• • • Capitalism’s Leni Riefenstahl 
Max Dunbar, 3:AM Magazine Altruism  Atheism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  We The Living  Capitalism  Personal life  Yaron Brook  Image  Review of Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, by Jennifer Burns.Rand lives on, a grinning ghost in the corridors of power. Sales of her books, always at high plateau, spiked during the 2008 crash. To her supporters, the bank bailouts vindicated Rand. ‘We’re heading towards socialism,’ declared Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Institute, ’we’re heading towards more regulation. Atlas Shrugged is coming true.’ Cult devotees are famously resistant to the lessons of experience. It evidently didn’t occur to Brook that, like Soviet Communism, Rand’s doctrinaire capitalism had already been put into practice, and found wanting.     Share on Facebook

• • • Morality of war 
Patti Roscoe, The Rotator (Rotary Club of San Diego) Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  (Link is to PDF file.)It’s been a long time since a speaker evoked such a buzz once we were adjourned. [....] When Dr. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute began his presentation with a quote from General Sherman – War is Hell – we knew we were in for quite a ride. [....] “Provocative, challenging, offensive, infuriating, thought provoking and bone chilling” were just some of the words and impressions I heard and felt as I walked from the room. Groups of people, in twos and fours, were in serious discussion everywhere, agreeing and disagreeing; expressing their beliefs or disbelief in the speech; or just trying to grasp the concept of it all.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand in Uganda 
Scott Noble, Dissident Voice Altruism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Personal life  Inaccurate  Rand’s philosophy represents a revolt against human nature. Not only are we hard-wired to feel emotions like empathy, it is precisely our ability to share, commiserate and act collectively that allows us to survive as a species. Moreover, recent data suggests that the great bugaboo of libertarianism – equality of outcome – is actually the single most important determinant of health and happiness in society.     Share on Facebook

• • Capitalism advocate will deliver message at Wheeling Jesuit 
Linda Harris, State Journal (Charleston, WV) Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Egoism  [Eric] Daniels will be on the Wheeling Jesuit University campus to discuss the “Morality of Capitalism” at 7 p.m. March 17 and explore the most common arguments in favor of capitalism. Sponsored by the BB&T Charitable Foundation, it’s part of the college’s annual Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality (ISCM) speaker series and is offered to provide a series of forums for discussing issues regarding capitalism and morality, business ethics, and related issues. Wheeling Jesuit Business Professor Ed Younkins, executive director of ISCM, said Daniels finds that those arguments “all break down in the face of the popular argument that capitalism is immoral and destructive because it is selfish.” “Dr. Daniels explains that only Ayn Rand's crucial insight — that capitalism is the only moral social system because it is based on "the virtue of selfishness" — can truly defend capitalism. He illustrates the need for a moral, and not just an economic, defense of capitalism,” Younkins said. Rand was a 20th century author who wrote “Atlas Shrugged” and other books that extolled the virtues of capitalism.     Share on Facebook

• •From canyon to cove: A visit to Hangover House 
Cindy Frazier, Coastline Pilot (Laguna Beach, CA) Ayn Rand Archives  Ayn Rand Institute  The Fountainhead  Personal life  As one might expect of such an old and notable dwelling [Hangover House] has its mysteries and urban legends. One such legend surrounds a purported visit that Ayn Rand made to the home before writing her monumental novel about a modernist architect, “The Fountainhead,” where she allegedly interviewed [architect William Alexander] Levy about his theories of architecture. Levy apparently believed that some of his words and ideas were used in Rand’s book, and that scenes in “The Fountainhead” were set in Hangover House. But Benec said this is now being debunked by a representative of the Ayn Rand Archives in Irvine who responded to Benec’s original house listing with a letter citing various facts to prove that Rand “did not set foot in California” from 1934 to 1943 and therefore could not have visited the house or used it in her novel. The archivist also said there is no written evidence, such as notes, in her papers indicating a link between Rand and Levy. “They said it is not possible,” Benec said. But the story persists.     Share on Facebook

• • Rallying to the cause 
Phillip Adams, The Australian Ayn Rand Institute  Humor.Australia's right-wing pundits have just retreated from a retreat - where they've been renewing their rancour and replenishing their rage. [....] The immortal names of Menzies, Reagan and Thatcher were chanted as the attendees followed Tony Abbott over hot coals at the climax of the retreat. Hopping and whooping on the glowing rocks proved to be a great bonding experience, second only to handling the femur of St Ayn of Rand, kindly loaned by the Ayn Rand Institute which also possesses two knuckles and an elbow. But the most thrilling event for the conservative commentariat came at the final dinner, after the toasts and speeches. Sarah Palin jumped out of a cake.     Share on Facebook

