• • The Stranger Living Inside You 
Jack Spatafora, Chicago Now - Taking A Second Look Capitalism  |Inaccurate  | If you're one of those inclined to apply [biological determinist] theories [...] to practices like, say Wall Street, can a case be made for why the wheeler-dealers there do what they do? Why they do it so ruthlessly and without regard for others? Are their brains just wired that way -- that proud right-wing Ayn Rand way of making-it-anyway-that-works?If you're one of those inclined to apply theories like these to practices like, say Wall Street, can a case be made for why the wheeler-dealers there do what they do? Why they do it so ruthlessly and without regard for others? Are their brains just wired that way -- that proud right-wing Ayn Rand way of making-it-anyway-that-works?   Published: 2012-05-31

• • • Fight Over Netflix Release of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ 
Jonny Bonner, Courthouse News Service Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | The producer behind "Atlas Shrugged: Part I" says Netflix and Relativity Media released the movie for home viewing without clearing a $1.5 million license fee.   Published: 2012-05-31

• • ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Lawsuit: Relativity, Netflix Sued for $1.5M 
Tim Kenneally, The Wrap Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  |Image  | Perhaps the sequel to the 2011 film “Atlas Shrugged” should be titled “Atlas Sues.”   Published: 2012-05-31

• 3 Women Over 50 Who Are Cooler Than You 
Lidia Jean Taylor, The Mary Sue Ilona Smithkin. [....] Born in Poland, raised in Berlin, schooled in Belgium and then later forced to move to New York with her family to escape the Nazis, Ilona’s colorful past has given her a wealth of experience to draw from when it comes to her art and her other pursuits. She’s painted portraits for everyone from Tennessee Williams to Ayn Rand, and her creative drive shows no signs of slowing down.   Published: 2012-05-31

• • Netflix, Relativity Shrugged At ‘Atlas’ Movie License, Suit Says 
Scott Flaherty, Law360 Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  | The producer of the movie “Atlas Shrugged” accused film distributor Relativity Media LLC on Wednesday of breaching a contract requiring a $1.5 million licensing fee and accused Netflix Inc. of infringing copyrights by making the allegedly unlicensed film available to subscribers.   Published: 2012-05-31

• • Richard’s Wedding 
Ronnie Scheib, Variety Egoism  | Tuna, hitherto the pic’s designated agent provocateur, is quickly upstaged by Russell, whose unpopular espousal of selfishness in general and Ayn Rand in particular proves even more off-putting than Tuna’s smiling tactlessness.   Published: 2012-05-30

• • Five Popular Games That Drew Inspiration From Books :: Blogs :: List of the Day :: Paste 
Megan Farokhmanesh, Paste - List of the Day BioShock  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  | BioShock has always been on the forefront of the “games as artistic expression” forefront, and it’s no surprise that it drew inspiration from another creative medium—books. The game is crawling with references to both Ayn Rand and her great works of fiction, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.   Published: 2012-05-31

• Walker hopes money deflects star power – and facts 
Dominique Paul Noth, Milwaukee Labor Press It is not just rich citizens who can, through third party vehicles and legal glitches like Wisconsin’s, use their money to speak their minds. It is the abuse of anonymity by a few who represent outrageous views. It is the ability of a handful of fairly reprehensible offshore operators, Ayn Rand extremists and heirs to others’ hard-earned fortunes who can hijack open debate with money, fostering myths, exaggerations and lies so frequently via advertising that opponents have little opportunity to be heard against the volume.   Published: 2012-05-31

• Books That Made Us: James and The Giant Peach 
Janelle Brown, Los Angeles Review of Books WHEN I WAS TEN — or thereabouts — I decided to read everything that Road Dahl had ever written. This was just the beginning of a lifetime of compulsive reading behavior, wherein I would grow enamored with an author and thrash my way through their entire bibliography, before suddenly growing sick of them and dropping them, often forever. (See: Stephen King, Ayn Rand, Philip Roth.)WHEN I WAS TEN — or thereabouts — I decided to read everything that Road Dahl had ever written. This was just the beginning of a lifetime of compulsive reading behavior, wherein I would grow enamored with an author and thrash my way through their entire bibliography, before suddenly growing sick of them and dropping them, often forever. (See: Stephen King, Ayn Rand, Philip Roth.)   Published: 2012-05-31

• Is it raining libertarians, or what? 
Stephen B. Young, Star-Tribune (Minneapolis) Capitalism  | Spencer's "true" liberalism of the future is what we today call libertarianism. It has come down to us through a variety of thinkers who followed Spencer's assumptions, including Ayn Rand, pioneering game theorists, many fundamentalist preachers like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and secular free-market fundamentalists of the Chicago School of economics.   Published: 2012-05-26

