The Atlas Society has announced that its 19th annual Summer Seminar will be held June 28-July 5 at the University Place Hotel and Conference Center and at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. See the TAS website for more information.
Author: s1e2t3u4p5
Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif) gives all his interns a copy of Atlas Shrugged
Reason Magazine has an excellent new article about Rep. John Campbell, who — as we noted when he replaced Rand fan Christopher Cox who was picked to head the SEC — is himself an admirer of Ayn Rand’s writings.
Author David Weigel notes that Campbell may be in a position to help lead the Republican Congress in a few years.
The article is titled “This is John Campbell Speaking” and begins:
If Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.) said his book shelf was a time capsule, a memorial to the modern GOP, youâ??d believe him. Here is SteÂphen Slivinskiâ??s Buck Wild, a jeremiad against the Bush-era big-spending Republicans. Here is Bruce Bawerâ??s While Europe Slept, the terrifying tale of how â??radical Islam is destroying the West from within.â? Here is one of Watergate felon Chuck Colsonâ??s bestsellers on how Christ can save your life.
Less predictable are the tomes bookending the collection: not one but two hardbound copÂies of Ayn Randâ??s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged, a favorite among many supporters of free markets and limited government. â??Those arenâ??t my only two copies,â? Campbell says, laughing. â??Atlas Shrugged is the book I give to our interns after they spend a summer here, working for free. I consider it to be the authoritative work on the power of the individual.â?
It is late September in Washington, D.C. Another Rand disciple is in the news: Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, is on the talk shows promoting his autobiography. Like Greenspan, Campbell is upset that the RepubÂlican Party has been growing the government, hiking spending with funds that donâ??t exist. But Greenspan is out of public life. The 52-year-old Campbell, an Orange County, California, car salesman who arrived in D.C. just two years ago, is one of his partyâ??s fastest-rising stars.
â??Heâ??s an absolutely fantastic member of the Republican conference,â? says a senior GOP aide. â??I think heâ??s become the heir apparent to lead the Republican Study Committee,â? the anti-tax, anti-spending caucus founded in 1973 by then-insurgent proto-Reaganite Republicans. Campbell currently heads the RSCâ??s Budget and Spending Taskforce.
Here’s a great anecdote from later in the article:
During the floor debate over the defense appropriations bill, Campbell honed in on a $2 million earmark for Sherwin-Williams, a paint company that is developing a â??paint shieldâ? for military vehicles. In the process, he locked horns with the fearsome chairÂman of the Defense Appropriations Committee, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.). To everyoneâ??s surprise, Campbell cleaned the 33-year congressmanâ??s clock.
After Murtha rambled about how the military probably wanted the paint shield earmark even though it wasnâ??t on its â??priority list,â? Campbell pounced. â??Mr. Chairman,â? he said, â??you said youâ??re â??sureâ?? the military [wants it]. So youâ??re not aware if, in fact, the military has asked for this kind of technology?â?
Campbell kept his eyes trained on the Democrat. Murtha didnâ??t have anything to say.
â??I guess the answer to that is no,â? Campbell said.
Of course, the House isnâ??t a debatÂing club. The earmark survived anyÂway.
See the full article for much more about Campbell and his excellent work.
Yaron Brook addresses "Predatory Lending" in Forbes Magazine
Ayn Rand Institute Executive Director Yaron Brook has written an excellent new article, titled “Predatory Legislating,” that was commissioned by and published in Forbes Magazine.
Tim Sykes up 14% for November, despite S&P
Greg Feirman just alerted me that Star stock trader (and Ayn Rand enthusiast) Timothy Sykes is up 14% with his TIM Project for the month of November, while the S&P was down 4%.
For background about Sykes and his TIM Project — wherein he vows to once again take $12,415 and turn it into a million dollars, while allowing other investors to watch each trade he makes along the way — see Feirman’s recent Atlasphere article “The Odyssey of Star Stock Trader Tim Sykes.”
And Postmodern Art Takes It in the Nose
Toddler fools the art world into buying his tomato ketchup paintings.
Celebrity Ayn Rand Fan: Grammy-winning R&B artist Van Hunt
From The Examiner‘s article “The philosophy of Van Hunt”:
For Grammy-winning R&B artist Van Hunt, it all started back in high school.
â??I can still remember coming out of class one day in 10th grade, when a friend of mine stopped me and said, â??Man, if you could only see all the girls who wanna get with you,â?? but I didnâ??t have any idea,â? says the former nerd, who had a fondness for Izod polo shirts at the time.
Thatâ??s when things took a turn for the worse. Once he possessed this arcane chick-magnet knowledge, he says, he instantly abused it.â??I fancied myself a player, and it was a disgrace to my character,â? he says. â??And I behaved that way until recently, when I found that my integrity was worth polishing up and I decided to be the man that I knew I could be.â?
What brought about the transformation? Oddly, it was the objectivist ideals of author Ayn Rand, whose cornerstone man-living-for-his-own-happiness axiom moved Hunt forward into maturity.
â??Now, Iâ??m not a big follower of people or movements,â? says the 30-year-old, who plays the Independent in San Francisco on Thursday. â??But a big transition in my life was reading â??The Fountainheadâ?? â?? I identified with not only the story, but Randâ??s whole philosophy of objectivism.
