• • • Interview: Yaron Brook 
Alexander D. Farris & C. James Block, Imagineer Ayn Rand Institute  Capitalism  Yaron Brook  Yaron Brook is president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization focussed on spreading Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Dr. Brook lectures on Objectivism, business ethics, and foreign policy at college campuses, community groups, and corporations throughout the world. The Imagineer discussed how Objectivist philosophy applies to economics, the status quo of the American economic system, and the role democracy should play in society with Dr. Brook.     Share on Facebook

• • California bill would increase rules on rifles 
Cathy Bussewitz, San Francisco Chronicle Atlas Shrugged  Lawmakers in the California Assembly have evoked “Joe the Plumber,” Japanese internment and the late novelist Ayn Rand as they battle over a gun control bill that would extend the same reporting requirements and regulations that govern hand guns to rifles and other long guns. [....] “There seems to be an assault again on gun rights,” said Assemblyman Ted Gaines, R-Roseville. “It makes me think about Ayn Rand and (her novel) Atlas Shrugged, and the movement of government to the point where it’s stifling individuals.”     Share on Facebook

• Tracey Emin and Jonathan Jones Remember Bourgeois, et al. 
ARTINFO The Fountainhead  Article Reflects Art: “With a tediously slow and predictable pace” this article trudges through two plays that examine the lives of architects real and imagined in an equally miserable fashion, reminding everyone that there hasn’t been an interesting architect in prose since Ayn Rand's Howard Roark. [NYT]     Share on Facebook

• The Gulf’s well of political woe 
Peter Foster, National Post Atlas Shrugged  IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff [....] suggested in The Globe and Mail this week that the G20 looked brilliant compared with BP when it came to its skill in “plugging the hole in the financial system.” Except that the Keynesian stimulus gusher is going to have ramifications far longer and infinitely bigger than any well blowout. Mr. Rogoff concluded with the astonishing suggestion that developed countries might perhaps just cap the entire technology pipeline until politicians and bureaucrats have built that great macro-prudential Panopticon in the sky that will enable them to foresee and forestall all problems. He sounded like a villain from Atlas Shrugged. In one respect, though, Mr. Rogoff is right. The bigger and more complex economies become, the more incompetent governments become to regulate them.     Share on Facebook

• Rush order American politician to stop using their music 
Karen Bliss, Noisecreep Last month, after [Rand] Paul, the son of Congressman and former Presidential candidate Ron Paul, won the Republican Senatorial primary, the owner of Rush fan site Rushisaband.com blogged: “Although he’s not actually named after Ayn Rand (it’s just short for Randall), Paul does happens [sic] to be a Rush fan and is known to play/quote Rush at his campaign rallies as I’d mentioned last year. In his victory party Tuesday night he arrived to Rush’s ‘The Spirit of Radio’ playing in the background.”     Share on Facebook

• Meet the top seniors from Southern Alamance High School 
Times-News (Burlington, NC) Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Valedictorian: Cody Melton. [....] What he’s been reading: Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” (He’s already read “Atlas Shrugged” on the recommendation of one of his teachers).     Share on Facebook

• • • Who is David Cameron? 
James Weston, Cherwell (Oxford U) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  ‘Who is John Galt?’ So goes the famously enigmatic opening of Rand’s masterpiece, a novel of staggering scope (at 1168 pages) which regularly tops lists of the most influential works of fiction of the last century. The book describes an alternate reality in which the U.S. is the only country in the world not yet run by socialists, or ‘looters’, ‘moochers’ and ‘parasites’ as Rand charitably refers to them throughout her novel. That situation, however, is changing, and with the economy in crisis Washington seeks to impose ever greater constraints and controls on big business. It is with this background, which has a certain resonance in the contemporary climate, that the story of Atlas Shrugged unfolds.     Share on Facebook

• 10 things you didn’t know about Rand Paul 
Jessica Rettig, US News & World Report Paul says he was not named after author Ayn Rand, an icon for libertarians. He says his wife shortened his nickname from Randy.     Share on Facebook

• • • Re-reading and re-appraising Ayn Rand 
Howard R. Gold, MoneyShow.com Anthem  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  We The Living  Capitalism  Egoism  Personal life  Rand was a much better writer than the critics acknowledged. Her philosophy deeply reflected her childhood experiences in Russia. She gave us a brilliant defense of the moral basis for capitalism and a scary account of how, step by step, liberty can be taken away by a power-hungry government. But for me, she falls short in her ultimate goal: to create in Objectivism a universal philosophy of economics, politics, ethics, and epistemology. Why? Because she focuses almost exclusively on a small elite of high achievers and has little interest in the aspirations of ordinary people. And she wants to change, not accept, human nature.     Share on Facebook

• • Moving up: Gage Alpert, opened an Ivy Insiders franchise in Delray Beach 
Mary Thurwachter, Palm Beach Post (FL) Gage Alpert’s favorite quote: ‘The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.’ - Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

