Author: s1e2t3u4p5

Andy Garcia's "The Lost City" Is Excellent

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Earlier this week my wife and I watched The Lost City (June 2006), starring Andy Garcia, who also produced and directed the movie.
It’s was best movie I’ve seen in months.
The film is Garcia’s own personal love letter to Cuba — the Cuba that existed before Fidel Castro’s “revolution.” It is a pulsating world of lively music, palpable sensuality, and tight-knit families.
The writing and acting are excellent throughout, and the cinematography is spectacularly beautiful. The movie is highly stylized — the opposite of naturalism, you could say.
Fidel Castro really takes it in the chin in this film. Predictably, mainstream movie reviewers panned the movie for its failure to conform to Hollywood’s preferred version of Cuban history, i.e., that Castro was leading a “people’s revolution,” etc.
Humberto Fontova — who was born in Cuba, like Garcia — wrote an article for NewsMax characterizing the left’s reaction to the movie:

Earlier, many film festivals refused to screen it. Now many Latin American countries refuse to show it. The film’s offenses are many and varied. Most unforgivable of all, Che Guevara is shown killing people in cold blood. Who ever heard of such nonsense? And just where does this uppity Andy Garcia get the effrontery to portray such things? The man obviously doesn’t know his place.

And:

Andy Garcia and screenwriter Guillermo Cabrera Infante knew full well that “the working poor” had no role in the stage of the Cuban revolution shown in the movie. The anti-Batista rebellion was led and staffed overwhelmingly by Cuba’s middle and, especially, upper class. To wit: In August of 1957 Castro’s rebel movement called for a “national strike” against the Batista dictatorship — and threatened to shoot workers who reported to work. The “national strike” was completely ignored.
Another was called for April 9, 1958. And again Cuban workers blew a loud and collective raspberry at their “liberators,” reporting to work en masse.
“Garcia’s tale bemoans the loss of easy wealth for a precious few,” harrumphs Michael Atkinson in The Village Voice. “Poor people are absolutely absent; Garcia and Infante seem to have thought that peasant revolutions happen for no particular reason — or at least no reason the moneyed 1 percent should have to worry about.”
What’s “absolutely absent” is Mr. Atkinson’s knowledge about the Cuba Garcia depicts in his movie. His crack about that “moneyed 1 percent” and especially his “peasant revolution” epitomize the cliched idiocies still parroted by the chattering classes about Cuba.

While political upheaval drives the movie’s plot, the movie itself is valuable and enjoyable on multiple levels — many of which have nothing to do with politics and everything to do with “life as it might be and ought to be.”
I recommend it highly.
The movie is available for purchase from Amazon.com. You can watch the trailer — which doesn’t really do the movie justice — at Apple. And you may also enjoy NPR’s interview with Garcia about the movie.

Hudgins: Let's Declare the Fourth of July a Tax-Free Day!

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

From a new op-ed by Ed Hudgins, executive director of The Atlas Society, published in the Washington Times and elsewhere:

On July 4, 1776, America’s Founders declared the country’s independence from Britain, largely as a revolt against excessive and unfair taxation. So in our nation, which is much more overtaxed than it was over two centuries ago, it would be fitting if, in recognition of our Founding principles, federal, state and local governments made July Fourth a totally tax-free day.
Many cities already suspend sales taxes for a few days a year on items such as clothing and school supplies, usually to garner the favor of overtaxed parents struggling to raise kids and to give mom and pop an incentive to frequent overtaxed downtown enterprises struggling to make profits. So wouldn’t it be appropriate for all of us who struggle every day to be allowed to keep our money on that day on which we celebrate our freedom?
The total direct tax burden on Americans – not counting the indirect taxes of regulations – is estimated at about 35 percent of our $13 trillion gross domestic product, or $4.5 trillion. That works out to more than $12 billion we would keep in our own pockets if we were truly independent on Independence Day.
We wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the hotdogs, beer and barbecue we purchase for Fourth of July picnics. And since for most of us this is a paid holiday, for that day we would receive our paychecks without income tax, Social Security taxes, unemployment insurance taxes and the like taken out.
Such a tax-free day would be the time to fill up large SUVs and save $10 a tank in various fuel taxes. Malls would soon see Christmas-season sized crowds as shoppers seek to stretch their dollars.

Continue reading on The Atlas Society website.

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey: "I Loved Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead"

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey is among the few large corporate managers that actively blogs, on behalf of his company, without letting the PR and media relations staff turn his posts into mealy-mouthed generalities.
In his recent post “Whole Foods Market, Wild Oats, and The Federal Trade Commission,” Mackey very directly and publicly takes on the Federal Trade Commission for their recent complaint about the merger of Whole Foods and Wild Oats.
In the ensuing discussion, one commenter wrote:

You’re one of my heros now. I am so glad you responded as you did to this FTC nonsense. I bet you kinda feel like John Galt, but please don’t go on strike.

To which Mackey replied:

I loved Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. “Who is John Galt?”

For more about John Mackey and Ayn Rand, see our earlier posts “Interview with Whole Foods’ John Mackey” and, before that, “Notes on Whole Foods Owner John Mackey.”

Cool new technology from Microsoft

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Experience some of Microsoft’s newest technological developments in action: Microsoft Surface and Photosynth. At Popular Mechanics you can see how Surface allows you to move information from one object to another via 30-inch tabletop display without a mouse or keyboard. And a recent TED talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrates how Photosynth can reconstruct objects and places taken from large collection of photos into a three-dimensional space.

