• • Is the price right? Price eyes U.S. senate run in 2010 
John Fredericks, Roswell Beacon (GA) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Legendary author and political theorist Ayn Rand opened her best selling classic novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” with the question, “Who is John Galt?” As it turned out, Galt, her lead character, was an unyielding capitalist who wanted to impact the nation in a sweeping and permanent way. In the not so distant future Georgians outside of North Fulton County may be asking the question, “Who is Tom Price?” 06:02 AM    View blog reactions

• • In the Sellwood Kitchen 
Michael and Erin O’Shaughnessy, The Bee (Portland, OR) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Full house tonight in the Sellwood Kitchen: Josh & Adam (as per), Jim (as of late), and Erin’s girlhood chum, Allee, who notches up the intelligence quotient by about 50%. (Sure, I can namedrop Ayn Rand, but she’s actually read “The Fountainhead”. Oh, and Jim’s read “Atlas Shrugged”. Eggheads.) Ayn Rand developed a philosophy called Objectivism (she preferred Existentialism, but Nietzsche had already nicked it). Rand’s idea that happiness is the moral purpose of our lives, and productive achievement is our noblest activity, sounds tempting at first listen, but I balk at her unswerving conviction. I am certain of nothing. 05:58 AM    View blog reactions

• At UVa, show-and-tell becomes ‘public art’ 
Pat Fitzgerald, Daily Progress (Charlottesville, VA) Atlas Shrugged  A stuffed bunny in a black jacket and pink tutu. An iPod. A worn copy of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” A Madonna CD. A Winnie the Pooh figurine. And a package of birth control pills. These were a few of the objects that University of Virginia students, professors and community members brought to a massive session of “show and tell” on Tuesday in front of the UVa Art Museum.  05:53 AM    View blog reactions

• • We have enough oil here in the U.S. 
Philip V. Brennan, Newsmax Ayn Rand Institute  Let it be said loud and clear — there is not a single shred of evidence that DDT poses the least kind of threat to the health of the planet’s people, yet on the flimsiest of grounds created by an alarmist book, “Silent Spring,” by the late Rachel Carson based on myth rather than science — this life-saving chemical is banned and whole populations die. Think that’s an accident? Think again. As I quoted Michael Berliner co-chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif., in last week's column, the mankind hater's goal is nothing less than the extinction of humanity.  05:50 AM    View blog reactions

• Going down to South Park 04.30.08: Return to retro reviews 
Jerome Cusson, 411mania TV episode review.Barbrady [...] announces that reading sucked because of an Ayn Rand book he read, so he decides never to read a book again. 05:46 AM    View blog reactions

• India’s native son: Aravind Adiga’s ‘The White Tiger’ 
Scott Medintz, New York Sun Book review.“To break the law of the land — to turn bad news into good news — is the entrepreneur’s prerogative,” declares Balram [Harwai, the book’s hero], like some irrepressible, Ayn Rand-obsessed business guru. 08:39 AM    View blog reactions

• Religion shouldn’t get a free pass 
John Carver,

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

• • The new pyramid builders II 
Edward Cline, Family Security Matters Atlas Shrugged  [T]he artificially high price of oil charged by OPEC [...], which has a near monopoly on oil production as a result of Western-sanctioned expropriations and Western environmental policies, [....] facilitates the incursion of Islamic jihad, both the "soft" kind through financial and political manipulation, and the "hard" kind of Islamofascist violence, which is funded by especially Mideast money from all the Persian Gulf states. (Therefore, we are subsidizing our own decline and ultimate destruction. What did Ayn Rand have to say about the "sanction of the victim?" The principle applies to civilizations as well as to individuals.) 08:03 AM    View blog reactions

• • • An interview with Lisa Van Damme: About education and Objectivism 
Michael F. Shaughnessy, EdNews [Q:] Who has influenced you? [A:] The greatest influence on my philosophic views broadly was the philosopher Ayn Rand, and the greatest influence on my educational philosophy was Leonard Peikoff, Ayn Rand's intellectual heir and the father of one of my first students. I discovered Ayn Rand in college and was awed by her philosophic insights, which, in contrast to all I had learned in my philosophy classes, made sense, were consistent with my life experiences, gave new order and intelligibility to the world around me, and identified rational principles by which I could guide my actions in order to live a fulfilled and joyful life.  03:28 PM    View blog reactions

• • More older folks flocking to MySpace and Facebook 
Arlene Gross, Newsday (New York) Atlas Shrugged  [Eugene] Fridman, an applications developer for Chase Bank, said he likes the Q&A feature [of the LinkedIn website ] and checks it once or twice a day. “It’s really fun to read what other people are interested in,” he said, such as a recent online discussion about which books had the greatest influence on them. Soon after that dialogue, Fridman got a copy of Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged,” a title mentioned by several people. 07:36 AM    View blog reactions

• • Movie: Science ‘expels’ intelligent design 
Dennis Carter, eSchool News Ayn Rand Institute  On the pro-“intelligent design” movie, Expelled.“Intelligent design is completely devoid of any positive scientific content, and consists of nothing more than a religiously motivated attack on evolution,” said Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, a California-based nonprofit that describes its mission as promoting rationality, capitalism, and individual rights: “To the extent intelligent-design advocates are facing obstacles in academia, it is because they are not doing real science--they haven’t been expelled, they have flunked out of the scientific community, just as a faith healer would flunk out of medical school.” 10:32 AM    View blog reactions

