• An icon’s farewell work salutes another 
James E. Person Jr., Washington Times Review of Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater, by William F. Buckley Jr.[Buckley’s] prose catches fire when he describes Mr. Goldwater awaiting his moment on the convention floor: "Although the spirit of defiance was not fully aroused in Goldwater in the days leading to his nomination, the spirit was alive in his mind, and it was bursting for air. He was careful not to appear like a Randian superego, strutting his individualism by scaling local skyscrapers. In San Francisco Barry appeared, mostly, as a complaint organization man in Sunday dress, the tiger properly dormant."     Share on Facebook

• • Democracy vs. capitalism 
Thom Hartmann, The Thom Hartmann Program (Air Americia) Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Audio  “Thom debates Dr. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute about which is better...democracy or capitalism?”     Share on Facebook

• Embracing the uncertain 
Sinclair Stewart, Globe and Mail (Toronto) Capitalism  Interview with George Soros.“We have to recognize – and this is a rather shocking thought – that these powerful institutions, these regulators and everything, have been guided by a false interpretation of how markets operate,” Mr. Soros insisted at his New York office. He pointed an accusatory finger at Alan Greenspan and his “Ayn Rand-inspired politics,” faulting the former Federal Reserve chairman for failing to control the availability of credit – and thwart a massive bubble in the bargain.     Share on Facebook

• • Two readers elect to tackle same subject 
Jenny Moore, Brazil Times (IN) Letter to the editor.I suggest you read "Atlas Shrugged," by Ayn Rand, philosopher. Though a work of fiction, it clearly demonstrates what can happen to a society when the determination that the minimum is good enough for all is made and forbids those with more personal drive to advance to their full potential.     Share on Facebook

• • Libertarian’s issue: Personal privacy 
Harry Esteve, The Oregonian (Portland) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  [Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr] spoke to about 150 people at an annual conference of The Atlas Society, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes Ayn Rand's libertarian principles. Rand, the author of "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged," founded a philosophical movement called "objectivism," which focuses on individual rights and achievements as the cornerstone of a great society. Barr said he agrees entirely with that outlook.     Share on Facebook

• Government or anarchy? 
George Dance, Nolan Chart Libertarians have historically stood for a proper government. A proper government is one that recognizes and respects individual human rights. [....] That is the main line of libertarianism, both academically (e.g., Robert Nozick) and popularly (e.g., Herbert Spencer or Ayn Rand). However, other libertarians reject this conclusion.     Share on Facebook

• • The books that changed your lives 
Jason Fitzpatrick, Lifehacker Anthem  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Several authors had multiple works mentioned by our readers, but none had such a strong showing as Ayn Rand. Most influential was The Fountainhead, followed by Atlas Shrugged and Anthem.     Share on Facebook

• Saving the (real) world 
Sean Ewing, Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ) Video games as an art form is a relatively young field. But despite that youth, we've seen some very potent displays of social awareness. "Metal Gear Solid 4" explored the idea of a war economy, "Bioshock" tackled objectivism and "Call of Duty 4" looked seriously at military service.     Share on Facebook

• Mad Men: Season 1 (Blu-ray) 
Adam Tyner, DVD Talk Review.Among the [...] characters featured throughout the thirteen episode season are Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), a Jewish, steel-willed department store heiress, Don's Bohemian mistress Midge (Rosemarie Dewitt), and the firm's two partners: the leering, sleazy Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse, in a particularly clever bit of casting), who seems more enthralled with soaking in Objectivism than the day-to-day headaches at a bustling ad agency.     Share on Facebook

• My generation: Rebellious 70s 
Vijay Nambisan, Deccan Herald (Bangalore, India) Unfortunately, investigative journalism takes as its premise cynicism: the fact that people are lying. The idealism of the Nehru years was gone for ever. Cynicism pervaded our society. On campuses we read Ayn Rand and eyed America with new respect. Or else we read Harold Robbins, to the same effect. Drugs! Sex! Money! White skin! So much else happened.     Share on Facebook