Angelina Jolie: Atlas Shrugged Movie Moving Slowly

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

In a brief interview with Cinematical, Angelina Jolie provided this update on the upcoming Atlas Shrugged movie:

She had a little more to say about the adaptation of Atlas Shrugged, which is moving forward very slowly, despite having the Plan B powerhouse of Pitt and Jolie behind it. Angelina told me that the project is still on the table, but “the thing with Atlas is just, we all feel that it’s one of those projects where if you can’t do it right, you really can’t touch it. So we have not had all the pieces come together. There’s not been a director that’s right to come on, or all of those elements. So until it does, you know, I certainly don’t want to be a part of something that’s just put together to hit ‘this date.'”

When it comes to Atlas Shrugged, it’s hard to disagree with the perspective that “If you can’t do it right, you really can’t touch it.”

Group Encourages Wal-Mart to Promote Atlas Shrugged

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

To combat the left’s gradual encroachment on corporate policies, some free market activists have begun formally offering Wal Mart a new intellectual paradigm — namely, that the company should embrace free markets rather than run from them.
In the Townhall article “Wal-Mart’s Public Policy Dilemma: Turn Right or Left?” Tom Borelli explains the dilemma:

Most concerning is the possibility that Wal-Mart might actively support government funded universal health care as a way to shift its employee health care problem to the U.S. taxpayer and ease one major area of criticism. Turning Wal-Mart into a lobbyist for the Leftâ??s agenda represents a serious risk to the free market and, if successful, expands the role of government in our lives.
However, Wal-Mart can chart a different course. Instead of following the incremental path to socialism, a shareholder proposal (introduced by an organization Iâ??m affiliated with) offered Wal-Mart a free market alternative.
Wal-Mart can silence its critics by using its clout to encourage its suppliers to promote a pro-business atmosphere. For example, Wal-Mart should rally these businesses to promote free-market ideas such a tax cuts, litigation reform and medical savings accounts.
In addition, Wal-Mart should use its marketing muscle to sell Ayn Randâ??s timeless novel Atlas Shrugged into millions of homes. The book provides insight and perspective regarding the nature of Wal-Martâ??s conflict: capitalism vs. socialism; the risk posed by rent seeking corporate executives; and government interference in the free market.

See the full article for more.

New 'BioShock' Video Game

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

From Atlasphere member Noah Rusnock:

I am not sure how much the Atlasphere community is involved with video games, but in the next few months a highly-anticipated, main stream video game with an Objectivist base will hit the market. The game is called BioShock and you can read about it here, here, and here.

UPDATE: For more about the game, check out the hands-on preview at Shacknews.

Yaron Brook Stirs Up Discussion at WJU

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

Yaron Brook, Executive Director of the Ayn Rand Institute, gave a talk at Wheeling Jesuit University on March 6, 2007. The title of his talk was: “In Defense of the Morality of Free Financial Markets.” The talk was sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality at WJU, as part of their distinguished speakers series. The talk was well received, and according to Ed Younkins, Director of the Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality, Dr. Brook’s ideas “were still being talked about daily by students and faculty well over a month later.”
As reported here before, the Institute for the Study of Capitalism and Morality is a recipient of a grant from BB&T.

Randall Wallace (New Atlas Shrugged Screenwriter) Makes Cover of Script Magazine

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

script-cover_145x189.jpgThe May/June issue of Script, a magazine for screenwriters, has a cover story on Randall Wallace, focusing on his new job as writer of the screen adaptation of Atlas Shrugged.
Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t available online, but Script Magazine‘s web site lists newsstands around the country where the issue can be purchased.
From their blurb:

Randall Wallace: The World on His Shoulders
by Bob Verini
Recently tapped to adapt the epic tome Atlas Shrugged, Randall Wallace talks about the most challenging assignment of his career.

Don Hauptman, who alerted us to the article, sends this report:

Fortunately, Wallace admires Rand and “gets” a lot of her message. But he’s sometimes a bit confused.
For example, he claims that Rand held that “sacrifice and duty and honor are corrupt.” Honor?
Wallace explains how he translated a scene in Atlas into cinematic terms. Heâ??s obviously proud of what he did, but his version strikes me as ludicrous; I suspect that audiences would react with inappropriate laughter.
Finally, as many feared, it sounds as if the book is being condensed into a two-hour film. After all the talk last year about doing it as a trilogy, thatâ??s a letdown. Can this story really be told in 120 minutes?

Rand's Novels Indispensible for Managers?

Posted on by s1e2t3u4p5

From the article “Executive Picks,” just published at US News & World Report:

[H]undreds of business books are published each year: How to find the one you need?
U.S. News spoke with 14 leaders from all walks of business lifeâ??from academics to entrepreneurs to corporate executivesâ??about the five books they consider indispensable reading for managers. The responses ranged far and wide: Military metaphors popped up occasionally, with Sun Tzu’s The Art of War rearing its age-old head. But books about biology were also surprisingly prevalent, not only for their insight into how business environments imitate the natural world but also, several executives said, because understanding biology helped them appreciate the concept of randomness.
The vast majority of the books selected are more than five years oldâ??and not all were bestsellers. “There’s a tendency to think there’s a lot of great new stuff out there. That may not be true,” says Jack Brennan, CEO of the Vanguard Group, who reads a few dozen business books a year, then hands his favorites out to his executives.
Some basic how-to guides were also mentioned, from books about making sales calls to advice on writing. Ayn Rand, with her revolutionary ideas about entrepreneurship, also made her presence felt. And then there was Jim Collins, whose books Built to Last and Good to Great offer highly respected explanations of what separates good companies from great companies. Collins, Thomas Friedman, and Peter Drucker were the authors mentioned most often. Read on for more of what business leaders have found between the covers of books.

Nice to see Rand figured in the list for at least some managers. I’m sure her novels have inspired many people to view the world through more entrepreneurial eyes.

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