• • Monday, September 28, 2009 
Jian Ghomeshi, CBC Radio - Q Altruism  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Audio  (Audio; relevant section begins at 35:17) Interview with Ralph Nader.[Q:] Do you see your book [Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!] as an answer to Ayn Rand’s [books, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead]? [A:] Yeah, exactly. Only Ayn Rand had small print 1150 pages in Atlas Shrugged and John Galt had a 103-page speech. [....] I know a lot of people who claim they’ve read her novels but maybe they've just leafed through them. She made narcissism popular. She had phrases like "altruism is lethal," "compassion is ugly." It infected the minds of a lot of young people over two generations. Robert Reich, who is a former Secretary of Labor, told me the other day he thinks those two books did more damage to the young generation than any books in American history.     Share on Facebook

• How did economists get it so wrong? 
Rosario A. Iaconis, New York Times Magazine Capitalism  Unlike Alan Greenspan and Ronald Reagan — who fell under the ideological spell of Ayn Rand — John Maynard Keynes was an economic realist.     Share on Facebook

• • Emerging from my depression 
Grimsby Telegraph As Marian [Kay] ends our conversation, she says there is a quote by Ayn Rand that she has found both moving and helpful. She would like to share it with anybody else who feels like everything is getting too much for them: "Every unnamed fear, every cause of self-doubt is based on man's lack of confidence in his ability to deal with reality."     Share on Facebook

• Pelosi denounces ‘angry health care rhetoric’; pot condemns kettle 
Steve Barrett, Times Free Press (Chattanooga, TN) Atlas Shrugged  I guess [Pennsylvania politicians are] counting on constituents not noticing that outside the pages of "1984" and "Atlas Shrugged," rolling back tax relief is better known as "raising taxes."     Share on Facebook

• Susan Feniger: Spice girl 
Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times Interview.[Q:] Not many chefs have their names on their restaurants. You do. Are things better for women chefs now? [A:] [....] In high school, I was a big reader of Ayn Rand, but I've learned since! I never thought of myself as being discriminated against [as a woman]. I know it's there. But I think, yes, it's easier.     Share on Facebook

• • Randian view 
Sonya Healy, Review-Journal (Las Vegas) Altruism  Objectivism, as conceived and developed by Ayn Rand, is based upon the rights of the individual. In a rational world, the force of the government would not be used to confiscate private companies, our health care, children's education choices or our right to keep our own money. It will take time, but with a resurgence of the idea that we are responsible for our own well-being and happiness, we can return to a government that protects us from those who would initiate the use of physical force against us and from those who would usurp our individual rights.     Share on Facebook

• • “Knowledge is the key to empowerment” 
The Hindu (India) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  [Tiruchi National] College Secretary K. Raghunathan said Ayn Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and ‘Fountainhead’ were must-reads for students to transform their outlook. He called upon the student participants [in the Inter-Collegiate Youth Empowerment Programme] from about 12 colleges to prepare themselves for a discussion on these books.     Share on Facebook

• • • Nietzsche not nurture in the land of Ayn Rand 
Alex Lo, South China Morning Post Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Egoism  (Subscription required.)In America today, an increasing number of business leaders, pundits and politicians find solace in Rand as they work against, or at least react to, a president whom many believe to be a socialist, or worse. [....] One might think Rand should have gone into eclipse, given that the greed and egoism - qualities she praises - of Wall Street helped cause the near collapse of the world economy. [....] Yet, far from being discredited, Rand is enjoying a resurgence across the US - but nowhere else - because of the ethos of her philosophy. She helps crystallise some core beliefs that animate the hard right, which may otherwise be incomprehensible to people outside the US.     Share on Facebook

• • Books you don’t want your lover to love 
Amanda Hess, Washington City Paper (DC) Atlas Shrugged  Here are my deal-breaker books: [....] Atlas Shrugged. [....] Rand’s Ideal Woman, Dagny Taggart, is a self-made railroad baron and defender of industry. Taggart defers to no one, except for basically every dude she has sex with. In sex, Taggart submits fully to Man, an act which symbolizes surrender to her sex partner’s superior industrial capabilities, or whatever. Many critics have described Rand’s sex scenes as “rape,” but in Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, Wendy McElroy explains that it’s not rape, because Rand makes Taggart secretly want men to take her by force.     Share on Facebook

• • Best and worst of TIFF ‘09 
Chris Knight, National Post (Toronto) Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The best and worst from the Toronto International Film Festival.Most rambling interview moment: Woody Harrelson, trying to explain that one look at a person's face can tell you a great deal about them. "Kind of like that line in--let's see if I can botch this up-- you know, Ayn Rand's Fountainhead, I believe it is. Howard Roark talking with, I forget the woman in Fountainhead. They're making that into a movie with Charlize Theron. Yeah. Or no, maybe that's Atlas Shrugged. But anyway ..."     Share on Facebook

• • Socialism an envy of excellence 
Herbert London, Newsmax The Fountainhead  That socialism cannot work is the inevitable conclusion of Ayn Rand’s “Fountainhead” and the historical experience of the 20th century. If excellence isn’t the goal of personal achievement, conformity or mediocrity reigns. If wealth isn’t a reward for success, poverty reigns. And if success is a sin, failure is a virtue.     Share on Facebook

• • Audience-jury gives ‘16th’ verdict 
John Berger, Star-Bulletin (Honolulu, HI) Night of January 16th  Review of a production of Night of January 16th.The [...] playbill quotes Rand as describing [Bjorn] Faulkner as "what [Ivar] Kreugar ought to have been." The play then is more about Rand's view of "great figures and crucial fundamentals" than legal procedure or the human cost of large-scale financial rip-offs. However, with Hawaii's fragile economy still in serious trouble following last year's financial meltdown, and confessed mega-swindler Bernard Madoff in the news, her vintage courtroom mystery has a timely hook to it.     Share on Facebook

• • Obama shrugged 
Perry Phipps Sr., Maryland Gazette (Glen Burnie) Atlas Shrugged  Since his election to office I have followed closely the changes emanating out of the Presidential Palace of Barak Obama. It appears that his administration - with his numerous Czars - and the absolutely blind support of the Democrat Congress must be using the novel "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand as his playbook for America's new changes he promised. I've just finished reading the novel for a third time since my first reading in 1956 at the tender age of 18, when it influenced my political views, and I think what the country needs now is to identify "Who is John Galt?" among us.     Share on Facebook

• • America awakes: Reflections on 9/12 (Part II) 
Oleg Atbashian, Pajamas Media The leftist demagogues have learned to exploit the superficial theatrics to expand their power in the name of “minorities.” But in the words of Ayn Rand, the smallest minority is the individual; one cannot claim to be a defender of minorities if one restricts the individual rights that are essential to genuine diversity.     Share on Facebook

• • The metamorphosis 
David Kahane, National Review Online The Fountainhead  Humor.I have a nightmare. I have a nightmare that sometime before the 2010 elections, the scales will fall from your eyes and you will see us as we really are. [....] I have a nightmare that you will read Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead and recognize us in the figure of Ellsworth Toohey — the “friend” who is in fact your mortal enemy.     Share on Facebook

• Sueños 
Max Silvestri, The Onion A.V. Club The Fountainhead  I am pretending that I am someone who has read The Fountainhead, when really I've just had drunk people describe it to me.     Share on Facebook

• • Why dumb down? 
Leonard Lash, Naples Daily News (FL) Altruism  Capitalism  At my advanced age, I can remember when there were smart conservatives around. Although I did not often agree with them, their speeches and writings made good sense; their sentences parsed. I could respect them for their intellectual honesty. Today, the leadership of the conservatives shows none of these virtues. For example, here in Southwest Florida many Republicans are ardent followers of Ayn Rand. She was a bitter, unhappy émigré from the Soviet Union who espoused an economic philosophy designed to denigrate the Soviet Union, but also disdained our own American Judeo-Christian history and culture. She and her followers proclaim that “greed is good” and “altruism is bad.” While this certainly is not socialism, it is not good Americanism or even conservatism.     Share on Facebook

• • Sweet Carolina 
Martin Kaufmann, GolfWeek The Fountainhead  I’ve seen several of [Mike] Strantz’s [golf] courses, but it wasn’t until I visited Tobacco Road that it dawned on me who his style reminded me of: Howard Roark. Not familiar with his work? Roark is the hero of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead,” an architect with a unique, modernist vision and the courage to pursue it in the face of hidebound traditionalists. Similarly, whether you love or loathe Strantz’s work – and there probably aren’t many people who are ambivalent – his willingness to challenge an industry that cherishes tradition, sometimes to a fault, was admirable.     Share on Facebook

• • Greenspan backs key Obama Wall Street reform effort 
Ryan Grim, Huffington Post Capitalism  A keystone of Obama's Wall Street reform agenda is getting support from the unlikeliest of corners. Alan Greenspan, an acolyte of Ayn Rand and extreme free-marketeer, is backing one of the most far-reaching elements of the financial overhaul: the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. [....] "He has already said that he erred in assuming that the market would take care of things--the Ayn Rand point of view--but this seems to go farther than he's gone before in calling for a new agency to protect consumers from financial products," said [Rep. Brad] Miller [the lead backer of the CFPA in the House Financial Services Committee].     Share on Facebook

• • Glimpse into the future? 
Anita Kraus Lane, M.D., The Gazette (Colorado Springs) Atlas Shrugged  I am an internal medicine doctor practicing in Colorado Springs for nearly 15 years. Recently my book club decided to read “Atlas Shrugged”. I am only on page 683 out of 1068 and need to finish it in 4 days. I was compelled to take time away from my task after reading a paragraph in Part 3, Chapter 1, titled “Atlantis” that quoted Dr. Hendricks. This book was published in 1957 yet I felt he was one of my modern day colleagues. [....] I certainly hope Ayn Rand was not in possession of a crystal ball. If so, where’s my ticket to Atlantis?     Share on Facebook