• • Price pens American Revolution novel 
Rob Neufeld, Citizen-Times (Asheville, NC) The Fountainhead  Review of Charles Price’s Nor the Battle to the Strong: A Novel of the American Revolution in the South.Say what you want about the purity of fiction writers’ narrative impulses. Stories embody messages, philosophies and arguments. Take Ayn Rand, author of “The Fountainhead,” for instance. In complete contrast to Price, her heroes operate in a world full of characters who are either manipulative or craven. The framework creates suspense, but there’s something flat about it; whereas through his generous philosophy, Price opens his story.     Share on Facebook

• • And here man faces his basic alternative… 
Michel Pireu, Business Day (South Africa) The Fountainhead  Fountainhead excerpt.The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.     Share on Facebook

• • Heart matters 
Pramod Khilery, MeriNews The Fountainhead  Howard Roark, the immortal character from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, thought of himself as successful owing to his being able to work on his conditions and Peter Keating, a character from same novel thought of himself as successful when he acquired materialistic pleasures. But what right do Peter Keatings of this world have to label Howard Roarks as unsuccessful?     Share on Facebook

• Here there be dragons 
John G. Nettles, Flagpole Review of the book American Nerd: The Story of My People, by Benjamin Nugent.[Benjamin] Nugent offers up several examples of the nerd as a character in classic literature [....]. He then traces the archetypal chasm between nerds and jocks that occurred with the growth of “Muscular Christianity,” the Teddy Roosevelt-era doctrine that God’s men are athletes and adventurers and empire-builders, not bookish intellectuals with a disdain for direct sunlight. The rest of the book is a seemingly random series of glimpses into various nerd subcultures. Here is a chapter on the activities of the Society for Creative Anachronism [...]. Here is a look at the Church of All Worlds, a philosophical mashup of Ayn Rand and Robert Heinlein that espouses polyamory.     Share on Facebook

• • Bedford grab bag 
Ben Muessig, The Brooklyn Paper (NY) Atlas Shrugged  A thief snatched a woman’s purse from the sidewalk on June 21, escaping with IDs, Metrocards, electronics and an objectivist text. The crook stole the bag from a 19-year-old woman, who had put her purse on the sidewalk at the corner of Bedford Avenue and North Seventh Street while she chatted with friends. The thief grabbed the bag — which held a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand — at about 12:50 pm.     Share on Facebook

• Trains still enchant both the young and old 
Danielle Myers, Gilroy Dispatch (Gilroy, CA) Atlas Shrugged  Two [...] favorite railroad reads of mine include: "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck.     Share on Facebook

• • Values group was sincere and sincerely wrong 
Britt Combs, McDowell News (Marion, NC) Ayn Rand had a good response to the challenge that her work had no relevance to the lives of modern men. She said every man must deal with his government and his neighbors. Therefore, she said, every man is a philosopher. It was a rare moment of charity and tact for the brilliant writer. She might have said (and surely must've been thinking) that every man is a bum philosopher.     Share on Facebook

• Loving your neighbor 
J. Frank Hay Jr., Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC) Atheism  The atheist (Friedrich) Nietzsche [...] argued forcefully that the person who gives up belief in God must be consistent and give up Christian morals as well, because the former is the foundation of the latter. He had nothing but contempt for fellow humanists who refused to see that Christian morality cannot survive the loss of its theological moorings, except as habit or as lifeless tradition. As Ayn Rand also sees so clearly, love of the neighbor cannot be rationally justified within the framework of secular humanism. Love for one’s neighbor is an ethical implication of the Christian position.     Share on Facebook

• Everything can’t be mind construction 
Tibor Machan, News-Tribune (Portales, NM) A central topic of philosophy throughout the ages has been whether human beings can trust their minds, including their sensory awareness and thinking. Skepticism about this has been a major challenge and many from Socrates to Ayn Rand and John Searle have responded with more or less elaborate arguments defending our capacity to get things right about the world.     Share on Facebook

• From Pixar, a droid piece of filmmaking 
John Anderson, Washington Post [WALL·E] is besotted with its own technology, its own art -- almost, but not quite, to the point that it allows technology to sublimate story. This has been the key to such Pixar films as "Toy Story," which boasted breakthrough execution while relegating the software to the backseat and letting the narrative drive. "Toy Story," by the way, is also a dark film -- there is an unspoken subplot about a broken marriage, and economically displaced people -- and "The Incredibles" had that Ayn Rand theme running through it.     Share on Facebook