ayn rand

[bachanon]

i recently started reading ayn rand's "the fountainhead". i'm intrigued and cannot wait to see what happens. anyone interested or fond of ayn rand and her books?

[marmer]

I was pretty taken with Ayn Rand when I was younger. I read all of her novels, probably liked The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged the best. She was one of the first writers to be really serious about treating philosophical subjects. I think she is now considered somewhat dated and naive though in the 50s and 60s she did have some influence and her books were big sellers. She wrote the screenplay for the movie treatment of The Fountainhead, which came out in 1949. Interestingly enough, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was a close associate of Rand from the early 50s until her death in 1982.

Objectivism, of course, like libertarianism, assumes little to no government intervention in the economy or in people's lives. Over the years, I have come to believe that the government needs, in general, to be more active than Objectivism posits. One of the biggest criticisms of Rand's writing is that she creates "straw men" for her heroes to knock down.

[crunchtastic]

Like Marmer, I was fascinated with her books when I was young. In the same way I encountered Henry Miller; some of the French modernists; reading those books was like dipping a toe into the grown-up world. Even then I knew I disagreed with much of her economic philosophy, but her characters were compelling, and as a teenage girl, who isn't going to be swept away by Howard Roark? Some time ago I re-read the Fountainhead, and was surprised at how much I still liked it. How much of that was influenced by being a fan of old Gary Cooper movies, and the memory of smart guys in college using the book to try and get into my pants, I don't know. I really liked her short, early works (We the Living, Anthem) as a better vehicle for her politics, but IMO she was not a skilled enough writer to do the dystopian fiction thing well. Her skill was longer, potboiler narrative. She had the capacity to be a much better writer, but I suspect her politics got in the way of that.

I've heard the latest remake of Fountainhead has been in and out of studios for years now. Wonder if that will ever come to be?

[Subdude]

Ayn Rand has traditionally appealed to college age kids with a taste for the dramatic, but they fortunately normally grow out of it. I think once anyone has any experience living as an adult in the real world they quickly realize what utter bosh her writing was, and how utterly reprehensible her "philosophy" was (if one can call selfishness that). I think that can be a difficult time of life, and it is somehow affirming to the ego to read books that posit that one is specially gifted, and that the rest of the world is comprised of "looters" who don't recognize and appreciate one's genius. Of course, there's nothing like having to work a real job to cures one of the attitude.

Apart from Rand's sheer moral vacuousness, her writing style would strain to be called "potboiler". Turgid 50-page lectures on the meaning of money, and people making pledges to gold dollar signs - pure and utter rubbish. The characters are designed as Moral Ideas, and thus have all the subtlety of avalanches.

I suppose I should admit that I read Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The former I stumbled on, like so many others, immediately after college. The latter I subjected myself to maybe ten years ago, because I kept bumping into Randiacs and was wondering what all the fuss was about. I remember thinking I should rip off the cover in case I ran into someone I knew and they saw what I was reading, since I didn't have the excuse of being an undergraduate.

If anyone is interested there is an Ayn Rand society lurking in Houston. I have no idea what exactly it is they do; sit around and gripe about the looters I suppose, or get together to toss precious artwork down air shafts, so as to deny its beauty to this undeserving world.

Atlas Shrugged is the movie perpetually in the making. Last I heard Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were attached to the project, which should tell you all you need to know.

[names]

See cult status here.

[Subdude]

See cult status here.

Bad link, but the name 'txpropertyrights' gives it all away.

[marmer]

Or high school kids with a taste for the dramatic. Good post, Subdude. I was trying to be nice, but you said it better.

[bachanon]

i'm finding that many people have strong feelings about ayn rand one way or another.

having spent most of my early years in christian schools and college, i was never exposed to anything that would "damage" the kiddos. many of my friends & acquaintances had the benefit of studying many different world views and ideas. i'm trying to "catch up".

everyone's input is appreciated.

[LegacyTree]

O' Horse Blinders!

[kylejack]

Ayn Rand is a radical, no doubt, but I am supportive of her general principles and have read most of her books, fiction and non.

[alsal29]

The only one I have read was We the Living. I very much enjoyed it, although it was a total downer. I have thought about reading Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead but I haven't got there yet. If you are at all interested in the Russian Revolution, I would highly recommend it.

[bachanon]

wright and rand

wright and rand did have some connection; however, she had her ideas for the fountainhead before she became acquainted with wright.

