• • 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

• • 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

• • 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

• • 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

• • ‘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

• • 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

• • 2008 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting: Detailed notes 
Peter Boodell, Seeking Alpha Capitalism  [Charles Munger:] A lot goes on in bowels of American industry which is not pretty. A lot of people got overdosed on Ayn Rand. They would hold that even if an axe murderer in a free market is a wise development. I think Alan Greenspan did a good job on average, but he overdosed on Ayn Rand that whatever happens in free market is going to be alright. We should prohibit some things. 07:38 AM    View blog reactions

• • “Punishment Capitalism,” the curious motivations of some supporters of free markets 
Andrew Russell, Thoughts on Freedom (Australian Libertarian Society) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Under Punishment Capitalism, people make money by “working hard” as opposed to “working creatively.” Under Punishment Capitalism, people work out of “duty to their loved ones” rather than “rational selfishness.” [....] Ayn Rand was not completely free of the spectre of Punishment Capitalism (although she was not necessarily a proponent). I give you the example of Hank Rearden’s hatred of Francisco d’Anconia in “Atlas Shrugged.” d’Anconia was hated for being a “worthless playboy” and a “destroyer of wealth” (as if piles of gold have an inherent value? Sounds much too Aristotelian-Intrinsicist for Ayn Rand). Although there is some evidence that Rand herself disapproved of anti-consumption positions, for example when Ragnar tells Rearden to spend a refunded gold ingot exclusively on his personal consumption, it is very easy to read Rand as supporting a Neo-Puritan belief that production via back-breaking effort is intrinsically moral (regardless of the fact that this attitude would contradict Rand’s technical philosophy on numerous levels). 08:46 AM    View blog reactions

• • Social justice is a stupid idea 
Jordan Rothman, Brandeis Hoot (Brandeis U, Waltham, MA) I am becoming more of an objectivist, a follower of the tenets laid out by the contemporary philosopher Ayn Rand. Her beliefs stem from the central philosophy that people should not live for others nor ask others to live for themselves. Social justice is diametrically opposed to this philosophy. 06:37 AM    View blog reactions

• • Gordon Campbell interviews Rodney Hide 
Gordon Campbell, Scoop Atlas Shrugged  Interview with the leader of New Zealand’s Act Party.[Q:] Have you ever read Ayn Rand? [A:] Yes. [Q:] Why do you think her work remains so popular, especially among the young? [A:] Its easily accessible. She wrote… you know, like a novel, rather than strictly economics or philosophy or political science. And she creates characters who are heroes. So I can imagine it being quite powerful. I think people who are libertarian by persuasion are very influenced by the first libertarian book that they read. 06:35 AM    View blog reactions

• • Modern liberalism at wit’s end 
Barry Loberfeld, FrontPage Magazine Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Review of The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics, by Jonathan Chait."[While] conservatives believe, say, that progressive taxes inhibit incentives to work, they would not change this view even if it were proven wrong, because buttressing their position is a deeper belief about the immorality of big government. Liberal support for bigger government, on the other hand, is entirely rooted in what liberals believe to be its practical effects,” [Chait writes]. [But] [e]ven the "moralist" defenders of the free market, those who do indeed maintain a "belief about the immorality of big government," do not ignore "practical effects." After all, what was Atlas Shrugged but a demonstration of the consequences -- for everyone, not just the John Galts -- of a collectivized economy? 06:24 AM    View blog reactions

• • Director sets the stage 
Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star (Tucson) Atlas Shrugged movie  Atlas Shrugged  Interview with writer/director Vadim Perelman, whose latest project is The Life Before Her Eyes.Perelman’s next project, writing Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” along with “Braveheart” writer Randall Wallace, was [...] a challenge. Perelman says he's still waiting for the studio to approve the script, but that everything was still on track for a 2009 release, barring an actors strike. That film is expected to star Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. “It was difficult in a sense,” Perelman said. “It’s such a huge novel to cut down, to make it visual, flesh out the characters and so on. What parts to leave in or leave out. It was easier in a sense because it has a classical novel structure, but ‘The Life Before Her Eyes' was very much a poem and essentially very evocative.”  07:49 AM    View blog reactions

• • Is the price right? Price eyes U.S. senate run in 2010 
John Fredericks, Roswell Beacon (GA) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Legendary author and political theorist Ayn Rand opened her best selling classic novel, “Atlas Shrugged,” with the question, “Who is John Galt?” As it turned out, Galt, her lead character, was an unyielding capitalist who wanted to impact the nation in a sweeping and permanent way. In the not so distant future Georgians outside of North Fulton County may be asking the question, “Who is Tom Price?” 06:02 AM    View blog reactions

• • In the Sellwood Kitchen 
Michael and Erin O’Shaughnessy, The Bee (Portland, OR) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Full house tonight in the Sellwood Kitchen: Josh & Adam (as per), Jim (as of late), and Erin’s girlhood chum, Allee, who notches up the intelligence quotient by about 50%. (Sure, I can namedrop Ayn Rand, but she’s actually read “The Fountainhead”. Oh, and Jim’s read “Atlas Shrugged”. Eggheads.) Ayn Rand developed a philosophy called Objectivism (she preferred Existentialism, but Nietzsche had already nicked it). Rand’s idea that happiness is the moral purpose of our lives, and productive achievement is our noblest activity, sounds tempting at first listen, but I balk at her unswerving conviction. I am certain of nothing. 05:58 AM    View blog reactions

