• • • Free Minds and Free Markets: An Interview with Don Watkins 
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Ayn Rand Institute  |Atlas Shrugged  |Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal  |Capitalism  |Don Watkins  |Egoism  |Yaron Brook  |Image  |Objectivist author  | One month after its September release, Dr. Yaron Brook and Don Watkins’ book Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s ideas Can End Big Government is a national bestseller. Dr Yaron Brook is the president of the Ayn Rand Institute and Don Watkins a Fellow who specializes in economic issues. The Undercurrent’s Emily Hart was given the privilege to interview Don Watkins.  

• • • Ayn Rand: Decide for Yourself 
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The Fountainhead  |Paul Ryan  |Image  | Mitt Romney recently selected Paul Ryan as his running mate. There has now been a great deal of media buzz about the fact that Ryan once said that the philosopher-novelist Ayn Rand was a major influence on his intellectual life. Though some of this attention has been accurate, a number of bloggers and pundits have portrayed Rand as a one-dimensional pariah who believed that the poor should be sacrificed to the rich.  

• • • Ayn Rand Contra Jesus? 
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Altruism  |Atheism  |Atlas Shrugged movie  |Egoism  |Video  |Objectivist author  | In the wake of the release of the Atlas Shrugged movie, Ayn Rand’s prominence in the culture has increased, and people who had previously not been aware of her are taking notice. Notably, Christian groups are now starting to point out the hypocrisy of Republicans who praise both Ayn Rand and Jesus. As Eric Sapp of the American Values Network puts it, “[The] GOP must choose: Ayn Rand or Jesus”.  

• • Campus media response: Picket for privatizing universities! 
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Ayn Rand Center  |Onkar Ghate  |Objectivist author  | As Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has observed, a fully private system would help the universities achieve the best that they can achieve  

• • Tea partiers need to upgrade their moral code 
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Onkar Ghate  |Yaron Brook  | Describing the outlines of [...] a fact-based morality of personal happiness, Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate wrote the following at CNN: “Although few of us would turn to the Old Testament or the Quran to determine the age of the Earth, too many of us still turn obediently to these books (or their secular copies) as authorities about morality. We learn therein the moral superiority of faith to reason and collective sacrifice to personal profit. But the more seriously we take these old ethical ideas, the more suspect become the modern ideas responsible for human progress.”  

• • Faith and reason: Friends or foes? 
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On the decision by Ashland College to deny tenure to Objectivist assistant professor Dr. John Lewis.
The problem with Dr. Lewis arose when they considered “[his] loyalty to and advocacy of Objectivism,” which surface in his writings published in The Objective Standard and The Intellectual Activist.  

• •University mission statements: False promises or true commitments? 
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Administrators at UCLA [...] took evasive measures to prevent club L.O.G.I.C., the campus Objectivist Club, from holding their scheduled debate on immigration.  

• • •The nature of free speech: An interview with Dr. Onkar Ghate 

Interview with the dean of the Objectivist Academic Center at the Ayn Rand Institute.
[Dr. Ghate:] To promote freedom of speech, students must understand its nature. In my estimation, this requires studying the works of Ayn Rand. She is the most penetrating and principled defender of individual rights.  

• •Self-censorship resurfaces on campus 
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The Ayn Rand Institute [...] launched "a campaign to bring the Danish cartoons to the widest possible audience--and to arrange a series of lectures to discuss the vital need to defend free speech." ARI has already participated in panel discussions at UCLA and Johns Hopkins University. LOGIC, the Objectivist group at UCLA, hosted a civilized discussion between four panelists that took place in front of an audience of approximately 180 people.  

• •A businessman stands for principle and property rights: An interview with John Allison 
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Interview with the CEO of BB&T Bank, which has a new policy refusing to provide loans to developments involving use of eminent domain.
Two intellectual elements are necessary to stop eminent domain: a defense of property rights, and a defense of the need for moral and legal principles. The philosophy of Objectivism makes possible this dual defense. Intellectuals and businessmen influenced by Objectivism are taking up the cause.  

• • •Objectivism in the culture: A man of science crusades against intelligent design 
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On Keith Lockitch, a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute.
Drawing on his extensive background in both science (he holds a Ph.D. in physics and has taught courses on the history of science) and the philosophy of Objectivism (he is an instructor at the Objectivist Academic Center), he has published articles and lectured widely on the growing threat of intelligent design creationism.