• Global warming, environmentalism and related issues: The other view 
P. K. Gautam, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses Ayn Rand Institute  [The] trend [...] of the anti-environmental movement is predominantly a Western phenomenon. [....] Richard O’ Leary in his book Environmental Mafia – The Enemy is Us [...] lists likeminded pro-Right organisations as including Cato Institute, Paragon Foundation, America Policy Centre, Ayn Rand Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Brookings Institution, Heritage Foundation, Hoover Institute and Hudson Institute.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand: Engineer of souls 
Anthony Daniels, The New Criterion Altruism  Atheism  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Leonard Peikoff  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.Rand’s virtues were as follows: she was highly intelligent; she was brave and uncompromising in defense of her ideas; she had a kind of iron integrity; and, though a fierce defender of capitalism, she was by no means avid for money herself. The propagation of truth as she saw it was far more important to her than her own material ease. Her vices, of course, were the mirror-image of her virtues, but, in my opinion, the mirror was a magnifying one. Her intelligence was narrow rather than broad. Though in theory a defender of freedom of thought and action, she was dogmatic, inflexible, and intolerant, not only in opinion but in behavior, and it led her to personal cruelty. In the name of her ideas, she was prepared to be deeply unpleasant. She hardened her ideas into ideology. Her integrity led to a lack of self-criticism; she frequently wrote twenty thousand words where one would do.     Share on Facebook

• • • Ayn Rand and business 
Mandy De Waal, ITWeb Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Capitalism  Egoism  Leonard Peikoff  Personal life  Yaron Brook  Inaccurate  Includes abstract of the book Ayn Rand and Business, by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni.Born 105 years ago, Ayn Rand's thinking is experiencing a major revival. The Washington Post declared Randoids 'in' for 2010; Hollywood is remaking her movies; and Rand book sales are brisk. Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute, says sales of Atlas Shrugged are “going through the roof”. Rand's magnum opus made it into Amazon.com's top 50, selling more than 500 000 copies in 2009.     Share on Facebook

• • The writers’ group: First we must have something to say 
Deborah Hansen, Times-Union - Interact (Jacksonville, FL) Ayn Rand Institute  Anthem  Essay Contests  WritersMarket.com lists more than 1,000 contests and awards for a range of writing genres, including fiction, nonfiction, journalism, poetry, writing for children, scriptwriting, and more. Here are three with March deadlines: The Ayn Rand Institute offers the Anthem Essay Contest for 8th, 9th and 10th graders. With a 1st Place prize of $2,000 and more than 200 lesser prizes ranging from $30-500, this contest has a March 20 deadline.     Share on Facebook

• • Christianity and capitalism: Peas in a pod or irreconcilable? 
Nikola Milanović, Stanford Review - Fiat Lux (Stanford U, CA) Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Is Christianity compatible with Capitalism? Are the two systems based on mutually exclusive ethical foundations that make them incompatible? This was the question asked in the recent debate held between Jennifer Roback Morse of the Acton Institute and Dr. Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute. The debate was sponsored by two groups, each supporting one perspective of the issue. The Catholic Community at Stanford, a collective group of students and faculty dedicated to liturgical programs and well known for their community service initiatives, invited Mrs. Morse. The Stanford Objectivists, a student group dedicated to studying the philosophy of Ayn Rand and perhaps best known for their unsolicited e-mails to students, invited Dr. Brook.     Share on Facebook

• • • Who was John Galt? Fittingly, a Wisconsinite 
Mike Nichols, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute Atheism  Ayn Rand Archives  Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Atlas Shrugged, more popular than ever, has now sold over 7 million copies. I have to confess that I am not a huge fan of its author. Her fervent atheism, casual disregard of charity, and strident doctrinairism make what many consider a philosophical tract for the ages, too often, a sure-fire, 1,168-page alternative to Ambien.     Share on Facebook

• • •Upcoming debate tackles questions about Christians and capitalism 
Kay B. Day, The US Report Altruism  Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Egoism  Yaron Brook  I believe Rand’s principles are not incompatible with the Christian faith. For her, the contract or promise was sacred, a covenant. Rand’s philosophy, though she had no love for any religion, belonged to the marketplace and the free exchange of goods. She saw corporate cronyism as theft. Despite her declining the idea of organized religion, she set forth high standards in her philosophy, and I would call them moral standards.     Share on Facebook

