• Buckley an entertaining intellectual 
David Harsanyi, Denver Post Atlas Shrugged  [National Review] would continue to purge kooks, as they saw them, for more than 50 years. On hyper-individualist author Ayn Rand, the National Review's Whittaker Chambers famously wrote, "From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged, a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: 'To a gas chamber — go!' "     Share on Facebook

• Rock of the right 
Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, VA) Personal life  In 1955, [William F. Buckley Jr.] co-founded the biweekly journal National Review, an oasis for conservatives of many stripes--Southern agrarians, traditional Catholics, free-marketeers--but not all: Anti-Semites were unwelcome there, nor were ultra-libertarians exactly served dates and fanned with palm fronds: After NR printed a harsh review by (Christian) Whittaker Chambers of (atheist) Ayn Rand's classic of social Darwinism, "Atlas Shrugged," recalled Mr. Buckley, "she would walk theatrically out of any room I entered."     Share on Facebook

• Students game for education 
Elizabeth Murphy, Collegian (Penn State U) On an initiative aimed at using video games in the university curriculum.Even though Rock Band might not add to your intellect, [program leader Chris] Stubbs said, there are plenty of commercial games that are educational. He pointed to video game BioShock, which at first glance seems to be a shooting game. But upon further investigation, the entire game is based on the philosophies of famed writer and philosopher Ayn Rand, he said.     Share on Facebook

• Wikia’s weird dream 
Martin Miller, Los Angeles Times Magazine On new search engine Wikia, which was co-founded by Jimmy Wales.[Wales'] fondness for author and philosopher Ayn Rand led him to name his daughter after one of her characters.     Share on Facebook

• Chairman Greenspan’s legacy 
Benjamin M. Friedman, New York Review of Books Review of Alan Greenspan's memoir The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.Acknowledging his intellectual debt to Ayn Rand's radically laissez-faire conception of capitalism, he gives his current views on a wide variety of topics ranging from Adam Smith and the history of capitalism to the economic challenges and opportunities now confronting China, India, and Russia.     Share on Facebook

• Theatre of dreams 
N. Rama Lohan, The Star (Malaysia) Anthem  Theater review.It’s difficult to overlook the similarities of We Will Rock You to Russian-born American novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, which even Canadian prog rock band Rush adopted in its concept album 2112, but this may just be coincidental.     Share on Facebook

• • William F. Buckley Jr: Obituary 
The Times (London) In ferocious clashes [Buckley] separated National Review conservatism from two, at that time influential, factions — the “objectivists”, led by Ayn Rand who preached a doctrine of atheistic selfishness, and the John Birch Society, led by Robert Welch, which was obsessed by the notion of communist conspiracy. Ayn Rand would never afterwards stay in a room with Buckley, and the John Birchers bombarded National Review with hate mail.     Share on Facebook

• William F. Buckley, Jr., 82, godfather of modern conservatism 
Stephen Miller, New York Sun Catholic in both the capital and small c sense, [Buckley] welcomed many flavors of conservatism into the National Review tent. But he insisted that Ayn Rand, and the John Birch Society's anti-Semites, had no place in his magazine or his movement.     Share on Facebook

• Having a beer with William F. Buckley Jr. 
John Bogert, Daily Breeze (Los Angeles) Atlas Shrugged  Personal life  After [Buckley's] magazine published a review of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" in 1957, the author became so enraged that, "For the rest of her life, she would walk theatrically out of any room that I (Buckley) entered."     Share on Facebook

• • • MU divided on BB&T grant conditions 
Veronica Nett, Charleston Gazette (WV) Atlas Shrugged  Capitalism  Although some Marshall University professors are concerned about a $1 million grant from BB&T that requires the use of a specific book - Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" - the professor who will teach the course said he is comfortable doing so. "The university was free to accept or reject the grant," said Cal Kent, vice president for business and economic research at Marshall. "I was free to accept or reject teaching the course."     Share on Facebook

