Quote: Few authors have ever achieved the popularity that the novelist and essayist Ayn Rand (1905-1982) did.
With the publication of The Fountainhead in 1943 and Atlas Shrugged in 1957, Rand became a full-blown cultural phenomenon, selling millions of books and inspiring countless readers—ranging from former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner to actress Angelina Jolie—with her moral defense of capitalism.
A refugee from Soviet Russia, Rand argued that capitalism was the best way of organizing society not simply because it was more efficient than communism but because it allowed the individual to fill his or her potential. A self-declared "radical for capitalism," Rand emphatically rejected collectivism of all stripes and embraced "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."
Decades after her death, Rand's work is hotter than ever. In an age of massive government intervention into every aspect of the economy and personal lives, sales of her books are way up and a movie version of Atlas Shrugged is in the works. References to Rand are everywhere from Mad Men to The Colbert Report to The Simpsons and there's even a new critical appreciation, as evidenced by two new biographies, Ayn Rand And The World She Made and Goddess of The Market: Ayn Rand And The American Right.
Approximately four minutes long and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie, "Rand-O-Rama" analyzes the 21st-century Rand renaissance.
It is part of the Reason.tv series Radicals For Capitalism: Celebrating the Ideas of Ayn Rand. Go here for more information, other videos, and related materials. http://reason.org/rand
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But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
Posted: 09 Nov 2009 20:00
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Tragedy Today in Galt's Gulch
A small colony of artists, architects, scientists and businessmen in the south western United States is the scene of an incomprehensible tragedy today.
The legend of Galt's Gulch has spread in certain communities recently which lead famed socialite Dagny Taggert to seek out the reclusive Galt and his Utopian Vision of Shrugging Atlases.
"The smell was indescribable" a visibly shaken Ms. Taggart stated as she was escorted from the ruined town by paramedics. "The mountains of garbage the overflowing sewage running into the fallow fields, it was horrific. The bodies just laying everywhere, starved and diseased, how could it all come to this?"
Though some had imagined Galt's Gulch as a magical utopia, many locals in the area aren't surprised by the tragedy.
"We get these nuts up here every so often." Said local waitress Mary Penwater, "Rudest folks you ever met, never tipped. But they always stop for that last meal here before heading out to find whatever commune or what ever they expect to be waiting for 'em. Few months later it's always the same, people wandering out of the wilderness half dead, with a look of horror in their eyes. You know you got these 'smart' people; businessmen, artists, what have you, they never think they're going to need a plumber, or a farmer, or a garbage man. A few months in, they run out of food, no one feels they should have to be the garbage man, 'cause they're all some kind of big thinker and all, and they all start going mad. I heard some of the bodies they're pulling out of the Gulch this time got bite marks on 'em."
Authorities are still looking for the legendary Mr. Galt himself, although they say it will take weeks to identify all the bodies.
Posted: 09 Nov 2009 22:55
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Funny. __________________
But the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play, there's a murderer at the matinee, there are dead men in the aisles
And the patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through and with sidelong looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles
