• • Jerry Freeman of the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder talks about his new novel ... 
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Capitalism  | [Q:] How did you come up with this wild version of what, in the book, used to be the USA? [A:] The premise of [In a Kick-Ass Sentimental Mood] is that the privatization of America is virtually complete. That's not really a stretch—many powerful people would like that to happen. It's the right-wing agenda of libertarianism. It's the agenda of Ayn Rand "objectivists." So, say they and Grover Norquist prevail and very little government remains—everything is in private hands. The question is, what would that world look like, feel like? What consequences would follow from such a thing? What great dramas would get played out on such a stage? That's what the book explores in some depth.  

• • The moral crisis of the Republican party 
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The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Egoism  | At one time the Republican Party railed against the 60s generation as selfish and greedy. They are no longer the party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, or Ike. Rockefeller would have no place in their party and it is not even clear that Reagan would fit in. The GOP is now the party of Howard Roark  

• • • Atlas Shirked: The Teenage Revolt Against “the nanny state" 
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Atlas Shrugged  |The Fountainhead  |Capitalism  |Personal life  |Image  | I read Ayn Rand when I was in high school – I was a pretty indiscriminate reader in those days – and even then I found her waterlogged novels turgid and boring, her characters so wooden they make Mitt Romney look like a young Bob Dylan, her plots over-determined, her dialogue laughable. In theory, her “philosophy” of Objectivism should have held some appeal to me as an autodidact cum laude with a strong sense of superiority – driven, of course, by typical teenage insecurities. After all, I was a big fan of Nietzsche, one of Rand’s putative inspirations, devouring, without necessarily digesting, his epigrams and ideas. But there are several key differences between her and Nietzsche.  

• What Obama should do: A real jobs bill for America 
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Capitalism  | If by some chance a jobs proposal is adopted, it will have little impact, giving Republicans even more ammunition to argue that Keynesian economics has failed, the government is inept, and that Obama must be thrown out of office, only to be replaced by more of the bankrupt Ayn Rand economics that got America into the mess it currently is in.  

• Nails in the GOP coffin: Thoughts on the Iowa straw poll results 
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Sarah Palin successfully remade the party into one captured more firmly by the Tea party and owing much of its ideological allegiance to a blend of Barry Goldwater, Pat Robertson, and Ayn Rand.  

• Ag cuts hit everyone hard 
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New ideologues in Congress with various libertarian, anarchist and objectivist agendas would prefer to shut down food and farm programs entirely.  

• “The Harty Boys Save Christmas,” thanks to Comedy Suitcase, at the Bryant-Lake Bowl 
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On Sunday night at the Bryant-Lake Bowl, the most magical moment in Comedy Suitcase’s The Harty Boys Save Christmas had nothing to do with presents or snow or mistletoe: it was when a young child laughed out loud, with a contagious giggle, at a punch line involving Ayn Rand.