• • People turn backs on God, look to their own gods 
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The housing bubble, the Great Recession, the Iraq invasion, the Madoff-scale financial frauds, the scientific quest for human immortality, the hosannas to Ayn Rand individualism, every daily Internet hoax — they all depend on chipper misreadings of available data and a lack of skepticism about human flaws and irrational exuberance.  

• • • Ayn Rand’s objectivism is still debated 
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Alan Greenspan  |Anthem  |Atlas Shrugged  |Night of January 16th  |The Fountainhead  |Nathaniel Branden  |Personal life  |Image  | On Feb. 2, 1905, Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum was born in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her father was a successful pharmacist. His business and property were confiscated during the 1917 October Revolution, and the family fled St. Petersburg. They returned to the city, which had been renamed Petrograd, in 1921. Alisa attended Petrograd State University as one of the first women allowed to enroll. She studied social pedagogy, history and philosophy, graduating in 1924. She studied screenwriting in Leningrad and adopted the pen name Ayn Rand for what she hoped would be her career.  

• • Country’s two major beliefs contradict each other 
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Capitalism  |Egoism  |Individualism  |Paul Ryan  | [Paul Ryan] is a known admirer of Rand and her brand of extreme capitalism — one that sees society as having "producers" of wealth and "moochers," who the former owe nothing to the latter, that selfish self-interest rules above everything else. Ryan has posed as a deficit hawk and used the increasing national debt to reduce the safety net. But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said that under his plan, his tax cuts for the wealthy would continue to increase the federal debt. To me, it appears that he is merely using the debt as an excuse to advance Randian capitalism.  

• Electorate didn’t get the real issues facing country 
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What we experienced this week was the arrival of the tipping point. Ayn Rand’s moochers have finally outnumbered the producers in America.  

• • Court always decides constitutionality 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Ayn Rand did not need to predict the future to formulate her fictional “Anti-Dog Eat Dog Act.” She lived through 1930s America. She knew from experience that “fair competition” meant the destruction of competition and industrial progress.  

• • • Courtroom drama ‘Night of January 16th’ plays out on stage 

Atlas Shrugged  |Night of January 16th  |The Fountainhead  | The courtroom drama Night of January 16th keeps the audience guessing the outcome of the mystery until the very end. Written by Ayn Rand, author of the Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, the production opens Friday at the Towne Centre Theatre and runs through March 3.  

• Evangelicals may face choice: electable candidate or ‘moral’ one 
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Atheism  | How evangelicals see them: [....] Ron Paul. Baptist. Pro: Pro-life and fiscal conservative. Con: Fan of anti-religion author Ayn Rand. Questionable views about race from old newsletters.  

• • Towne Centre Theatre announces 2012 season 

Night of January 16th  | Brentwood’s community theater troupe is planning to present a comedy, an Ayn Rand-penned mystery and a classic Broadway hit during its 2012 season.  

• CHEF DU JOUR: Jason Brumm, formerly of Radius 10, joins Merchants 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  | Please name your favorites in the following categories: ingredient, tool and book. [....] [A:] Book: I read constantly. My two favorite books are The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged (by Ayn Rand).  

• • Columnist sings praises of an avowed atheist 
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Atheism  |Capitalism  | Cal Thomas gave me my first big belly laugh of the day by championing author Ayn Rand’s ideas expressed in Atlas Shrugged (“Rand novel, controversial again, is now a film,” April 15).Giving Ayn her due, she was, indeed, a profound writer. What’s so odd is the way religious conservatives are embracing her ideas of laissez-faire capitalism. Odd, because she was an avowed athiest who disdained any religious beliefs.  

• • • Author Rand’s ‘me’ attitude is alive and well 
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Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  |Personal life  | The secret rival of religious values continues to stir fascination and loyalty: Ayn Rand. Maybe it’s no secret. Though she died in 1982, she helps sustain the moment’s leave-me-alone attitude. Her novels Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead remain big sellers. Since the fall of Wall Street and the rise of Barack Obama, Rand-style individualism is invoked as a bulwark against both church and state. She believed self-sacrifice is morally inferior to self-interest; altruism leads to socialism. Rationalism is the highest virtue; it gives people purpose.  

• • Future regulation necessary 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Personal life  | It is abundantly clear that Atlas Shrugged was a fairy tale written by a young woman who grew up in a communist regime that took her family's fortune — Ayn Rand. We have all just witnessed unbridled capitalism rob us of our investments. There is clearly a need for a well-regulated financial industry to prevent future economic collapse. Let us pray that legislators set aside the advice they are deluged with by jurist corporate "citizenship" and govern in the best interest of the people. Let freedom ring!  

• Citizens deserve respect, American ‘Idols’ don’t 
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Scott Brown didn’t win a U.S. Senate seat because a state that elected Barack Obama by nearly 30 points collectively read Ayn Rand. He won because the incumbent party for that seat took it for granted, ran a sorry candidate and didn’t respond to voter concerns. That’s not a lesson the state and local Democrats are ready to learn.  

• • Grass-roots disgust rallies conservatives 
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Atlas Shrugged  | Wes Messamore's political life was redirected in 2007 by a message stenciled on a cheap roadside sign: "Who is Ron Paul?" Messamore, a fan of the ultra-libertarian writer Ayn Rand, caught the reference quickly. "Who is John Galt?" he said, quoting a famous line from Rand's influential book Atlas Shrugged.  

• • Liberal socialists salivating to take over everything 
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Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism  | Instead of concentrating on making GM viable or, better yet, getting out of the way, Congress is going to chuck the free-market system and limit executive pay. [....] Ayn Rand predicted this many years ago in her eerily prescient classic Atlas Shrugged. In that book, the looters and moochers begin to take everything away from producers. Sound familiar?  

• Good ideas are a big part of labor picture 
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The Fountainhead  | Ayn Rand wrote in The Fountainhead that the man who first discovered how to make fire "was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light." And, sadly, that's how common people have often greeted new ideas — with suspicion, fear, even hostility.  

•Johnson not same old Vandy coach 
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Profile of Vanderbilt University football coach Bobby Johnson.
Johnson is a bookworm, a voracious reader of many topics. His favorite? Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Beethoven, Chevy Chase, Angie Harmon and Ayn Rand? The man with the boring name maybe isn't so boring after all.