â??It was the key to my own freedom, to recognizing that my manhood was the only responsibility I had in this world. And â??manhoodâ?? meaning the expression of my creativity, and not anything self-indulgent.â?
The singer and multi-instrumentalist put that tenet to work on his new third effort, the ironically-titled â??Popular,â? out this January on Blue Note. His smooth-talking former self had accomplished much on the retro-soul scene â?? once heâ??d moved from Ohio to Atlanta, he began writing for renowned vocalists like Dionne Farris and Cree Summer, picked up â??American Idolâ??sâ? Randy Jackson as manager, signed to Blue Note parent imprint Capitol, and wound up nailing a 2007 Grammy â?? with Joss Stone and John Legend â?? for their cover of Sly and the Family Stoneâ??s â??Family Affair.â?
But â??Popularâ? finds him blazing bold new trails, from country-gospel rave-ups such as â??In the Southern Shadeâ? to jazz-funk experiments such as â??Ur A Monsterâ? and kickoff single â??Turn My TV On.â?
Now Hunt can freely reference artier influences including Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Charlie Parker. All thanks to objectivism, which he breaks down: â??To articulate the ideas in your head, you need formal education, so you study music theory to do that. And thatâ??s the only responsibility that you have â?? to make that process work for you and express yourself. In this life, nothing is more important.â?
Heâ??s now firing on so many creative cylinders, heâ??s just completed his own book, a short story collection heâ??ll publish next year.
At Amazon.com, you can listen to samples from his Grammy-winning first album, Van Hunt.
Kind words for Ayn Rand in Greenspan's memoir
I just got Alan Greenspan’s memoir, The Age of Turbulence. A quick check of the index and I find some very nice comments about Ayn Rand and Objectivism. In particular:
“It did not go without notice that Ayn Rand stood beside me as I took the oath of office in the presence of President Ford in the Oval Office. Ayn Rand and I remained close until she died in 1982, and I’m grateful for the influence she had on my life. I was intellectually limited until I met her.”
John Galt and the Writers Guild Strike
Writing at the Huffington Post, Rachel Sklar has a snotty and meandering article comparing the striking Writers Guild of America writers with John Galt and the other strikers in Atlas Shrugged.
True to form for the Huffington, she has little good to say about Ayn Rand’s novels except, I guess, that the writers’ strike made her think of them — at some length.
Along the way, though, she makes some interesting points about the writers and their productive place in the universe.
Bidinotto: Ron Paul's "Noninterventionism" Fraud
New Individualist editor Robert Bidinotto has written a lengthy and trenchant critique of Ron Paul’s candidacy for President.
'Defense of Corporation' Help Requested
From Atlasphere member Nigel Richards:
Australian Objectivists are urgently seeking financial assistance to advertise ‘In Defence of the Corporation’, a one-day conference for CEOs to be held in May 2008 in Sydney.
Conference speakers include:
· Two Ayn Rand Institute speakers: Dr Edwin Locke, author of Prime Movers, Traits of the Great Wealth Creators; and Dr Andrew Bernstein, author of The Capitalist Manifesto;
· Mr Ron Manners, former chairman of Croesus Mining, De Grey Mining, and the Australian Mining Hall of Fame, and founder of the Mannkal Institute;
· Dr Alex Robson, lecturer in economics at the ANU.
These are the conference topics:
· The moral right of corporations and their shareholders to maximise their profits, and the importance of speaking out for this right.
· The enormous contributions that corporations make to our standard of living.
· Why CEOs do deserve multi-million dollar compensation packages.
· The heroic qualities of great business leaders.
· The types of attacks: the media, NGOs, existing and impending legislation.
· The source of the attacks: the anti-capitalist mentality, environmentalism, traditional morality.
· A contrasting code of morality: one that sees capitalism as the only moral social system and money-making as a noble endeavour.
· A strategy for resisting these attacks.
Supporters have so far contributed $1,150. We need to raise $1,980 by Thursday the 29th November for a quarter-page display on p.5 of The Wentworth Courier, a suburban weekly with a readership of 99,000 in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs.
Following is the proposed text of The Wentworth Courier ad, which is designed to attract wealthy Ayn Rand fans willing to sponsor the conference.
AYN RAND conference for CEOs
Sydney May 2008.
In Defence of the Corporation
Dear CEO,
The time has come to take a stand.
You are under attack from all sides. You – who through your daring imagination and risk taking, have built products or services that enrich us all – endure constant criticism from the greens, from the media, from the unions, from the social welfare lobby. Instead of gratitude for your inspiring achievements – which continue to raise our standard of living – you face threats from politicians to shackle you even further.
The time has come to take a stand. The time has come to sharpen your intellectual spears. The time has come to look your attackers proudly in the eye, convinced of your own moral stature. The time has come to mount effective arguments against the moral premises of your critics. The time has come to speak out for a moral code of rational self-interest.
Intellectual ammunition will be provided at a one-day conference in Sydney in May 2008.
[Speaker list to follow]
This conference cannot proceed without your financial support/sponsorship.
For more information: contact Nigel Richards by email at info (at) enterpriseethics.com.au or on 0417 065 047.