• • The cross and the dollar sign — are they incompatible? 
Garry Reed, The Examiner Altruism  Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Egoism  Yaron Brook  On February 2, Yaron Brook of the Ayn Rand Institute and Jennifer Morse of the Acton Institute will meet at Stanford University to debate the question: "Is Christianity Compatible With Capitalism? Egoism Vs. Altruism." Libertarians reject what they call corporatism because it's a state-created legalism that grants private business organizations certain political privileges and protections, but embrace laissez-faire capitalism because it embodies the natural process of free people freely trading in a free society. And while Christian libertarians embrace free market capitalism many non-libertarian Christians do not.     Share on Facebook

• • Glass-Steagall redux: A gift to M&A bankers? 
Susan Mangiero, Seeking Alpha Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Sales of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand are skyrocketing. In its January 21, 2010 press release, the Ayn Rand Institute cites that more than seven million copies of this 1957 novel have been sold. The premise of this international best-selling book is that captains of industry who create wealth walk away from those who take, leaving the city of Gotham in the dark, unable to survive.     Share on Facebook

• • Why last place isn’t the last step down for this state 
Jon Ralston, Las Vegas Sun Ayn Rand Institute  [Gov. Jim Gibbons] does not collaborate. He never has, either here or in his previous incarnation as an isolated, overlooked congressman. He is no conservative, either, folks — that presupposes a philosophical underpinning, someone who has read Ayn Rand or at least knows what the Rand Institute is. I see no evidence of either.     Share on Facebook

• • John Stossel interview 
Dennis Miller, The Dennis Miller Show Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Yaron Brook  Audio  (MP3 link.)[Miller:] I’m reading Fountainhead again right now and I now imagine Peter Keating as Barack Obama in my head as I read it, but when I watched [your] Ayn Rand show a couple weeks ago -- boy -- her true devotees have that glaze in their eyes, don’t they? That one guy who was sort of Boswell to her Sam Johnson? He was a true believer, wasn’t he? [Stossel:] They are. You know, the people I had on the show, they were pretty smart. One guy ran a very successful bank. [Miller:] Yeah, that was the guy on the right. I’m talking … They were all fine. Listen, I’m an Ayn Rand fan myself, but when I read the biography of her -- she was a bit of a whack dame, and you weren’t gonna get the guy on the left [an apparent reference to Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute] to budge almost on anything. [Stossel:] Oh no, and these debates they have over Objectivism and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin just lose me. [Miller:] Right, you can sense that they would want nothing more than to be in that lower Lexington apartment with her, the old man off drinking in the corner, just going over the minutae of that night after night.     Share on Facebook

• • • Jury duty: Ayn Rand play opens at Owasso High 
Karen Shade, Tulsa World Ayn Rand Institute  Atlas Shrugged  Night of January 16th  The Fountainhead  The Virtue of Selfishness  Capitalism  Personal life  Two thoughts arise when you consider the Owasso Community Theatre's next production. Correction — first comes an exclamation and then a question: "I didn't realize Ayn Rand wrote a play. And why is Owasso Community Theatre producing it?” “I've had a lot of people who've told me, 'I didn't know she'd written any plays,' " said George Romero, the play's director. "She did not think of herself as a playwright at all. I think she was even a bit embarrassed by her playwriting skills because she thought of herself as more of a novelist and philosopher and political theorist."     Share on Facebook

• • Is California due for a big earthquake? 
Gene J. Koprowski, FOXNews.com Ayn Rand Institute  Keith Lockitch  Keith Lockitch, a fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute in New York City, said Haiti, the most impoverished nation in the Western Hemisphere, suffered terribly because its economy makes it much less resilient to disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes. "The toll of death and human suffering is much worse in a pre-industrial country like Haiti than it would be from a comparable quake near, say, San Diego," Lockitch said. "What the tragedy in Haiti should make us realize is just how important industrial development under capitalism is in keeping people as safe as possible from such events."     Share on Facebook

• • Meet Prometheus 
Jeremy Rosenberg, KCET (Los Angeles) Ayn Rand Institute  Interview with Prometheus Institute founder and executive director Matt Harrison.Q: Are PI's ideas fundamentally different from those of Cato or Reason or the Ayn Rand Institute?A: There are substantial differences. Especially from Ayn Rand. Obviously, they are what most people consider extreme vis-à-vis the mainstream political perspective. What we wanted to do is find issues that really had broad appeal. That's something where we're very different from Ayn Rand. We're not happy to be in the wilderness – right but unpopular. We'd rather be popular. As much as possible we want to find the best areas where we can be right and popular.     Share on Facebook