• • The book that changed my life 
Ela Dutt, The Indian American The Fountainhead  Decades after reading Ayn Rand’s ‘Fountainhead’ as a teenager, I am now realizing the many ways it conditioned my mind, that it was probably the reason I chose when presented with the opportunity, to come to America rather than go elsewhere. That it lived in my mind and spirit clouded over but not killed off by other thinking. It has, over the last few days, led me to re-examine my life, the choices I made; to see those choices through a different prism – not as random acts but as definite decisions; and to understand why I love my country of choice, warts and all.     Share on Facebook

• • National service and slavery 
Bradley Harrington, The Bulletin (Philadelphia) Anthem  Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism, of its logical implications, of the principles upon which it is based, and of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead.” - Ayn Rand, “Anthem”     Share on Facebook

• • White liberals and politically correct racism 
Edmund Standing, Family Security Matters The Virtue of Selfishness  Image  While I’m far from an Ayn Rand acolyte, her analysis of racism in The Virtue of Selfishness is spot-on.     Share on Facebook

• • Philosophy in chiropractic education 
Christopher Kent, Dynamic Chiropractic As Ayn Rand wrote, “As a human being, you have no choice about the fact that you need a philosophy. Your only choice is whether you define your philosophy by a conscious, rational, disciplined process of thought and scrupulously logical deliberation, or let your subconscious accumulate a junk heap of unwarranted conclusions, false generalizations, undefined contradictions, undigested slogans, unidentified wishes, doubts and fears, thrown together by chance, but integrated by your subconscious into a kind of mongrel philosophy and fused into a single, solid weight: self-doubt, like a ball and chain in the place where your mind’s wings should have grown.”     Share on Facebook

• • LACMA opening Resnick Pavilion! 
Jay Weston, Huffington Post The Fountainhead  I have been increasingly fascinated of late by the contemporary architectural scene, since my ex, Annabelle, and her partner Marci are working on a film remake of the legendary Ayn Rand book and movie, The Fountainhead, and I have been preoccupied on how to take the dynamic story of architect Howard Ruark and update it.     Share on Facebook

• • Forced to be free 
Jesse Walker, Reason Leonard Peikoff  In theory, [Leonard] Peikoff believes in strictly limited government and strong protection of individual rights. But last month he argued that the authorities should block a Muslim community center from being erected near the site of the 9/11 attacks, on the grounds that Islam—not just jihadism, but Islam itself—is a threat to a free America. [....] We may soon face an “Islamic takeover of a paralyzed United States,” Peikoff warned. Allowing the Manhattan center to be built would be an “objective sign of our weakness,” and therefore it would be “immoral and catastrophic for Americans to permit it.” Thus, “permission should be refused, and if they go ahead and build it, the government should bomb it out of existence, evacuating it first, with no compensation to any of the property owners involved in this monstrosity.” Peikoff believes this conclusion is consistent with “individualism,” and in a sense I suppose it is. It’s the individualism that saw slavery in the free exercise of religion, the individualism that saw liberation in the prohibition of alcohol and consensual sex. It’s an individualism with deep roots in both American and European history. It just isn’t a sort of individualism that believes in individual liberty.     Share on Facebook

• • First Impressions owner wants focus on industry 
Ocala Business Journal (FL) The Fountainhead  Profile of Frank Spontelli, president of First Impressions Printing.Q: What is your favorite business book? A: “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand, an amazing statement (made over 60 years ago) of where we may be headed as a nation.     Share on Facebook

• • Why our ship is listing 
Wes Browning, Real Change News - Dr. Wes Ayn Rand says that if her heirs don’t deserve her money, because they didn’t earn it, well then neither do you. Prove that is not a valid argument. Hint: Substitute “drunken space-giraffes” for “her heirs.” Should drunken space-giraffes have inherited Ayn Rand’s wealth? Did they?     Share on Facebook

• • Here, there, and everywhere 
Illinois Valley News (Cave Junction, OR) LAST WORDS - “When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed.” (Ayn Rand)     Share on Facebook

• • Culture briefs - Shrug at film 
Washington Times Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  "I'm a great fan of 'Atlas Shrugged,' but I'd be surprised if anyone could turn it into a decent movie. So we can hope for the best, but our enthusiasm must be cautious. [....]” — Maynard, writing on " Atlas Shrugged, the Movie?" on July 27 at the website of radio host Tammy Bruce.     Share on Facebook

• • Graham Elliot Bowles on haters, pills, and being on Fox 
Joshua David Stein, Eater.com Egoism  [Q:] You [...] mentioned in [a] Nightline piece that you founded a religion in high school? [A:] Well, I had a tough time in high school. Since my dad was in the Navy, I went to three different high schools and ended up in the hospital for manic depression and suicide and all that stuff, on a ton of medications. I’ve always known I was different. In high school I made my own t-shirts. Each one was named after a different day of the week. So I didn’t have to deal with fashion. My religion was called Me-ism. It was inspired by Ayn Rand and objectivism.     Share on Facebook

