The following is a clip of a surprising appearance of Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism on the UPN show, One on One. In this clip, one of the show’s character’s is studying for a philosophy exam that includes Atlas Shrugged. Another character explains–for the most part accurately–the essence of Objectivism.
Watch the clip.
(I’d like to give a hat tip to the person who found this–but I received this link on aYahoo Rand discussion list with no explanation of its source)
Category: The Atlasphere
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Saul Williams: Atlas Shrugged Changed My Life
From an interview at Alternet.org:
Saul Williams has been acclaimed as the ‘Hip Hop Poet Laureate’ and for good reason. On stage and on paper he captures a true MC spirit and establishes a furious, hypnotic hip-hop flow, as he tackles serious subjects from god to love to music to power to poverty. […]
AMB: What books, music, or films changed your life?
SW: Autobiography of Malcolm X, autobiography of Assata Shakur, and of Miles Davis. Temple of my Familiar by Alice Walker, The Famished Road by Ben Okri, and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. For films, Slam, Mary Poppins, Naked, and Farewell My Concubine.
See the full interview for more information about Saul Williams.
As it happens, he’s not the first hip-hop icon to cite Ayn Rand’s writings as a major influence. I think hip-hop morning host Star (of Star & Bucwild) holds that title.
Search the Atlasphere from FireFox
If you’re a Firefox user, you have no doubt noticed and enjoyed the feature that allows you to search your favorite sites (Google, Amazon, etc.) directly from the browser itself, saving you the extra step of first going to the site you want to search.
Now you can add the Atlasphere to your Firefox search bar! Any search you conduct using this feature will return the relevant results (utilizing a search by “All Fields”) from the Atlasphere’s member directory.
The search feature will only work, of course, if you are an Atlasphere member. Atlasphere profiles are never accessible to non-members.
If you encounter problems or have questions, feel free to contact us for help.
Come Rally for the Danes!
Robert Bidinotto points us to this announcement:
Please be outside the Embassy of Denmark, 3200 Whitehaven Street (off Massachusetts Avenue), [in Washington, DC] between noon and 1 p.m. this Friday, Feb. 24. Quietness and calm are the necessities, plus cheerful conversation. Danish flags are good, or posters reading “Stand By Denmark” and any variation on this theme (such as “Buy Carlsberg/ Havarti/ Lego”) The response has been astonishing and I know that the Danes are appreciative. But they are an embassy and thus do not of course endorse or comment on any demonstration. Let us hope, however, to set a precedent for other cities and countries. Please pass on this message to friends and colleagues.
Bidinotto will be there. And if I didn’t live 2,000 miles away, I’d be there too.
The Left's Secret Pact: Subverting War on Terror
A hard-hitting article that originally appeared on the American Thinker:
The Leftâ??s Secret Pact: Subverting the War on Terror
November 30th, 2005
by Vasko Kohlmayer
The War on Terror has brought on many complex problems and challenges. Perhaps none is more critical than the conduct of the political Left which is apparently set on sabotaging our efforts. Unable to come up with a logical explanation, political observers either throw up their hands in bewilderment or ascribe the Leftâ??s posture to some irrational nihilistic impulse. But such conclusions are neither satisfactory nor correct.
The Leftâ??s sabotage of this war is a deliberate attempt to give relief to the other side. This is because their corresponding views on capitalism and the West make Islamic radicals and the Left natural allies. The Left seeks to weaken us from within in order to help those whose shared worldview binds them in a common pact. Once we understand the nature of this stealth partnership, the reasons behind the Leftâ??s often seemingly inexplicable actions will become alarmingly apparent.
But to do so, we must start at the beginning.
The full article is now available in our columns section.
Objective Standard: Deadline Extended
The subscription deadline to receive the inaugural issue of Objective Standard has been extended to February 24th.
From Editor Craig Biddle:
A quick update as our 130 page premier issue goes to press.
We were able to extend the subscription deadline. If you have not yet
subscribed and wish to do so (or if you want to give someone the gift of
objectivity), please subscribe by *February 24th* to ensure that your first
issue of TOS is included in our initial mailing, scheduled for early-March.
My essay “Introducing The Objective Standard” will be posted to the website
this week and will be accessible to subscribers and non-subscribers alike.
Check out their site for more information about this new publication for Objectivists.
China: Search Censors Can't Swat A Sparrow
An interesting article from WebProNews that landed in my inbox today, about China’s censorshiop efforts:
One Chinese blogger stays on the move, uses multiple blogs, and says the demand for non-corrupt political officials is the real foe of censorship.
Li Xinde has no First Amendment to protect him as an investigative reporter in China. But he does have a knack for finding stories of corruption and abuse that make their way even to state-run media outlets, Reuters reported.
“I can still spread news across the whole country in just 10 minutes, while the propaganda officials are still wondering what to do,” Li told Reuters.
