• Edward Long puts patient satisfaction on the menu 
Cris Foehlinger, Sunday News (Lancaster, PA) Atlas Shrugged  Profile of chef Edward A. Long.My favorite book: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand. 08:50 AM    View blog reactions

• • Classes for sale? 
Charlotte Observer (NC) Atlas Shrugged  Egoism  The University of North Carolina system ought to enact a clear policy that forbids universities to seek or accept private funds that come with strings about what will be taught to students. This is an important principle, one that affects each of the 16 campuses. The issue has come up at UNC Charlotte, where a $1 million gift pledge in 2005 from the bank BB&T came with a stipulation that the book "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand be included in a course as required reading. On the surface, that seems harmless. Ms. Rand's philosophy of Objectivism, which says individuals have the right to live entirely for their own self interest, is a sound starting point for debate and learning in courses in business, economics, literature or philosophy. This issue isn't about Ms. Rand's philosophy, or whether her works should be taught in college. It's about letting -- or appearing to let -- a donor prescribe a university's course content. 10:49 AM    View blog reactions

• Deep Purple, Bing Crosby and the tales behind all those weird rock band names 
John Sinkevics, Grand Rapids Press The Fountainhead  Collective Soul comes from a phrase used by Ayn Rand in "The Fountainhead." (I had no idea this rock band was so literate.) 10:48 AM    View blog reactions

• • • Films: “Rendition” & “The Fountainhead” 
Christine Smith, Nolan Chart The Fountainhead  Egoism  The 1949 film, The Fountainhead, based on Ayn Rand's novel, was most interesting to view. I was glad the screenplay for the film was written by Rand herself. Although the acting was poor, the message was well stated/communicated because of Rand's screenplay. Timeless, powerful and true, the message of individualism, as exemplified by protagonist Howard Roark, is one the film communicates well.  10:42 AM    View blog reactions

• Galileo, Easter & baloney II 
Kris Sanders, Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh) Ayn Rand Institute  Letter to the editor.Despite his apparent ignorance of theology, history and philosophy, Keith Lockitch seems to assume that his doctorate in physics somehow renders him an authoritative expert on the relationship between science and faith. 10:38 AM    View blog reactions

• • Mindful of reason 
Wendy Loreti, Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh) Ayn Rand Institute  Letter to the editor.The reader responses to Keith Lockitch's excellent article on the incompatibility of faith and reason [...] rest on the argument from authority [...]. That is, they argued that some number of historical scientists apparently didn't see a conflict, so who is Dr. Lockitch of the Ayn Rand Institute to disagree with them? To argue from this angle is to miss the bigger point: Reason is the consistent application of one's mind to the laws of logic and the facts of reality.  10:33 AM    View blog reactions

• • For $2 million? ‘The Fountainhead’ 
Charlotte Observer (NC) The Fountainhead  BB&T finds UNCC eager ally in spreading word of cult philosophress Ayn Rand. Who says you can't buy anything these days with $1 million? 08:39 AM    View blog reactions

• • It’s not you, it’s your books 
Rachel Donadio, New York Times Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Pity the would-be Romeo who earnestly confesses middlebrow tastes: sometimes, it’s the Howard Roark problem [...]. “I did have to break up with one guy because he was very keen on Ayn Rand,” said Laura Miller, a book critic for Salon. “He was sweet and incredibly decent despite all the grandiosely heartless ‘philosophy’ he espoused, but it wasn’t even the ideology that did it. I just thought Rand was a hilariously bad writer, and past a certain point I couldn’t hide my amusement.” (Members of theatlasphere.com, a dating and fan site for devotees of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” might disagree.)  06:56 AM    View blog reactions

• • Bits and pieces 
Winston-Salem Journal (NC) Atlas Shrugged  It’s no secret that John Allison, the head of Winston-Salem’s BB&T, is a big Ayn Rand fan. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the bank’s charitable arm, in giving millions to colleges to study capitalism from a moral perspective, is making Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged required reading in the courses at several of the colleges [....] and professors at some of the schools aren’t pleased with the requirement. But hey, as Allison pointed out, the schools approached the foundation, not the other way around. Sounds as though Allison could get his own book out of this controversy: Allison Shrugged. 06:50 AM    View blog reactions

• Clinton, Obama, McCain defer to Wall Street 
Barry Grey, World Socialist Website Capitalism  [Alan] Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board during the Bill Clinton administration, is a “free market” advocate of financial deregulation and admirer of Ayn Rand. He fostered the creation of the housing and credit bubbles that have now burst by repeatedly cutting interest rates, and rejected proposals by one of the Fed governors that the US central bank more closely monitor subprime mortgage lenders. 06:40 AM    View blog reactions

• • A passion for politics 
South Bend Tribune (IN) Atlas Shrugged  Profile of high school student Sonny Gast."Ayn Rand said 'do what is right.' I'd hope to live my life, and my politics, with God and family values foremost in mind."  06:32 AM    View blog reactions

• After a slow start, Calamity Physics zips into high gear 
Joanne Hatherly, Times Colonist (Victoria, BC) Book review.Marisha Pessl’s debut novel sat around the house for months before anyone could stand to pick it up. First, there was the title, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. It had the aura of an intellectual heavyweight on the level of Ayn Rand, but with a heavy dose of science ladled in — a little too much work for a relaxing curlup on a rainy day. 06:21 AM    View blog reactions