• • The independent: Jeffrey Lichtenberg roars back with big deals for big names 
Jotham Sederstrom, New York Observer Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  It wasn’t until the summer between his sophomore and junior years at Hobart College in upstate New York that Mr. Lichtenberg, until then a left-leaning English major, turned his gaze on the real estate industry. After reading The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, two peons to architecture and individualism by Ayn Rand, Mr. Lichtenberg began to apply the writer’s thoughts to his own life, much as Alan Greenspan and Warren Buffet famously did many years before him. “I came back a different person,” said Mr. Lichtenberg, who named his company “Fountainhead Enterprises” after the 1943 best seller. “I came back from wanting to live on a commune to wanting to build something.”     Share on Facebook

• • Phillydeals: A host of projects await Rendell’s thumbs-up 
Joseph N. DiStefano, Philadelphia Inquirer How did Ed Snider, a devotee of minimal-government, pro-business libertarian Ayn Rand, end up asking [Gov.] Rendell for $5 million? “This money is actually going into the refurbishment and restoration” of five run-down, city-owned rinks that Snider’s [youth hockey] foundation has kept open for throngs of hockey-playing kids since they were threatened with closure two years ago, says foundation president Scott Tharp. Snider will match the state “with $5 million of his own,” Tharp added. “Regardless of his Ayn Rand belief, the foundation believes that when you provide a viable public service, there should be public support.”     Share on Facebook

• • A mad look at philosophy 
Brian Moon, Wisconsin Radio Network Egoism  As fans of Mad Men eagerly await the season premiere Sunday night, a Wisconsinite helps people take a philosophical look at the TV drama, which portrays advertising agencies in the 1960’s. James South, Chair of the Marquette University Philosophy Department, helped edit Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing is as it Seems. The book takes a closer look at the AMC drama citing the works of well known minds including Ayn Rand. Rand has been referenced on the show as a boss of the main character Don Draper suggested he read her books. Draper’s womanizing and competitive business practices have also been attributed as an example of Rand’s “virtue of selfishness.” However, South says an author in the book dispels this comparison as the Randian principle centers around being a unique individual, making their mark on the world, rather than “do whatever you feel like doing.”     Share on Facebook

• • Tea Party, meet religious right. Everybody meet Ayn Rand. 
Adele M. Stan, AlterNet Capitalism  In two major speeches and in the scuttlebutt of break-out sessions, Tea Party movement activists yesterday witnessed a subtle melding of their ideology with the sensibilities of the religious right and the cold capitalism of libertarian she-ro Ayn Rand. Along the way, more nakedly than before, presenters spoke of their clear-eyed plan to take over the Republican Party from within.     Share on Facebook

• • Somalia/Uganda: Profiteers of terrorism other than those labeled “terrorists” 
Kiflu Hussain, Garowe Online The Fountainhead  Ayn Rand author of ‘The Fountainhead’ observed “The trouble with you, my dear and with most people, is that you don’t have sufficient respect for the senseless—You have no chance if it’s your enemy.”     Share on Facebook

• • Reading right: Core curriculum 
Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh) Atlas Shrugged  Egoism  Benjamin Wiker’s “10 Books Every Conservative Must Read: Plus Four Not to Miss and One Impostor” (Regnery) doesn’t list his favorites or those that have sold best. “Rather,” writes Wiker, author of “10 Books that Screwed Up the World” and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, “the choices were made based upon what conservatives must read in light of our present condition.” [H]is “One Impostor”? “Atlas Shrugged” -- because “Ayn Rand would have agreed that she was no conservative. Rand’s insistence on pure selfishness as the root and branch of her moral system proved irreconcilable with true conservative moral principles.”     Share on Facebook

• • Capital strike? 
Greg Moses, Counterpunch Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  The problem with the capitalists who are on strike now is that they are living under an antiquated paradigm of exotic genius, channelled communication, and crony networks. Their secret hero is John Galt of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged who privately invented the secret to prosperity but refused to share it with the workers who would be needed to make it so. The appropriate answer to this calculating heart of striking capitalists is to say, but John Galt you are not.     Share on Facebook

• • The ‘free market’ threat to freedom 
Paul C. Trahan, Journal Tribune (Biddeford, ME) Atlas Shrugged  “Introduce the death penalty for civilian crimes, for critics, dissenters and the like … Since people won’t cooperate, won’t act for the public interest voluntarily, we’ve got to force them to. Nothing will make our system work … but terror.” – “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, 1957. Forget Star Trek. That quotation from “Atlas Shrugged” is the Republican Prime Directive: Control Americans by instilling fear. [....] “The public be damned,” says Hank Reardon, a protagonist in Atlas Shrugged. “The public be damned,” wrote Milton Friedman in 1963. “The public be damned” is how Republicans view real Americans. After all, nothing will make their system work but terror. And they can always make more money.     Share on Facebook

• • Deadbrains 
Dan Popp, RenewAmerica Capitalism  Government “help” to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off. — Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook