is that there is such a boundary, and he’s right. But ideologues on both sides will set this up, falsely, as some sort of Ayn Rand vs. Karl Marx cage match, and it’s not that at all. It’s more of a town vs. gown dispute. There’s a time for sharing and there’s a time to strike out in a new, bold, possibly fatal direction.     Share on Facebook

• Multiculturalism: Good business or racism? 
Rick Weaver, The Conservative Voice Ayn Rand Institute  The Ayn Rand Institute has called multiculturalism "the new racism" that would turn a country into "country into a collection of separatist groups". They are joined by others believing multiculturalism positions one culture above another culture without stating which culture belongs at the top. This, they contend, will lead to the creation of "separatist groups competing with each other for power". Yet if you read yesterday's definition of culture with an inquisitive mind, you may have already figured out that every individual on this planet is already individually multicultural. Each of us belongs to different multiple different cultures at the same time.     Share on Facebook

• It is what it is 
SooNews.ca (Sault Ste. Marie, ON) Atlas Shrugged  It is what it is. [....] "[This phrase] seems to be everywhere and pervade every section of any newspaper I read. It reminds me of 'Who is John Galt?' from 'Atlas Shrugged.' It implies an acceptance of the status quo regardless of the circumstances. But it is what it is." -- Erik Pauna, Mondovi, Wisconsin.     Share on Facebook

• Rep. Ron Paul 
Roy Reynolds, News Journal (Wilmington, DE) [Paul's] presidential campaign is an Ayn Rand express train rolling through a country already taken over by collectivists of various stripes.     Share on Facebook

• Inside politics 
Greg Pierce, Washington Times Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is featured on the covers of two magazines with some overlapping views — but not on Mr. Paul. [....] [T] he New Individualist, published by the Atlas Society (followers of Ayn Rand), titles its article, "The Abominable Dr. Paul: How Ron Paul Tortures the Cause of Liberty."     Share on Facebook

• The old bookstore that stocked living things, not ‘products’ 
Monty Manley, Blogcritics Atlas Shrugged  The proprietor introduced me to books and authors I might never have known otherwise: Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (which he cordially detested but thought I might like), and several others.     Share on Facebook

• Catching up with ... Hamilton-Wenham hoop standout Corey Daff 
Bill Kipouras, Salem News (MA) The Fountainhead  [Q:] What's the best book you've read? [A:] The one I'm reading now: "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. I can't put it down. It's about an architect who goes against the status of what buildings are supposed to be.     Share on Facebook

• • The down-to-earth architect 
Eric Gibson, Wall Street Journal The Fountainhead  Review of Everything by Design, by Alan Lapidus.Mr. Lapidus, a retired architect of hotels and casinos (Donald Trump was one of his clients), has never seen himself as a latter-day Howard Roark, the hero of Rand's novel. On the contrary, he is becomingly modest. He freely acknowledges that some of his work has been "bland if not downright ugly."     Share on Facebook

• • The best Christmas present ever 
Gregg Gordon, Augusta Chronicle (GA) Atlas Shrugged  The best present I have ever received is Ayn Rand's masterpiece Atlas Shrugged. My daddy gave it to me after a conversation regarding the morality of unions. My life has been changed ever since. [....] -- Hilary Matfess, sophomore at Greenbrier High School     Share on Facebook

• • The beggar economy 
Felicity Duncan, Moneyweb (South Africa) Atlas Shrugged  Yesterday, when my neighbour's domestic worker (with whom I have never previously interacted beyond a courteous hello) cornered me on the stairs and asked for "something for Christmas", my first thought was of Ayn Rand. Now, I'll be the first to admit that the novels of Ayn Rand are both overwrought and boring by turn. However, she does make a few good points along the way, one of which is directly relevant to the neighbour's-domestic-Christmas situation.     Share on Facebook

• Best and worst of 2007, economic policy version 
Jared Bernstein, TPM Cafe Steepest Fall from Grace: [....] It’s got to be former Fed chair Alan Greenspan, once the economy’s “maestro,” who allowed his Ayn Randian market ideology to blind him to the depths of the problems forming in mortgage markets, even as insiders were warning him to take action.     Share on Facebook