• • ‘The rich have money issues, too’ 
Mary Teresa Bitti, National Post (Toronto) The Virtue of Selfishness  Egoism  It's too bad Ayn Rand isn't around to see just how far individualism has come. What would the author of The Virtue of Selfishness and proponent of self-interest make of the rampant consumerism that is leaving recent generations, regardless of where they fall on the wealth continuum, unable to save for the future or even find happiness in the accumulation of stuff? It seems we're fine with the self-interest part, but our impulsive and compulsive spending is minus any sense of responsibility -- another tenet Rand held dear, next to personal happiness. 06:08 AM    View blog reactions

• • Off the wall - 28 March 2008 
Diane Werts, Newsday (New York) Personal life  [Helen Mirren] plays the sternly modern philosopher-screenwriter-novelist, with a thing for younger men, in "The Passion of Ayn Rand." 06:03 AM    View blog reactions

• • Protecting ourselves from prosperity 
Dan Page , State Journal (Charleston, WV) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Cal Kent, professor at Marshall University and a frequent contributor to The State Journal, has offered his perspective on Page 37 of this edition about a new course he will teach through the newly established Center for the Advancement of American Capitalism. His comments come after the university received some backlash. I recommend his column to readers. A $1 million grant from the BB&T Foundation allows Marshall's Lewis College of Business to develop a program that focuses on capitalism. The grant had a caveat -- that the course would include the study of "Atlas Shrugged," the 1957 Ayn Rand novel that stands as a testament to the worth and importance of capitalism. Dr. Kent feels good about teaching the class. He should. The mystery to me is how this became an issue in the first place. 09:08 AM    View blog reactions

• United States needs to be a better broker 
Cord Weekly (Wilfrid Laurier U, Waterloo, ON) Ayn Rand Institute  In the West, we preach about preserving the basic necessities of life, yet it is this very Western entity, led by the United States, who espouses the greatest hypocrisy. Now if we turn our eyes to America’s oft-called – notably by the Ayn Rand Institute in California – “only true ally” in the Middle East, Israel, some of the greatest human rights abuses are being committed by this nation state. 08:59 AM    View blog reactions

• Racism by any other name 
Evan Lisull, Arizona Daily Wildcat (U of AZ) Ayn Rand pointed out that, "Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism." 09:08 AM    View blog reactions

• Book sales flagging, industry gets desperate 
Johnny Oboe, The Strand (U of Toronto) Humor.Salman Rushdie [...] once noted that "saying that you are influenced by Ayn Rand is like saying you have been influenced by Dan Brown". 09:05 AM    View blog reactions

• The controlled “Art Attack” of emerging artist Travis King 
Joan Baum, Hamptons.com (Southampton, NY) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Careful delineation and resolution of perspective are particularly apparent [...] in King’s homage to Ayn Rand, in drawings called “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.” 09:02 AM    View blog reactions

• • Thou shalt have guilty pleasures 
Jay Stone, Calgary Herald The Fountainhead  There are many modern guilty pleasures [...] but they come with a built-in irony that lessens the pure camp value of the classics. The 1949 film The Fountainhead, speaking of fountainheads, is one of my favourites in that regard: it's an adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel, written by Rand herself, about free-thinking architect Howard Roark, a man who won't go along with the crowd and demands the liberty to build his own vision. [....] People don't talk in The Fountainhead as much as deliver speeches at each other, outlining positions that are inspired by Rand's Objectivist philosophy, and the movie includes a six-minute monologue by Roark expounding on them. It's filled with such wonders, a guilty pleasure softened by the real on-screen passion between Cooper and Patricia Neal, the love interest in the story, with whom he was having an affair at the time. The big love scene in The Fountainhead comes when he rapes her. 07:00 AM    View blog reactions

• • A large tree falls in the liberal forest 
David Elmore, Wall Street Journal Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Egoism  Letter to the editor responding to an article on David Mamet's recent declaration that he's no longer a liberal.Ayn Rand, whose fictional characters John Galt and Howard Roark are the archetypes of autonomy. If the younger generation is to have a fundamental grounding for its tendency toward self-directedness, it will need Rand's philosophy of objectivism as its guiding light. 06:52 AM    View blog reactions

• Galileo, Easter & baloney 
Steven D. Thomas, Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh) Ayn Rand Institute  Letter to the editor.[In The Easter masquerade] Keith Lockitch of the Ayn Rand Institute obscured the facts surrounding the Galileo affair to serve his purpose of driving a wedge between faith and reason.  06:46 AM    View blog reactions

• • • Hostile-to-reason academics fear Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged 
Craig Biddle, Capitalism Magazine Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Egoism  On controversy over donations given to universities by BB&T that require the teaching of Atlas Shrugged.If you are a successful businessman, why not join [CEO John] Allison and BB&T in this admirable practice? Read Atlas Shrugged and see what you think. If you think it should be included in the curricula of schools to which you donate money, start donating with the appropriate strings attached. In addition to promoting the values on which human life and happiness depend, you will help expose the irrationality of those academics who will publicly denounce you for being rationally principled. Reasons don’t get any better than these. 06:43 AM    View blog reactions

• Bad behavior damages conservative image, movement 
Ryan Cooper, News-Leader (Springfield, MO) Radio talk show shock jock known as Vincent David Jericho accused a local Hispanic woman of being a criminal and refused to shake hands with a newspaper editor at a recent Republican forum dealing with the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. He also threatened a local blogger with legal action for recording the events. [....] Just as William F. Buckley urged conservatives to disavow John Birch Society extremists and the Ayn Rand Objectivist cult, we too should avoid connecting the conservative movement with an individual who violates rules of common decency. 08:59 AM    View blog reactions

• Farewell free markets 
Martin Walker, UPI Capitalism  The big backlash has come and the era of proudly free markets, privatization and deregulation is over. From all sides, even from former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, that disciple of Ayn Rand, comes the cry that more regulation is needed of Wall Street finance. 05:48 PM    View blog reactions