• •How to change the world 
Ergo, Desicritics.org (India) The Objectivist theory of history--as developed by Ayn Rand--points out that all historical change is preceded and influenced by changes in the dominant ideas accepted by the mainstream of a particular society.     Share on Facebook

•Amber Heard will be heard 
William Keck, USA Today Profile of the star of the TV show Pineapple Express.After her best friend's death, Heard met her first serious boyfriend, who introduced her to the writings of Russian-born atheist Ayn Rand. "I've read all of her books," says Heard, who was raised Catholic. "Ever since then, I have been obsessed with her ideals. All I've ever needed is myself."     Share on Facebook

•Bonding through literature: Mother-daughter book club keeps members in touch, informed 
Jessica Yadegaran, Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, CA) By the time junior year rolled around, with its college prepatory madness, the frequency of the mother-daughter book club meetings began to lessen. [....] "Sadly, once the girls hit senior year, we haven't been active at all," [club founder Heather] Gevertz says. "Time wasn't permitting anymore. But it was fun while it lasted." Instead, the girls met up to get through required reading for school, like "The Kite Runner," an international best seller about civil war in Afghanistan, and, Ayn Rand's encyclopedic "The Fountainhead," for AP English.     Share on Facebook

•Here we go again 
Carl M. Cannon, National Journal In her 1943 novel, "The Fountainhead," conservative icon Ayn Rand portrays privacy as an essential component of an enlightened society. "Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy," she wrote. "The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe." If that is true, U.S. presidential campaigns are exercises in barbarity.     Share on Facebook

•Do eggs have more ‘integrity?‘ 
Free-Market News Network Most eggs look good when you open the container, but their level of nutrition can vary widely. Ayn Rand might as well have been talking about much of our food today when she said: "A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom."     Share on Facebook

•Piercing the darkness 
David T. Roisen, c-ville (Charlottesville, VA) Profile of singer Christina Fleming of the group In Tenebris.A devotee of author Ayn Rand, [Fleming] embraces a philosophy of independence and self-reliance, and unlike so many other musicians facing the limelight, Fleming doesn’t drink, smoke or do drugs. She fears it would affect her singing. “I feel really alive when I’m singing, and purposeful,” she says, looking into the distance. “It makes me happier than anything else.”     Share on Facebook

•Why are we in Iraq? 
Justin Raimondo, AntiWar.com As Ayn Rand once put it, don't bother to examine a folly – ask yourself only what it accomplishes.     Share on Facebook

• •Less Than Zero tops BOJ’s summer reading list 
William Pesek, Bloomberg Suggested reading for Bank of Japan officials.Atlas Shrugged. Why an Ayn Rand classic? Because [BOJ Governor Toshihiko ] Fukui's path to being remembered as a great central banker like Alan Greenspan may be smoother if he reads the books written by the former Federal Reserve chairman's mentor.     Share on Facebook

•Angelina Jolie rules-out marriage and work but not family 
Jackson Reeves, The Celebrity Cafe [Angelina Jolie's] temporary departure from the movie business may delay the release of the upcoming Atlas Shrugged, based on Ayn Rand’s 1957 magnum opus of objectivism, in which she is currently slated to star, possibly alongside Pitt.     Share on Facebook

• •Of sybarites and dynasts 
Benjie R. Pangan, Sun.Star (Philippines) Let me share this Naturalist's point of view on man: "It is not in the nature of man -- nor of any living entity -- to start out by giving up, by spitting in one's own face and damning existence; that requires a process of corruption whose rapidity differs from man to man. [....] - Introduction to The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

•Adventure on the high seas unforgettable 
Bruce Fessier, The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, CA) I made friends with an English guitarist in the cruise ship band. He turned me on to blues singer Robert Cray and I suggested some literature to help him understand the American culture during that Reagan era. I recommended he read “The Fountainhead” and “Death of a Salesman,” among other works.     Share on Facebook

