O-Land News Junkie

A Connecticut bookseller and a New York publishing vet corral an impressive assemblage of noted writers to contribute brief essays on the one book that they will forever remember. Many of the pairings of writer and book are delightfully unexpected (Nelson DeMille on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged!"). http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/say_hap...hese_p_i_picks/

Great minds such as Mises, Hayek and Ayn Rand were the predecessors of Friedman, in pushing for true freedom. Freedom, not only for yourself, but also from the state. But it was Milton Friedman who truly popularised the concept of individual freedom. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/milton_...rsonal_freedom/

I distinctly remember what I thought the underlying message [of capitalism] was: "individuals should be left to decide what is right and wrong." Andrew Bernstein, author of the Capitalist Manifesto, would seem to agree. In an article for the Ayn Rand Institute, Bernstein suggests "religion and capitalism are incompatible since capitalism promotes reason, individualism, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, while religionists promote sacrifice, the public good, and collectivism." [....] If what Bernstein is suggesting is true, it appears that capitalism as a social system needs people to believe in individualism. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/creatio..._common_ground/

On the sale of Atlas Capital. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/atlas_shrugged1/

Through [Murray] Rothbard and [Lew] Rockwell, I [...] recognized government for what it is: organized crime, but in a context where the victim population has been indoctrinated to swallow government's claim to moral legitimacy. Soon enough, I was convinced of the moral illegitimacy of forcible government, and better informed about the history of man's peaceful achievements and the true reasons for human progress (entrepreneurship born of self-interest; a Randian notion, but something she got right). http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/how_i_b..._a_libertarian/

Have a craving for idealist objectivism and architectural banter? Don't have time to sit down and read Ayn Rand's epic, but would instead prefer a black and white soap-operatic interpretation of it? You're in luck. 1949's "The Fountainhead," whose screenplay was also written by Rand, is being released for the first time on DVD. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/my_dvd_q/

To interrupt the mourning of a family is an act that is permitted by the Constitution, yet goes against what is written in the Declaration of Independence. [....] Ayn Rand proclaims that, "Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." The flawed premise, which has been relied upon up until now, is in valuing the government’s laws, be it the Constitution or Declaration of Independence above, the soon to be revealed, natural law. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/westbor...ernment_wrongs/

[Gary Cooper: The Signature Collection includes] 1949's "The Fountainhead" [...], an adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel starring Cooper as idealistic architect Howard Roark. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/cinema_paradiso_returns/

Once in office, “elected officials” spend most of their time raising money to remain in office. They pass laws that complicate our lives and turn innocent pursuits into federal crimes. Ayn Rand summed it up. In Atlas Shrugged, a government official lays it out: “‘Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?... We want them broken... We're after power and we mean it.'" http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/they_ar...w_the_bums_out/

To anyone unfamiliar with the work of Ayn Rand, "Night of January 16th" may resemble a Perry Mason episode that gets a little "deep" at the end. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/the_riv...sizzling_drama/

Not too long ago, I received an e-mail from the Harvard Objectivist Club, inviting everyone “disillusioned with today’s intellectual and political climate” to a meeting discussing why “being selfish is not wrong.” I’ve never understood why the objectivists believed altruism irrational and dishonest, and I was particularly irritated to see such nonsense in my inbox. Yet their views are but symptoms of a much larger problem here at the College. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/volunteering_whats_that/

Kudos to Walter! He explains in simple terms the workings of a market economy and the underlying principles in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/teacher...market_economy/

People may disagree with homosexuality for a variety of reasons. These reasons can be religious or secular. [....] Atheist philosopher Ayn Rand opposed homosexuality for one reason and the Archbishop of Westminster is opposes it for another, however, I do not view one as being more justified in participating in discrimination than the other. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/why_rut..._should_resign/

Far from delivering radio-friendly singles, Rush devoted the entire first side of 211 to the title track, a 20-minute composition on the theme of rebellious individuality loosely inspired by the Ayn Rand novel Anthem. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/rush_pr..._for_posterity/

Atlas Shrugged has found its screenwriter: Lionsgate has hired Braveheart scribe Randall Wallace to take on adapting the massive Ayn Rand novel for the big-screen Angelina Jolie project. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/the_deal_report1/

It's worth noting that, The Fountainhead excepted, none of these films has much to do with the business of creating buildings. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/bluepri...hollywood_hunk/

Political writer and philosopher Ayn Rand once explained [...] "...a society without an organised government would be at the mercy of the criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare...even a society whose every member were fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy; it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreement among men and that necessitates the establishment of a government." http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/nations...a_help_somalia/

The story [of Atlas Shrugged] is set in a fictional '50s-era America and follows railroad executive Dagny Taggart, a powerful and highly independent women who sets out to save her corporation and unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of key inventors and industrialists across the country. The book was also a moral piece, intended as a statement on freedom and self-determination by novelist Ayn Rand, a Russian immigrant and philosopher. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/atlas_s...d_scribe_named/

Screenwriter Randall Wallace has just landed a nightmare gig. Lionsgate has hired him to adapt Ayn Rand's massive tome, "Atlas Shrugged" into a feature film according to Variety. [....] Atlas Shrugged has melodramatic corporate takeovers and a lot of heavy duty sermonizing. It's also frickin huge, and distilling it down into an acceptably sized script will be an incredibly difficult task. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/randall_wallace_shrugged/

Writer-director Randall Wallace wasn't about to shrug off the chance to adapt Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" for the bigscreen. Wallace, the "Braveheart" scribe known for taking on epic themes, will begin penning the script immediately for Lionsgate. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/weighty_gig_for_wallace/

In the exacting Helen Mirren, who has played everyone from Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It to Ayn Rand and countless royals in between, Queen Elizabeth is a dowdy figure of rituals, frowns and constant consternation. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/the_queen/

It is widely noted that for all that [North Korea's Kim Jong Il] thinks of himself as a leader with a divine afflatus to bring to his people and the world the fruits of Juche (the North Korean variant of Leninism, with a little Ayn Rand mixed in), he is himself a man of total self-indulgence, devoted to porn, Scotch and Daffy Duck cartoons. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/diplomacy_hits_kim/

My intellectual heroes in my teenage years were not unusual for a young right-winger: George Orwell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vaclav Havel, Friedrich Hayek. Yes, I was a nerd, although I somehow managed to avoid a crush on Ayn Rand at any point. But I was also excited by the battle of ideas, and saw the height of ideological combat in the last years of the cold war as an exhilarating time to be alive and thinking. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/book_ar...servative_soul/

He was a lifetime member of the U.S. Chess Federation and the NRA and a student of Ayn Rand's philosophy, Objectivism. http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/larry_d_doughty/

There were many kinds of different people and ideas that made up the conservative movement in the 1950s and 60s, from traditionalists, monarchists, Buckleyites, Ayn Rand libertarians and John Birch anti-communists. What brought all these groups together was their strident anti-communism and a theory called "Fusionism," which welded the tradition-minded to the libertarian. If public morality was on the decline, the people were not at fault, it was the government's fault! http://randex.org/index.php/weblog/a_coalition_unraveling/