• • Strange but true 
Rizal Johan, The Star (Malaysia) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Review of Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko, by Blake Bell.Bell’s main title for his book, Strange and Stranger, becomes more relevant when he introduces the objectivist philosophies of Russian emigre and US-based author Ayn Rand (1905-1982) whose signature books, The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), had a remarkable impact on Ditko’s attitude towards politics, which in turn influenced his work as a comics artist and writer. [....] Whether or not one agrees with Ditko’s ideas – and this reviewer, despite being a Ditko fan, finds those philosophies unpalatably right-wing and exclusionary – one must admire how the man stuck to his guns and expressed himself so effectively through comic books.     Share on Facebook

• • Giesbrecht, Michael John 
Modesto Bee (CA) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Death notice.At an early age Michael was influenced by the writings of Ayn Rand reading among others her epic novel Atlas Shrugged, embracing the philosophical renderings of The Fountain Head and from there satisfying his taste for Objectivism by subscribing to it's publications and requiring of his friends that they become aware of the exceptional phenomenon of thought. ''The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.'' -- Ayn Rand. Michael knew truth.     Share on Facebook

• • It’s the law 
The News (Salem, AR) Quote for the Day -- "The only power any 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." Ayn Rand     Share on Facebook

• • Spiffy lit geek shirts to buy for the book fiends in your life (including yourself) 
Michelle Kerns, The Examiner Atlas Shrugged  What? You haven't read Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged? For shame; go read it, then I guarantee you'll want this [“Who is John Galt?”] shirt. And if you've got any Ayn Rand fans in your acquaintance, believe me, they will be as grateful as an Objectivist disciple can be.     Share on Facebook

• When authors say, ‘Gee, thanks!‘ 
Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune Atlas Shrugged  [Marlene] Wagman-Geller began to explore the facts behind the dedications to [...] famous books such as "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov, "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand and "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, and put them in her brief but interesting book, "Once Again to Zelda." The title comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald's dedication of "The Great Gatsby" (1925) to his wife, Zelda.     Share on Facebook

• Artist Frank Cieciorka dies in Humboldt County 
Seth Rosenfeld, San Francisco Chronicle As a freshman [Cieciorka] was politically conservative, an Ayn Rand acolyte. But by 1959 he had become active in the peace movement, opposing U.S. military intervention in Vietnam.     Share on Facebook

• • Ayn Rand said it best 
Phil Parisi, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA) Letter to the editor.Heavy doses of income redistribution, taxes, universal health care, and government intrusion are available under the brand name Egalitaria. [....] Ayn Rand, writing in 1974 during the early stages of the development of Egal-itaria, made the following observation: “It is at a time like this, in the face of an approaching economic collapse, that the intellectuals are preaching egalitarian notions. When the curtailment of government spending is imperative, they demand more welfare projects.”     Share on Facebook

• • Who’s to blame for corporate fascism? It could be you 
Nickalis N. Tower, Nolan Chart Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Who are the Americans that provide the intellectual ammunition to fascist dreamers? Ayn Rand's character, Francisco D'Anconia, identified them: "Run for your life from anyone who tells you that money is the root of all evil." That is a warning of an approaching looter who is willing to ask the government to drain, harm, or otherwise loot you for his benefit.     Share on Facebook

• • How America’s greatest libertarian experiment failed 
Gene Messick, OpEdNews Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  A TRUE Libertarian could never run for Office, because that would support Government. [....] In terms of Business Philosophy, think: Ayn Rand, the weird Russian immigrant who never practiced what she preached, author of such classics of business barbarism as Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.     Share on Facebook

• •Who deserves our thanks? 
Stephen Grossman, Standard Times (New Bedford, MA) Atlas Shrugged  Letter to the editor.Give thanks to Alexander Bell, for telephones; Thomas Edison, for industrial science, light bulbs, electricity distribution, phonographs and motion picture cameras; the Wright brothers, for airplanes; Henry Ford, for mass production and inexpensive cars; Albert Einstein, for the laws of nuclear energy; Frank Lloyd Wright, for rational, beautiful houses; 1940s American warriors, for destroying fascism; and Ayn Rand, for dramatizing rational morality in "Atlas Shrugged" and for the consistent, rational philosophy of objectivism.     Share on Facebook