• • BioShock’s creator, Ken Levine, on Ken Levine 
Joe Blancato, The Escapist Interview.[Levine:] People have these certainties. Ayn Rand had a certainty. If you listen to her talk, she talked like Dr. Doom. She had this absolute certainty about how she spoke. Writing Andrew Ryan, reading her was very helpful, because he also has that certainty. And I'm also incredibly attracted to it, while there's some huuuge flaws in objectivism, as an artist, as a businessperson, you know, hey, sign me up. With a lot of philosophies, I think there's that whole level of 'I buy everything about it, hook, line and sinker.' And that's what a lot of philosophies ask you to do is buy everything, or buy nothing. And there's nothing where I'm going to buy everything.     Share on Facebook

• • My bookshelf shrugged 
Daniel Potocki, Newburyport Current (Beverly, MA) Atlas Shrugged  People [...] tend to look at you funny when you carry anything written by Ayn Rand. This is understandable as, amongst other things, Atlas Shrugged rails against Altruism.     Share on Facebook

• Rolen willing to lead - by example 
Cathal Kelly , Toronto Star The Fountainhead  Profile of Toronto Blue Jays player Scott Rolen."Shoulder's no problem at all," he said over the top of his cup, arching his eyebrows meaningfully. "Probably not even a topic of conversation at this point." Message received. The quick-wittedness may come from Rolen's love of reading. His favourite book is Ayn Rand's controversial novel of ideas, The Fountainhead.     Share on Facebook

• William F. Buckley Jr., RIP 
Ben Johnson, FrontPage Magazine In the 1960s, [Buckley] read the Radical Right out of the [conservative] movement, expelling the John Birch Society and Ayn Rand cultists from its ranks.     Share on Facebook

• • William F. Buckley RIP 
Thomas F. Roeser, Chicago Daily Observer Atlas Shrugged  Personal life  We’re indebted to [Buckley] for befriending that genius of the West Whittaker Chambers-and among other things, encouraging Chambers to write his great negative review of the “Atlas Shrugged” by the crackpot duenna of selfishness Ayn Rand and her Objectivism. We’re told that whenever Buckley entered a room where Rand was she stalked out because of Chambers. Great tribute to them both.     Share on Facebook

• • William F. Buckley, RIP 
Timothy Noah, Slate Atlas Shrugged  Buckley gathered and sifted through [...] disparate [conservative] groups, spurning the anti-Semites and anti-Catholics [...], tolerating but not joining the racists and the nativists, and embracing the libertarians so long as they didn't disparage religious belief. This last caveat excluded the cultish Rand, whose Atlas Shrugged Whittaker Chambers panned in National Review, taking exception to its atheism and its materialism, which in Chambers' view made it a conservative mirror image of Marxism.     Share on Facebook

• Memories of William F. Buckley Jr. 
Lowell Ponte, Newsmax Buckley revived but also reshaped American conservatism. He purged the movement of anti-Semitic elements and the John Birch Society. He also purged Ayn Rand and her Objectivists.     Share on Facebook

• • • In response to “Text required by MU contributor concerns faculty, administrators” 
Allan Stern, The Parthenon (Marshall U, Huntington, WV) Atlas Shrugged  Letter to the editor responding to an article about objections to a requirement that Atlas Shrugged be taught as a condition of a BB&T grant.If we, as a university, are supposed to be teaching and talking about critical reasoning and thinking, [Ayn Rand's] view points are relevant to today's society and still apply even if people think they apply only to another world that has somehow passed us by.     Share on Facebook

• William F. Buckley, amiable combatant 
David Von Drehle, Time Certainly Buckley could get things completely wrong — including the very important issue of civil rights. But what made him formidable, even more than his energy and charm, was the number of things he got right. Buckley almost single-handedly drove anti-Semitism out of acceptable conservative thought. He championed Whittaker Chambers through the Alger Hiss affair. He was leery of Ayn Rand, Richard Nixon and the Iraq War.     Share on Facebook

• Bucking history 
Investor's Business Daily On William F. Buckley Jr.National Review [...] helped weed out the right's eccentrics; the militant atheism of novelist Ayn Rand and her followers was purged, as were the conspiracy theories of the John Birch Society.     Share on Facebook