• • Let’s say you want to date a hog farmer 
J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  On niche dating websites, including TheAtlasSphere.com.Stephanie Betit first read “Atlas Shrugged,” “The Fountainhead” and Ayn Rand’s essay collection “The Virtue of Selfishness” in 2004. The books changed her life, she said, turning her from a devout Christian into an atheist and a follower of objectivism, Rand’s philosophy of independence and rational self-interest. “From then on, I was looking for a partner who shared my outlook on life,” said Ms. Betit. 07:40 AM    View blog reactions

• • • Ayn Rand: Casting the ‘Atlas Shrugged’ movie 
Heidi N. Moore, Wall Street Journal - Deal Journal Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  If there’s one thing we know, it’s that Deal Journal readers like Objectivist author Ayn Rand. So, good news for Rand fans who can tear themselves away from their copies of the Romantic Manifesto long enough to get to a theater: a new Atlas Shrugged movie is in the works, and a new Fountainhead (potentially starring Brad Pitt) may not be far behind.  07:37 AM    View blog reactions

• • Legislature works toward adjournment 
Henry C. Jackson, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, IA) Atlas Shrugged  [House Minority Leader Christopher] Rants compared this year’s session to the novel “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, a book he said he gave his House page as a gift. “It sums up the continual struggle between the looters and producers,” he said. “They’re the looters.” 07:33 AM    View blog reactions

• • Andrew Lipke Q&A 
Spence D., IGN.com Atlas Shrugged  Interview with musician Andrew Lipke.[Q:] Who or what are your non-musical influences and why? [A:] [....] I'm influenced by the writing of Ayn Rand, especially Atlas Shrugged with its rich metaphors and extremely dense and thought provoking imagery; and the many teachings of religious and spiritual doctrines around the world. 07:19 AM    View blog reactions

• Critics’ picks: “Secret Lives of Great Authors” by Robert Schnakenberg 
Louis Bayard, Salon Robert Schnakenberg’s fun and unpretentious grab bag traffics as much in quirk as in dirt. [....] Ayn Rand’s favorite TV show? “Charlie's Angels.” 07:15 AM    View blog reactions

• Del Toro officially takes on The Hobbit 
Greg Dean Schmitz, Rotten Tomatoes Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  Hot on the heels of news last week that one very thick (and controversial) book, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, is nearing production, from Germany comes news that Adolf Hitler's autobiographical (and political screed), Mein Kampf, is finally being adapted to film.  07:14 AM    View blog reactions

• TV is art--why don’t you watch? 
Allie T. Pape, Harvard Crimson “Star Trek,” as my astute boyfriend once put it, is like an Ayn Rand novel; characters don’t do anything of their own accord, but are just placeholders for ideas, and everything resolves neatly in the end. 07:12 AM    View blog reactions

• • 30 years ago in Reason 
Reason Personal life  “The luckiest beneficiaries of [Ayn Rand’s] work are the people who read her and never see her, never meet her, never have any reason to deal with her in person. Then they get the best of what she was.” —Nathaniel Branden, “Thank You Ayn Rand, and Goodbye” 07:10 AM    View blog reactions

• The rough road for independent console developers 
Keith Boesky, Gamasutra When Take-Two took over Bioshock, was it because they identified the market need for an Ayn Rand inspired shooter in a distopic future? 07:07 AM    View blog reactions

• Angelina Jolie ranked 9th 
So Hood Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  Angelina Jolie is set to star in four movies that are schedule for release this year. [....] Atlas Shrugged. A powerful railroad executive, Dagny Taggart, struggles to keep her business alive while society is crumbling around her. Based on the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand. 07:05 AM    View blog reactions

• • Ayn Rand Institute not a cult, promotes independent thought 
Guy Barnett, The Good 5¢ Cigar (U of RI) Ayn Rand Institute  The Fountainhead  Letter to the editor.The letter from Mr. Colin Giblin published on March 23 absurdly calls the Ayn Rand Institute a cult. The Institute is explicitly opposed to religion, as was Ayn Rand. So, to call it a cult, which is a type of religious organization, is patently dishonest and obviously false. While cult leaders demand absolute unthinking obedience, no matter how crazy their edicts, Ayn Rand advocated independence as a key virtue. 08:38 AM    View blog reactions

• • Condo design: Who’s the boss? 
David Lasker, National Post (Toronto) The Fountainhead  Literature tends to portray architects as heaven-storming prima donnas, viz. Ibsen's The Master Builder and Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. But architects don't, in fact, sit at the head of the conference table, beside the building’s owner. It is the developer who calls the shots - because developers, of necessity, are the ones who are most attuned to the Zeitgeist. “I find that the Fountainhead myth of the architect as artiste doesn’t exist any more,” says Gary Switzer, executive vice-president of Great Gulf Homes.  08:17 AM    View blog reactions

• Battery store boasts earning power 
Mark Albright, St. Petersburg Times (FL) The Fountainhead  Profile of BatteriesPlus.Owner: Atlanta-based Roark Capital (named for an Ayn Rand character in The Fountainhead). 08:14 AM    View blog reactions

• • Right to bear arms not ‘collective’ 
Burke Chester, News-Journal (Daytona Beach) Capitalism  Probably, the most influential writer in the area of individual rights in the 20th century was the late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand. She never wrote about gun rights (that I know of), but she wrote a lot about rights themselves and their place in her philosophy. She defined a “right” as "a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” For Rand, the source of all rights is man’s life. She held that rights can be violated only by physical force, and, like the founders, she believed that the only purpose of government is to protect individual rights. She believed that government should act only as a retaliatory force, never initiating force against its citizens. 07:58 AM    View blog reactions