• Rush plays modern-day warrior, slams Rand Paul over song use 
Ashby Jones, Wall Street Journal - Law Blog According to this recent story in the New Republic, both Rand and Rush seem to have a fondness for the writings and beliefs of Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

• Forget the rainforest, this is about saving people 
Dave Perry, Aurora Sentinel (CO) Global warming does much more, it appears, than threaten to eradicate the breeding grounds of cute little Arctic penguins, it can wipe out oil company profits by destroying Gulf Coast oil rigs, over and over and over. It will force the United States to spend most of its money on dealing with hurricane damage and deaths instead of building a massive military that keeps Haliburton profits healthy. It will kill voters. And the Ayn Rand-esque crisis will hit home right here in Aurora and Colorado. A report issued several months back by the the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization, which is hardly bunch of sandal-clad pseudo-scientists, said the warmer planet will mean less water for Aurora and other Front Range cities, less water for farmers and less snow for ski areas. No water, no more growth.     Share on Facebook

• • The moody state of Moody’s 
Todd Harrison, Minyanville Capitalism  To quote Ayn Rand, only because this particular passage is uncanny in its accuracy: “When government controls are introduced into a free economy, they create economic dislocations, hardships and problems which, if the controls are not repealed, necessitate still further controls, which necessitate still further controls. Thus a chain reaction is set up: the victimized groups seek redress by imposing controls on the profiteering groups, who retaliate in the same manner, on an ever widening scale.”     Share on Facebook

• • Good morning. I’ll be your new host. 
Jeremy Bloom, Red, Green, and Blue Capitalism  I read enough of Ayn Rand to learn that she was right about some things (the creative people who actually turn ideas into productivity are critical to the success of our society) but wrong about most things (unlike the Soviet Union she was born in, America is not going to be dragged down by greedy socialists… in fact, it looks like it’s being dragged down by greedy capitalists, or at least people who cynically wrap themselves in the capitalist banner).     Share on Facebook

• • The libertarian dilemma 
Mike Rosen, Denver Post Atlas Shrugged  From an early age, I was greatly influenced and inspired by libertarian and objectivist philosophy. I first read Ayn Rand’s (Rand Paul’s namesake) “Atlas Shrugged” when I was 14 and still recommend it. This shaped my intellectual foundation and continues to influence my beliefs. But, over time, my idealistic passions were tempered by reality. Ayn Rand’s villains — James Taggart, Wesley Mouch, Bertram Scudder — are all-too-real petty, envious, bureaucratic, officious, liberal statists and busybodies. Conversely, her heroes — Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, John Galt — are larger-than-life ideals. Unfortunately, rugged super-individualists are a minority in this society. We can only hope that there are still enough not-so-rugged individualists left to vote against the creeping cancer of socialism.     Share on Facebook

• • • Randed for life 
Nilanjana S Roy, Sify News (India) Ayn Rand Institute  Anthem  Atlas Shrugged  The Fountainhead  Personal life  Review of Ayn Rand and the World She Made, by Anne C. Heller.For all that thousands of readers who outgrow Ayn Rand by their late twenties, the list of the ones who don’t is illustrious — John Hospers, Alan Greenspan, Robert Mayhew and other venerables have all indicated their deep debt to her ideas. The contemporary reception to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged is telling: many critics slammed the books for their didactic, “offensively pedestrian” style, and they were right. Many readers bought the books anyway, drawn to Rand’s almost comically force-of-nature heroes and her perversely suffering, noble heroines.     Share on Facebook

• ‘Is the real news dead?‘ 
WorldNetDaily Ayn Rand Institute  Yaron Brook  WND managing editor and veteran newsman David Kupelian will be among the speakers at a two-day international conference next week on the future of the press, titled “Is The (Real) News Dead?” Organized by the American Freedom Alliance, the conference will be held June 13-14 at Pepperdine University at its Malibu, California, campus. [....] He will be joined by speakers including: [....] Yaron Brook, president and executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute and a regular contributor to Forbes.com.     Share on Facebook

• John Stossel’s ball and chain return to do battle with Paul Krugman op-ed 
Frances Martel, Mediaite Atlas Shrugged  [John Stossel] argued that raising taxes on the rich would be dangerous (a solution [Paul] Krugman proposed) because there is always the possibility that “the rich could leave” at any time and damage the economy. Looks like we found who was buying up all those copies of Atlas Shrugged.     Share on Facebook

• NBA finals anthem watch: Boston takes a 1-0 lead 
Dan Devine, Yahoo! Sports - Ball Don’t Lie Anthem  With the possible exception of Ayn Rand’s Rush-inspiring 1938 novella, it’s universally accepted that anthems are great fun, both to create and to hear.     Share on Facebook

• “Why not me?“ — A renewed American culture 
Juanita Holloway-Walters, WEBCommentary Atlas Shrugged  Here are American Cultural truths we need to accomplish to find our way back to Liberty . . . [....] Marry someone who is the embodiment of ‘your highest ideal of yourself’, for they will share the same faith, intellect, values, morality, ethics and culture. (’your highest ideal of yourself’ is the wonderful concept I learned from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.)     Share on Facebook