• Smashing Pumpkins at Midland Theatre, Night Two 
Grant Snider, The Pitch - Wayward Blog (Kansas City, MO) Concert review.Under the guise of resting his voice from the cold he was getting over, [Billy] Corgan held forth on a number of subjects: excessive T-shirt prices ("Heroin addiction is expensive."), the Jayhawks ("Does anybody still care about college?"), Radiohead (I don't think he likes 'em), and Ayn Rand (the only author I've read who's as preachy as a Pumpkins concert).     Share on Facebook

• A mystery lies at the very bottom 
Thomas Mitchell, Review-Journal (Las Vegas) Capitalism  On motivations for writing.Probably most importantly, [people write for] political purpose. [....] Ayn Rand wrote for free-market capitalism.     Share on Facebook

• • It is what it is… Or is it? 
Alex Cantatore, Turlock Journal (CA) Atlas Shrugged  The question, "Who is John Galt?" is asked rhetorically throughout "Atlas Shrugged," but is never meant to be answered. It's a sign of the times in Rand's America, a statement of the futility of living when the most oft-asked question simply has no answer.     Share on Facebook

• Secret Lives of the Great Authors 
David Murdock, Gadsden Times (AL) Review of the book Secret Lives of the Great Authors, by Robert Schnakenberg.Who can deny the charm of the revelations that Ayn Rand loved the TV show Charlie’s Angels and Toni Morrison is a “rabid fan” of Law and Order.     Share on Facebook

• • In the name of knowledge and wisdom 
Jamie Glazov, FrontPage Magazine Atheism  Interview with Jonas E. Alexis, author of In the Name of Knowledge and Wisdom: Why Atheists, Sceptics, Agnostics, and Intellectuals Deny Christianity.I began to study the history of [....] atheist writers and existentialist philosophers such as Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ayn Rand, Ernst Haeckel, [...] and all the way up to our modern atheists. All of them did not reject and attack Christianity because the evidence was lacking [...]. For Richard Lewontin of Harvard, he just cannot accept “a Divine foot at the door.” Many of those people died slowly, miserably, and pathetically. That includes Russell, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Madelyn O’Hair, Wilde, Nietzsche, Rand, D’Holbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, Sartre, Rousseau, etc.     Share on Facebook

• • I’m a bad libertarian 
Tom Chartier, LewRockwell.com Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Okay… now this one really scares me. I think this is the stumbling block over which I have slipped and busted my nose. I have not… and I shudder at the humiliation… gotten around to those two Ayn Rand books, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. I have them. I just haven’t been able to squeeze them in [...]. Hey wait a minute! Wasn’t Ayn Rand’s philosophy "Objectivism" not Libertarianism? You see? I’m totally confused. Maybe I’m just intimidated by Galt’s Speech. However, I admit the error of my ways. The shame I feel I cannot put into words. I swear I’ll read Ayn Rand! Soon!     Share on Facebook

• It’s time to restrain the demons 
Charles Litz, Kansas City Star (MO) Capitalism  Letter to the editor.By now as we go deep into recession we should understand that democracy and economic stability are incompatible with a wholly unregulated market system. Yet the Ayn Rand folks are still in denial.     Share on Facebook

• • BB&T donation to foster business ethics 
Julia Merchant, Smoky Mountain News (Waynesville, NC) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Western Carolina University College of Business will develop a program that will focus on the study of leadership, ethics and capitalism, thanks to a $1 million gift from the BB&T Foundation that was announced last week. [....] The intent [...] is to encourage a thorough discussion of the moral foundations of capitalism in a manner that enables students to be informed about all points of view, including the philosophy of objectivism as portrayed by Ayn Rand in her classic novel “Atlas Shrugged” and in her essays, said John A. Allison IV, chairman and chief executive officer of BB&T.     Share on Facebook

• • Mark Cuban libre 
Dave Zirin, The Nation Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The literary muse of bootstrap billionaires like [Cuban] is Ayn Rand, the sleep-inducing author behind Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. Cuban's favorite book is, you guessed it, The Fountainhead. As he said to Slate.com, "It was incredibly motivating to me. It encouraged me to think as an individual, take risks to reach my goals and responsibility for my successes and failures."     Share on Facebook

• • Thoughts on fact, fiction and politics 
Edward Cline, Family Security Matters Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  If he had lived long enough (he died in 1945), [Albert Jay] Nock might have observed the commercial successes of Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and their influence in the culture, and perhaps retracted his earlier dismissal of those novels' millions of readers as interchangeable "mass-men," the willing dupes and playthings of criminally-minded politicians.     Share on Facebook