He described how he has to work to avoid arrest, by shuttling around to different Internet bars in rural China:
“It’s what Chairman Mao called sparrow tactics. You stay small and independent, you move around a lot, and you choose when to strike and when to run.”
Those strikes have taken down a corrupt deputy mayor in one province, while another claimed a businessman met a brutal death while held in official custody.
On the topic of businesses like Yahoo and Google choosing to yield to censorship requirements in order to operate in China, Li said he understands the business reasons, but, “morally it’s wrong to sell people’s freedom.”
His freedom has become more difficult to maintain over the past two years, the article noted. Though he isn’t famous, he has built enough of a reputation that he is something of a marked man.
Still, he has reason to fear. Evidence prosecutors obtained from Yahoo in China has contributed to the jailings of two journalists, and others who have published stories on the Internet also languish in prison, the report said.
As more Chinese citizens move online, their interest in the habits of politicians could be the ultimate undoing of censorship and media suppression:
Li said Chinese people’s demands for clean, accountable officials, and their salacious curiosity about bad ones, were the censors’ ultimate enemy.
“Our party always said revolution depended on the gun and the pen — the military and propaganda,” said Li, echoing a slogan of Mao’s. “The gun is still firmly in the party’s hands, but the pen has loosened.”
Li’s website, in Chinese: www.yuluncn.com
WJU Student Paper Reports on BB&T Grant
As reported here, Wheeling Jesuit University received a grant from BB&T for the teaching of Capitalism. The program will include Objectivism and will use Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand among other texts. The Students Paper of WJU, The Cardinal Connection, had a positive article about the new program. The article points out that “copies of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and other works on the morality of capitalism are going to be distributed to freshmen in the business major.” According to the article “Students overall appear to be excited about the new funds and classes.” Says one student:
Capitalism has been given a bad rap lately. Most people think it is merely about buying, buying, buying, and stepping all over the little guy as long as it will allow you to earn another cent or two. Perhaps this grant will be able to dispel the bad reputation that form of economic system has gained instead of furthering its bad rap.
Muhammad Cartoon Editor Influenced by Ayn Rand
A new article in the International Herald Tribune suggests that Flemming Rose — the man behind the Muhammad cartoons that have upset Muslims around the world — includes Ayn Rand among his intellectual influences.
The article begins:
The man behind the Muhammad cartoons that have upset Muslims around the world describes himself as “just the cultural editor of a Danish newspaper.” But his critics say Flemming Rose of Jyllands-Posten is a cultural warrior whose outlook was forged in the Moscow of the Cold War years and who knew what he was doing when he opened fire on what he sees as a form of totalitarianism, even if he did not expect the consequences to be global and deadly.
Later in the article:
“My convictions have grown as the days have passed,” he said. “What I did, I did for free speech, and I am not going to apologize.”
Rose, who grew up in a working-class area of Copenhagen, says he was a hippie in his university days. He said he studied Russian literature, played soccer and attended rock concerts. His first job was as a translator and teacher with refugees.
His worldview changed, Rose said, when he went to Russia in the 1980s and saw firsthand the repression of the Soviet regime. He befriended dissidents, devoured books by Solzhenitsyn, Hannah Arendt, and Ayn Rand, and traveled throughout Asia and the Middle East, eventually covering the fall of communism in the Baltics and the war in Chechnya.
See the full article, “Hatred of censorship drove cartoons’ editor,” for more background about this gentleman.
A Good Woman, Based on Oscar Wilde
From reader Don Hauptman:
I recommend the film A Good Woman, which is based on the Oscar Wilde play not of the same name.
The screenplay significantly reworks Lady Windermere’s Fan, but retains the basic story and themes, as well as the key characters. The film updates the play by several decades, relocates it to the Continent, and transforms several roles from Britons to Americans.
Notwithstanding the changes, it’s difficult to go too far wrong with Wilde, and much of the wit and charm of the original are preserved, including a plethora of Wildean epigrams in the dialogue. The film is in the genre once called a “comedy of manners,” a term that now seems mostly to be used disparagingly by the intelligentsia. Performances range from competent to outstanding, though I agree with some Internet reviewers that a few parts might have been better cast.
Today, in an era of overpraised cultural mediocrity and forgettable trash, it’s a pleasure to see onscreen something that is elegant, witty, and literate. But I suggest that you move fast. The film has received little attention aside from some predictably scathing reviews, and it’s likely to be out of theaters soon.
Flash! I wrote the above yesterday immediately after seeing the film; today, as feared, it’s no longer playing anywhere in New York City. A check of www.imdb.com shows that it’s still in cinemas in a few cities, including Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Palm Desert, Ca. Check that site periodically to see if it shows up at a theater near you. If not, wait patiently for the DVD.