• Book Review: Leaping Tall Buildings 
Tim Marchman, Wall Street Journal The first issues of "Before Watchmen" will be published next month. [....] DC is promoting the project with a "Watchmen" toaster, which will allow you to burn the image of Ayn Rand-inspired vigilante Rorschach into your sourdough.   Published: 2012-05-25

• Ken Levine: ‘BioShock: Infinite’s’ Combat ‘Subtantially’ Evolved 
Brian Sipple, Game Rant BioShock  | Rapture. The iconic dystopian setting of BioShock and BioShock 2 was the perfect compliment to IrrGame’approacs approach for the series’ first two installments – the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, the horror-tinged storyline, the Ayn Rand idealism.   Published: 2012-05-27

• • Netflix, Relativity Sued Over 'Atlas Shrugged' Distribution Deal 
Matthew Belloni, Hollywood Reporter - Hollywood, Esq. Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  |Image  | Netflix and Relativity Media have been sued by the production company behind Atlas Shrugged: Part 1, which claims the distributors failed to pay a $1.5 million license fee to release the film on home video. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Atlas Productions says it has satisfied all the conditions of a written agreement with Netflix, Relativity and an entitly called RML Acquisitions, but its demands for payment have gone unheeded. The suit also accused Netflix of copyright infringement of the 2011 adaptation of the 1957 novel by Ayn Rand.   Published: 2012-05-30

• • Is it all over for the India story? 
Prem Prakash, News Track India An apt writing of Ayn Rand that was sent to me recently perhaps best describes the crisis that India's growth story faces. It reads "When you know that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing, when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favours, when you see that men get rich more easily by graft, rather than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them but protect them against you, you know that your society is doomed". Is this what is now happening to India now?   Published: 2012-05-30

• • Being judged by race is hateful and provocative 
Narend Baijnath, Independent Online Ayn Rand, while controversial in some of her beliefs, was quite unequivocal when it came to racism: “Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism… appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals.” To allow such mentality to shape and define our future either as individuals or as a nation is too ghastly to contemplate.   Published: 2012-05-27

• • Reviewing Religions: Fellowship of Reason 
Thomas Finn, Frontine (El Modena High School, Orange, CA) The Fellowship of Reason, founded by Martin L. Cowen III in Atlanta, Georgia, exists for people who believe churches are important elements of a moral community, but don’t wish to identify with any other organized religion. [....] Their overarching philosophy also draws from Objectivism, described by Ayn Rand as “in essence, the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.”   Published: 2012-05-30

• Angry at coal? Then turn off your lights 
Frank Miele, Daily Interlake (Kalispell, MT) Capitalism  | The willingness of Americans to be persuaded to do things against their own interests seems to have no limits, which must give great encouragement to our enemies.The latest evidence of that came a little south of Kalispell in the People’s Republic of Missoula (hat tip to Ayn Rand) where the local Revolutionary Council; (oops, I mean City Council!) last week passed a resolution to investigate the “environmental impact” of coal trains passing through the city.   Published: 2012-05-26

• • • Worlds Apart 
Donald DeMarco, The Integrated Catholic Life Atheism  |Ayn Rand Institute  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  |Individualism  |Personal life  | I am a father and a philosopher. This is not necessarily an unusual combination, but it does give me a range of interests that spans two rather distinctive worlds. I am interested in the family, its challenges and rewards, its hard work and its joyful celebrations. As a philosopher, I am interested in an array of ideas that range from the reasonable to the ridiculous, from the inspirational to the absurd.I was reminded of this dual interest recently when I watched two radically dissimilar DVDs, one featuring the novelist philosopher, Ayn Rand, the other, extended footage of our extended family.  There could hardly be a greater contrast, with respect to life values, than what appeared in these two videos.   Published: 2012-05-25

• • Kevin Vealey: Command and control 
Kevin Vealey, Providence Journal (RI) Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | I read with interest Alice Losasso's May 14 letter, "Read Atlas Shrugged". When Ayn Rand published her books in the middle of the last century her ideas on the beauty of pure capitalism had already been discredited decades before!   Published: 2012-05-22

• • From 'The Fountainhead' to 'Game of Thrones,' WSJ Readers Suggest Summer Books 
Wall Street Journal - Speakeasy Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  | Somewhat predictably, a handful of you plan to comb through the works of Ayn Rand.   Published: 2012-05-25