• First win brings relief for Hudson 
Jeff Bartlett, Times-Mail (Bedford, IN) Atlas Shrugged  Like many of us meandering toward middle age (and some of us already there), Jamie Hudson no longer pretends or claims to have the build of the mythical Atlas, or even Charles Atlas. But it sure felt like Atlas shrugged Saturday night at Vincennes.     Share on Facebook

• • The man who cried, ‘The empress is naked!‘ 
Guénady, American Chronicle Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  A young American couple passing through Nice, where I live, in the South of France, was having lunch in the city's only vegan restaurant. The young woman, I saw, had a copy of The Fountainhead balanced on her purse at her feet. I couldn't resist a comment. "Do people still read that?" Her eyes, turned to me, were eloquent. "Well then, when you've finished The Fountainhead, you have to read Atlas Shrugged... And when you've finished Atlas Shrugged, and you're feeling sad because such people don't exist in real life-- then, read up on Hans Ruesch."     Share on Facebook

• Stress, anger, aggression and resentment is not what Christmas means 
Djelloul (Del) Marbrook, Student Operated Press Some writers have argued that Western capitalism is dependent on Christianity and therefore the commercialization of Christmas should reassure us of the Christian message. I find that charmingly Jesuitical. I’d like to hear its advocates talk more about the poor and turning the other cheek, you know, the hard part of Christianity, the sacrificial part. I find this argument in favor of Christmas’s monetization suspiciously like Ayn Rand’s distinctly anti-Christian message.     Share on Facebook

• • Some of the best ideas and trades of 2007 
Jonathan Hoenig, SmartMoney.com Millions of successful businesspeople, including names like Mark Cuban and Monroe Trout, have been inspired by the work of Ayn Rand, whose philosophy of Objectivism explains the morality of capitalism. So at a time in which bankers such as Countrywide's Angelo Mozilo or investment firms like Goldman Sachs are increasingly vilified for creating wealth, you'll certainly enjoy picking up a copy of The Objective Standard, a quarterly journal that relates Rand's philosophy to current events.     Share on Facebook

• • Many lessons learned over time about Christmas 
Holly Harman Fackler , News Journal (Mansfield, OH) Ayn Rand Institute  Leonard Peikoff  A recent op-ed submission by Dr. Leonard Peikoff of the Ayn Rand Institute (a submission not published in these pages) proclaimed Christmas in the United States is a great triumph of capitalism. [....] In a coolly reasoned argument, Peikoff concludes Christ should be taken out of Christmas to get rid of the confusion and guilt the holiday now engenders in practitioners. I get his point. And I wonder what a thoroughly religious holiday to mark Christ's birth would look like were it to be established anew, at a time of year less fraught with December's endowment of excesses.     Share on Facebook

• What does freedom really mean? 
Ron Paul, Information Clearinghouse To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others.     Share on Facebook

• Online holiday cheer 
Brian Caulfield, Forbes The Fountainhead  [An Amazon statement provided] an amusing core sample of nerdery. One gem: The final Amazon Prime shipment placed in time for Christmas delivery included DVDs of Futurama, Vol. 1, Lost in Translation and Pulp Fiction. Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, in paperback. And a Charlie Brown Christmas CD.     Share on Facebook

• • Humanism and violence 
Franz Hinkelammert, IndyMedia Capitalism  Neoclassical theory exists in this form in today’s neoliberalism: evil is good whenever it happens in the scope of the market. [....] This can be read today in the autobiography of Greenspan: The Age of Turbulence. A real spirituality preserved Greenspan from falling back to concrete humanism. [....] [Footnote:] He learned this, according to Naomi Klein, through a book by Ayn Rand. “She moved me to reflect why capitalism is moral and not only efficient and practical,” Greenspan said in 1974. He had solved his conscience problems and served humanity all his days.     Share on Facebook

• • Hear: Listen to the years go by 
Shannon Teoh, New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur) Anthem  Rush — 2112 (from the album 2112, released in 1976). [....]The weird part [...], is how it parallels with Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, to whom, the band had dedicated this seven-part suite. No doubt, she herself would probably have been horrified to learn that some hairy rockers had created work similar to hers. Worse still, the fact that over 30 years after the 20-minute opus was written, it’s still enjoyable, perhaps as much as Rand’s twice-as-old classic.     Share on Facebook