• • We have enough oil here in the U.S. 
Philip V. Brennan, Newsmax Ayn Rand Institute  Let it be said loud and clear — there is not a single shred of evidence that DDT poses the least kind of threat to the health of the planet’s people, yet on the flimsiest of grounds created by an alarmist book, “Silent Spring,” by the late Rachel Carson based on myth rather than science — this life-saving chemical is banned and whole populations die. Think that’s an accident? Think again. As I quoted Michael Berliner co-chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif., in last week's column, the mankind hater's goal is nothing less than the extinction of humanity.  05:50 AM    View blog reactions

• • The new pyramid builders II 
Edward Cline, Family Security Matters Atlas Shrugged  [T]he artificially high price of oil charged by OPEC [...], which has a near monopoly on oil production as a result of Western-sanctioned expropriations and Western environmental policies, [....] facilitates the incursion of Islamic jihad, both the "soft" kind through financial and political manipulation, and the "hard" kind of Islamofascist violence, which is funded by especially Mideast money from all the Persian Gulf states. (Therefore, we are subsidizing our own decline and ultimate destruction. What did Ayn Rand have to say about the "sanction of the victim?" The principle applies to civilizations as well as to individuals.) 08:03 AM    View blog reactions

• • More older folks flocking to MySpace and Facebook 
Arlene Gross, Newsday (New York) Atlas Shrugged  [Eugene] Fridman, an applications developer for Chase Bank, said he likes the Q&A feature [of the LinkedIn website ] and checks it once or twice a day. “It’s really fun to read what other people are interested in,” he said, such as a recent online discussion about which books had the greatest influence on them. Soon after that dialogue, Fridman got a copy of Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged,” a title mentioned by several people. 07:36 AM    View blog reactions

• • Movie: Science ‘expels’ intelligent design 
Dennis Carter, eSchool News Ayn Rand Institute  On the pro-“intelligent design” movie, Expelled.“Intelligent design is completely devoid of any positive scientific content, and consists of nothing more than a religiously motivated attack on evolution,” said Keith Lockitch, a resident fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute, a California-based nonprofit that describes its mission as promoting rationality, capitalism, and individual rights: “To the extent intelligent-design advocates are facing obstacles in academia, it is because they are not doing real science--they haven’t been expelled, they have flunked out of the scientific community, just as a faith healer would flunk out of medical school.” 10:32 AM    View blog reactions

• • Let’s say you want to date a hog farmer 
J. Courtney Sullivan, New York Times Atheism  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  On niche dating websites, including TheAtlasSphere.com.Stephanie Betit first read “Atlas Shrugged,” “The Fountainhead” and Ayn Rand’s essay collection “The Virtue of Selfishness” in 2004. The books changed her life, she said, turning her from a devout Christian into an atheist and a follower of objectivism, Rand’s philosophy of independence and rational self-interest. “From then on, I was looking for a partner who shared my outlook on life,” said Ms. Betit. 07:40 AM    View blog reactions

• • Legislature works toward adjournment 
Henry C. Jackson, Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier (Waterloo, IA) Atlas Shrugged  [House Minority Leader Christopher] Rants compared this year’s session to the novel “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand, a book he said he gave his House page as a gift. “It sums up the continual struggle between the looters and producers,” he said. “They’re the looters.” 07:33 AM    View blog reactions

• • Andrew Lipke Q&A 
Spence D., IGN.com Atlas Shrugged  Interview with musician Andrew Lipke.[Q:] Who or what are your non-musical influences and why? [A:] [....] I'm influenced by the writing of Ayn Rand, especially Atlas Shrugged with its rich metaphors and extremely dense and thought provoking imagery; and the many teachings of religious and spiritual doctrines around the world. 07:19 AM    View blog reactions

• • 30 years ago in Reason 
Reason Personal life  “The luckiest beneficiaries of [Ayn Rand’s] work are the people who read her and never see her, never meet her, never have any reason to deal with her in person. Then they get the best of what she was.” —Nathaniel Branden, “Thank You Ayn Rand, and Goodbye” 07:10 AM    View blog reactions

• • Ayn Rand Institute not a cult, promotes independent thought 
Guy Barnett, The Good 5¢ Cigar (U of RI) Ayn Rand Institute  The Fountainhead  Letter to the editor.The letter from Mr. Colin Giblin published on March 23 absurdly calls the Ayn Rand Institute a cult. The Institute is explicitly opposed to religion, as was Ayn Rand. So, to call it a cult, which is a type of religious organization, is patently dishonest and obviously false. While cult leaders demand absolute unthinking obedience, no matter how crazy their edicts, Ayn Rand advocated independence as a key virtue. 08:38 AM    View blog reactions