• Intriguing show takes shape 
Vivien Horler, Cape Argus (Cape Town) (Requires subscription.)Kevin Brand is a sculptor who claims his vocation is “a bad reaction to author Ayn Rand's one-dimensional characters”. 08:14 PM    View blog reactions

• Judging a book 
Hindustan Times (New Delhi) The Fountainhead  Can a book really change your life? [....] No, don't worry, I'm not going to roll out the usual suspects. You know, the books that every generation discovers in college with a fresh flash of recognition and claims for its own: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand; The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir; The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer. I devoured all of the above and many more cast in the same mould. But I can't say that any of these books changed my life in any significant way. 08:04 PM    View blog reactions

• Wittgenstein and market forces 
David Cohen, The Guardian (London) Capitalism  On the appointment of John Armstrong as philosopher-in-residence at the Melbourne Business School.Those within the business education environment usually aren't known [...] for possessing any great technical appreciation of philosophy, give or take the odd Ayn Rand enthusiast among their ranks. 08:01 PM    View blog reactions

• Reading the Ron Paul Revolution 
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Pajamas Media Review of The Revolution: A Manifesto, by Ron Paul.Paul is an old-fashioned Rothbardian. I’m more of a Heinleinian libertarian and we, like the Randian libertarians, tend to view national defense as more important than the Rothbardians do. Paul’s view, essentially, is that if we quit sending troops abroad, other people and countries would quit wanting to kill us. I’m not particularly persuaded by this. 08:00 PM    View blog reactions

• The final curtain call of a college student columnist 
Jake Kilroy, Daily Titan (Cal State U, Fullerton) The Fountainhead  This summer, I have goals like "Learn to really play guitar," "Drive through Canada and don't die" and "Read The Fountainhead." Meanwhile, in the many summers following my college days, I may have goals like "Repaint closet doors," "Replace fences and build gate" and "Finally finish The Fountainhead." 07:55 PM    View blog reactions

• • Choose freedom over the status-quo 
Marilyn Jost, Daily Record (Parsippany, NJ) Capitalism  Op-ed piece by a Ron Paul supporter.To quote Ayn Rand, "The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." Every single new law that gets passed costs us money and takes away freedoms! Every single new law entrenches us deeper into big government. 08:46 AM    View blog reactions

• • • Object lesson 
Brooke Gladstone, NPR - On The Media Altruism  Atheism  Atlas Shrugged movie  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Personal life  Audio  Audio. “Think you know reality? Ayn Rand did, and through her novels and nonfiction she gave legions of followers a practical philosophy by which to live. Brooke looks at the enduring legacy of the original Objectivist.”

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Ayn Rand thinks that people who raise money for other people or provide services for other people in an organized way are weak and deluded. JEFFREY BRITTING: Absolutely not. That is a flat-out distortion of Ayn Rand from A to Z. And if you wish to see the evidence for that, please consult her novels and please consult her views on charity, and please consult her views on scholarships and please consult her views on friendship and giftgiving and Christmas and good cheer. [CLIP] PHIL DONAHUE: You don't like altruists. AYN RAND: I disapprove of them. I regard them as evil. 08:29 AM    View blog reactions

• Short-order tourist visits SCV 
Josh Premako, The Signal (Santa Clarita, CA) While doing a Google search for his name a few months ago, [Jeff] Bratz said he found another Jeff Bratz, who lives in Des Moines, Iowa. When he set out on his trip last month, he got in touch with Bratz of Des Moines, and the two wound up meeting over breakfast. [....] While their lives are in many ways radically different [...] he said there are some similarities. They're both fans of Ayn Rand, and, "we've both lived boldly." 08:25 AM    View blog reactions

• Debate continues on this question: Should you marry a career woman? 
Donna Wood, The Courier (Waterloo, IA) Some women geniuses have been surrounded by doting men --- Ayn Rand and Virginia Woolf come immediately to mind.  08:23 AM    View blog reactions

• • Random thoughts 
Peter Himmel, Wenatchee World (Wenatchee, WA) Atlas Shrugged  Letter to the editor.What would Ayn Rand think of the city of Wenatchee banning smoking in public parks? I think this gives us a clue: "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority." Mayor Johnson shrugged. 08:17 AM    View blog reactions

• Gas tax suspension? 
Glenn Beck, CNN Headline News Atlas Shrugged  Video  (Link does not work in all browsers.) Excerpt from the Glenn Beck show on proposals to temporarily suspend the gas tax. Reference occurs at approximately 6:15.America, please read Atlas Shrugged. I know it’s like 4000 pages, but, I mean it’s — everything is happening that she talked about. 07:54 AM    View blog reactions

• • A toxic media environment 
Joseph A. Palermo, Huffington Post Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  [Glenn Beck’s] guests [on a recent edition of his CNN Headline News show] were two right-wing crazies: Yaron Brook from some Social Darwinist outfit calling itself the “Ayn Rand Institute,” and Jonah Goldberg, who has recently come out with possibly the worst book written since Gutenberg invented movable type. All three of these far-right charlatans agreed, as if it were common sense, that 1). America can drill its way out its current energy woes; and 2). The oil companies are on the side of the angels in this thing and their obscene profits are wonderful indicators of the miracle of American capitalism. Yaron Brook advocated drilling for oil everywhere, even in “your living room.” 07:46 AM    View blog reactions

• • Americans’ favorite books? Ha! Where is the Danielle Steel? 
Rachel Sauer, Palm Beach Post (FL) Atlas Shrugged  A small but huffy army of [book] snobs has somehow established the rule that the only books we'll publicly admit to reading, let alone loving, are the ones with their stamp of approval. But come on! Atlas Shrugged? Does anyone really love that book? 07:43 AM    View blog reactions

• The fairy dust of insecurity 
Meghan Daum, Los Angeles Times On Barbara Walters’ memoir, Audition.Walters appears to have shed many of her insecurities by the time of her affair with [U.S. senator Edward W.] Brooke, which she says began in 1973 (she doesn't specify an end date, though by 1975, she was involved with Fed chief Alan Greenspan, with whom she shared a telling fondness for Ayn Rand). 07:41 AM    View blog reactions

• • Four ways for students to make the most of summer break 
Ben Kaplan, The Oregonian (Portland) Ayn Rand Institute  Anthem  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Want to curl up with a good book on your trip [this summer]? If you choose to read a novel by Ayn Rand (including "The Fountainhead," "Anthem" or "Atlas Shrugged") and later write a short essay on the book, you can vie for more than $80,000 in prizes from the Ayn Rand Institute. 07:37 AM    View blog reactions

• Hudson High’s top two grads been ‘neck and neck’ since early days 
Michele Miller, St. Petersburg Times (FL) Atlas Shrugged  Favorite book [of salutatorian Lauren Stump]: The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. 07:35 AM    View blog reactions

• Gore Verbinski to direct ‘Bioshock’ 
Michael Fleming and Ben Fritz, Variety Capitalism  "Bioshock" takes place in an underwater city based on the free market principles of Ayn Rand, but things have gone disastrously wrong. 06:51 AM    View blog reactions

• Gore Verbinski talks about directing the Bioshock movie 
Ben Fritz, Variety - The Cut Scene [Verbinski:] The utopian references and the way the characters and world are drawn in that delightfully inspired Jules Verne and Ayn Rand style places the film in a more elevated realm. It's the realm of a graphic novel. 06:49 AM    View blog reactions

• Behind the Cabrera vs. Renteria story 
Jorge Arangure Jr., ESPN Magazine The desire to invest in the Colombian Professional League had been part of a renaissance for [Edgar] Cabrera that was spurred on mostly by his second wife Katie, a strong American from Boston who had forced a dramatic change of lifestyle on the once hard-partying shortstop. She also helped him grow intellectually (he was reading one of Ayn Rand's tomes when I met with him in January). 06:43 AM    View blog reactions

• Attempted ‘Second Life’ ban doesn’t solve real problem 
Keith Cameron, Northern Star (Northern Illinois U, DeKalb, IL) Author Ayn Rand once wrote that “it is realism that demands a plot structure.”  06:32 AM    View blog reactions

• • ‘The Life Before Her Eyes’ director shrugs off criticism 
Roger Moore, PopMatters Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  Interview with writer-director Vadim Perelman.[Q:] You’re taking on an Ayn Rand novel, a movie that’s sure to be controversial, taken from a novel that many have wanted to film but nobody can crack, “Atlas Shrugged.” At least you have Angelina Jolie on board. [A:] [....] Adapting “Atlas Shrugged” is a huge responsibility because this book, this woman, are so fervently loved and followed by millions of people. It’s like taking on “Lord of the Rings” with maybe a different sort of devoted following. Rand would be, I think, today a great libertarian icon. Perhaps that’s what Angelina Jolie is interested in making the movie. For me, Rand is this writer of big, broad themes and emotions. But so am I, thematically. People accuse her of being heavy-handed, and I hear the same thing said about me. It is the Russian way, I think, of doing things. That was my window into this, growing up under the same repressive regime.  06:27 AM    View blog reactions

• • ‘There are only 15 saleable heroes’ 
Syed Firdaus Ashraf, Rediff Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Harry Binswanger  Interview with writer-director Sanjay Gupta.[Q:] Are you influenced by Aynn Rand's (popular and controversial American philosopher and novelist, most famous for her philosophy of Objectivism) philosophy because your films reflect those things? [A:] I'm a major fan. As a matter of fact, the book is in my bedroom and always next to me. [Q:] Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged? [A:] No, that was long back. What I always keep with me is Aynn Rand's lexicon, Objectivism from A-Z. It's like a dictionary of concepts where she speaks about marriage, relationship and all such things. 06:20 AM    View blog reactions

• Going places 
Frances Gomeztagle, Colorado Springs Independent On painter Lindsay Hand.“Art is like an airplane,” [Hand] shares, paraphrasing Ayn Rand. “You don't look at the airplane and talk about it. You get on it and go somewhere.” 06:16 AM    View blog reactions

• • • Ayn Rand 101 
Bruce McCall, Washington Independent (DC) Altruism  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Satire.Ayn Rand Syllabus [....] Assignment: Describe the triumph of free enterprise and laissez-faire capitalism in America’s 19th-century “Golden Age” of child labor, union-busting, monopolies, debtors’ prisons. Tell why Upton Sinclair was a quiche head. 06:13 AM    View blog reactions

• • Seeking wisdom 
Mir Tabassum Mairaj, Dawn (Karachi) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Letter to the editor.Once [Ayn Rand] said: “In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win. In any compromise between good and evil, it is only evil that can profit.” [...] I cross my fingers and pray to Almighty God to provide our ‘leaders’ with wisdom to arrive at a right decision so that evil forces should not profit. 06:04 AM    View blog reactions