• •300 
Marcus Lanzana, Smart-Popcorn.com Movie review.300 is like Braveheart reading “Atlas Shrugged” in ancient Greece while gulping a tall café latte at Starbucks. [....] Frank Miller [author of the adapted novel]—a libertarian—projects onto King Leonidas Ayn Rand’s Objectivist attributes…man is a heroic being, with happiness his only goal, productivity his noblest activity, reason his only absolute, and freedom his birthright.     Share on Facebook

•Judd Apatow’s family values 
Stephen Rodrick, New York Times Profile of film director Judd Apatow.The Fox executive who canceled [Aptow's TV series] “Undeclared” happened to be the man who pulled the plug on “The Ben Stiller Show” a decade earlier. Apatow was reading a lot of Ayn Rand at the time, and he responded as Howard Roark might have if the architect could communicate using only the seven words you can’t say on television, attaching the NC-17 note to a glowing review of the show and sending it to the offending executive. Apatow’s agent caught wind of his client’s folly and managed to intercept the package before delivery, but the story spread across Hollywood.     Share on Facebook

•Madison Marathon: Memories by the mile 
Colleen Forrest, The Capital Times (Madison, WI) Mile 13. [....] The course circles behind Nielsen Tennis Stadium, [...] near UW Hospital, where I worked one summer organizing an X-ray library, a job that my father landed for me after he moved his office to the hospital. It didn't take long to organize the X-rays so I spent much of the summer hiding in the library reading Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

•The athlete 
Denver Post Laura Stiers has lived in Nederland all her life and loves the small, close-knit community. "Everyone looks out for everyone else," she says. [....] What she plans to tell her classmates in her valedictory speech: "'You must learn not to be afraid of the world,"' from "The Fountainhead," a novel by Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

•How economists lost Hayek, and then found him 
Josh Hendrickson, TCS Daily Not only have blogs bolstered a new generation of philosopher-economists that includes those who have been successful in the empirical arena, but it seems to have attracted those who favor this type of thinking. Economists Russ Roberts and Don Boudreaux have a blog named after Hayek himself. Blogger Perry Eidelbus prominently features 19th-century French philosopher-economist Frederic Bastiat at the top of his homepage. Additionally, economist Don Luskin highlights quotes from Ayn Rand.     Share on Facebook

•Fat Pig 
Travis Michael Holder, EntertainmentToday.net Theater review.It was Ayn Rand, whose politics were as odious as her philosophies were brilliant, who once wrote that most people in our world live as “second-handers,” more concerned about what other people around us think about us and how we live and what we’re perceived to be, rather than the more important question: what we really think of ourselves.     Share on Facebook

• •Bad Plus…Plus 
Denver Westword Interview with Ethan Iverson, keyboardist for the band Bad Plus.Q: What was your reaction to ["Tom Sawyer," by Rush]? A: It’s feel-good music. Like, Rush gets a rap as being Ayn Rand sort of strange, self-involved music. But actually, it’s sort of good-time music in this weird way. Q: That makes sense. If they were really all that Ayn Rand, I don’t think they’d be able to fill arenas across the country any time they tour. A: That’s true.     Share on Facebook

• •Confucianism is feminism 
Taru Taylor, The Seoul Times Ayn Rand is the archetypal feminist in the West precisely because she saw logic and discipline as human, not male. By seeing herself as the heir of Aristotle, she defied her mentor. To whit, when once asked if she was a feminist, she replied, "I am a male chauvinist." The stereotypical feminist demands respect from men. As a master of all who know, Ayn Rand commanded respect. The feminist in the East should emulate Ayn Rand by seeing herself as the heir of Confucius and of Lao Tzu.     Share on Facebook

• •Live free or else! 
Jonah Goldberg, National Review Online Review of Radicals for Capitalism, by Brian Doherty.[National Review founder] Bill Buckley worked assiduously to disassociate his brand of conservatism from the swampier varieties contending for power and influence. This took a unique combination of talents, from intellectual openness to critics [...] to sometimes painful separations from friends and former allies. [Whitaker] Chambers’s overly harsh, but ultimately necessary, defenestration of Ayn Rand is just one such example.     Share on Facebook