• • 2013 Michiganders to Watch: Phil Hagerman, entrepreneur recognized by Inc. Magazine 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  | [Phil Hagerman’s] musical tastes include music from the 1950s and '60s, while “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” are some of the novels he’s read from his favorite author, Ayn Rand.  

• 'The Hobbit,' James Bond, 'The Twilight Saga': Anyone else tired of the onslaught of 
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Atlas Shrugged movie  | Hollywood suits don’t see creative endeavors, they see money-printing machines. (Note, this does not explain the existence of the “Atlas Shrugged” series, or the plan to make more “Oogieloves” movies. These seem like insane passion projects fueled by deep pockets who curiously don’t seem to want a return on their investments. There’s always an exception.)  

• • ‘I’ll leave Ayn Rand to Paul Ryan’: Flint prof compares book lists with Library of Congress 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Paul Ryan  | "I’m afraid I have nothing useful to say about either "Gone with the Wind" or "Atlas Shrugged," for quite different reasons. And someone, maybe my mother, taught me that, if you can’t say anything nice about a book, better to shut up. I’ll leave Ayn Rand to Paul Ryan," [Thomas C.] Foster said. 
 

• • Detroit Free Press profiles 'splendidly erratic career' of HopCat owner Mark Sellers | MLive 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Did you know Mark Sellers credits Ayn Rand’s objectivist opus “Atlas Shrugged” for changing his life?  

• • 24 hours with Occupy Detroit: Occupy Detroit: In defense of capitalism ... 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | Until Ayn Rand fans build their magic invisible canyon to house the so-called 1%, it’s in their long-term best interest to help fully pay for the transportation system that moves their goods to market and moves the market to their goods, the schools that educate their workers, and the military that defends the nation from exterior threats. It’s also in their long-term best interest to constrain their enterprise so that it doesn’t negatively impact the health and safety of others.  

• Who creates dependence - the individual or the government? (Joyce Pines column) 
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Individualism  | Our national value of rugged individualism is expressed in the idea of not holding up an individual as deserving of a throne, but also encouraging individuals not to sit in a bed of thorns and expect to get help. Very Ayn Rand. That attitude ignores the fact that we’re human beings. We may shout “rugged individual,” but none of us gets the good life without support — from the families who raise us, the mentors who guide us, the friendships that mold us and the teachers who educate us. And even if we make dumb mistakes and wind up sitting on a thorn, don’t we deserve a hand to help us up?  

• • • Piling on ‘Atlas Shrugged’: Horribly boring movie sharply divides critics, audiences 
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Atlas Shrugged movie  |Atlas Shrugged  |Image  | The critical fervor surrounding “Atlas Shrugged: Part I” is fascinating. I’ve learned all kinds of new synonyms for “boring.” And just as I had to see “The Happening” to truly understand why it was such a cinematic travesty, I sat through the first of a proposed trilogy adapting Ayn Rand’s famous Objectivist novel. My impression? Toothpicks. To prop open my eyelids. The film is as dramatically compelling as a furnace-repair manual.  

• • Can Dale Earnhardt Jr. intimidate GM? Is Rush Limbaugh absolutely boycott-innocent? 
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The government's stake in GM has led conservatives and libertarians alike to call it "socialism" — and to muddy the distinctions against communism and fascism. The approaches are different, but don't take my word for it. The sainted Ayn Rand nods to the classic definition (find the word "characteristic"): Communism abolishes private property, while fascism dictates to property owners. And she points out that communism and fascism tend toward dictatorship (find the word "statism").  

• • Where have all the good people gone? 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | I am going to reread “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. This is without a doubt the best book ever written about capitalism and what can happen if we get too far away from it.  

• • Two for tea parties on the Obama honeymoon, Day 84 
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Capitalism  | I studied Karl Marx. I wrote papers on Karl Marx. I pretty much know Karl Marx. He said socialism is a stop along the line to his ideal of communism, which is supposedly the (non-voting) voice of the people. But Marx in no way supported the dictating voice of the state that marks right-wing fascism. So it's confusing for me to see a guy in Fort Myers, Fla., hold up a sign that tags President Obama as both a (Nazi) fascist and communist. I blame Ayn Rand, who was trying to say that dictatorship is bad, but confused herself in specific terms.  

• Deep Purple, Bing Crosby and the tales behind all those weird rock band names 
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The Fountainhead  | Collective Soul comes from a phrase used by Ayn Rand in "The Fountainhead." (I had no idea this rock band was so literate.)  

• Elaborate ‘BioShock’ mesmerizes gamers 
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As Icarus can tell you, pride always comes before a fall into the ocean. In the case of "BioShock," the tumble starts in the water with an Ayn Rand-like back story about a mad visionary who will not submit to God or man, instead taking his empire under the sea. Freed from the common morality that would make Nietzsche giddy, Andrew Ryan (a thinly guised stand-in for Rand) erects a magnificent art-deco metropolis that should stand as a beacon to the ages.  

• •Q&A with Dennis Miller 
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One of my favorite characters in fiction is this guy named Howard Rourke, in this kind of melodramatic, weird movie called "The Fountainhead," a remake of Ayn Rand. There's a great moment where this architecture critic comes up to Gary Cooper, who's stuck to his guns and been ruined in the architecture community. He says, "What do you think of me, Mr. Rourke?" and he's gloating over him. And Rourke said, "I don't think of you." I love that.  

•‘Undiscovered’ uninspired 
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Movie review.
The question underlying the woeful script by John Galt (isn't he one of Ayn Rand's lumbering heroes?) has something to do with bright eyes and bright teeth and how, in the absence of real talent, those assets can be parlayed into fame.