[kylejack]

More like she had her ideas about the nature of man, and rights. She plainly states later that Roark is modeled after Wright.

[marmer]

The only one I have read was We the Living. I very much enjoyed it, although it was a total downer. I have thought about reading Atlas Shrugged and the Fountainhead but I haven't got there yet. If you are at all interested in the Russian Revolution, I would highly recommend it.

We the Living is extremely bleak, and is based on her family's experience in the Russian Revolution. Not hard to see where her hatred of "collectivism" comes from. If you are interested in reading Ayn Rand, the best "bang for the buck" is probably The Fountainhead. Atlas Shrugged is a big, big book and a fairly major undertaking. The phrase "Who is John Galt?" is important in Atlas Shrugged and you will occasionally see bumper stickers emblazoned with that.

[kylejack]

Before sitting down to read Atlas Shrugged, realize that you will be reading a 58 page speech at the end.

[Dan the Man]

I read "The Fountainhead" "Atlas Shrugged" and "We the Living" in high school. "Atlas Shrugged" ended up being my favorite, as I felt that it did the best job expressing the tenets of her Objectivist philosophy. However, at that time I struggled with how to view her writing in the context of contemporary society and how to apply it to my outlook on the world. I went back and re-read "Atlas Shrugged" after I finished graduate school and spent a few years in the corporate world, and I glad I did.

While I feel that many of Rand's concepts are literally true, like capitalism values you solely for how well you do your job and governmental reallocation of wealth reduces peoples desire to contribute to a capitalist economic system, her novels also contain a lot of figurative truth. This "figurative truth" manifests itself in Rand's characters and in her portrayal of human relationships. Rand tries to emphasize that authenticity and well-rounded intelligence are important personal qualities, but I feel that she does a poor job of expressing this through her characters. Her characters are very direct, and they lack much of the tact and etiquette that is expected in social interaction. This alienates many readers and causes the characters to appear arrogant and obnoxious. I often wonder if this "figurative truth" was intentional. On one hand, it helps make the characters "super human" and allows some of her concepts to come across quite clearly. However, the fact that her characters aren't really an accurate depiction of people somewhat undermines her message of what humans are capable of.

Overall, I feel that Rand's writing was easier to identify with in the Modern era of the 1950s, given the superiority of the American industrial complex, rigid social structures, and emphasis on advancing scientific progress. In the Post-Modern era of globalization and endless "truths", Rand's writing seems very dated.

[bachanon]

yes, i agree that her writing is dated.

when i venture back to c. s. lewis' writings, i see how differently things were written. in fact, in lewis' space trilogy, each character represented "figurative truths" that were specifically judeo-christian. in each fictitious character, the reader identifies human characteristics that they too possess or are inclined toward.

as keating and roarke become more defined, they represent ideals i've embraced, rejected or aspire to. this "figurative truth" you describe is something i'm used to from christian literature; everything represents or symbolizes a greater truth. i tend to read too much into movies & books as an adult. "the fountainhead" is facilitating that tendency. i'm enjoying it.

didn't she spend years writing the 58 page soliloquy at the end of "atlas shrugged"? a friend said that it is basically her manifesto.

[Subdude]

Before sitting down to read Atlas Shrugged, realize that you will be reading a 58 page speech at the end.

Correction: Realize you will be reading a 1200 page speech, starting on page one.

[Sunstar]

One can always refer to the works of Steinbeck, Zola (Germinal specifically) and Upton Sinclair to provide a counterbalance to Rand's philosophy. While equally dramatic, these works emphasize the consequences of unregulated capitalism and their impact on the less fortunate.

[crunchtastic]

One can always refer to the works of Steinbeck, Zola (Germinal specifically) and Upton Sinclair to provide a counterbalance to Rand's philosophy. While equally dramatic, these works emphasize the consequences of unregulated capitalism and their impact on the less fortunate.

You are right. Much the same way Journey and Reo Speedwagon drove me straight into the arms of punk rock, a taste of Ayn Rand at an early age led me soon enough to Emile Zola. Now he's probably a largely forgotten footnote in discussions of Flaubert and Balzac and the naturalist painters. But Sinclair has new life these days, what with the continuing stream of bad news about the food supply and meat processing in particular.

[Subdude]

You are right. Much the same way Journey and Reo Speedwagon drove me straight into the arms of punk rock, a taste of Ayn Rand at an early age led me soon enough to Emile Zola. Now he's probably a largely forgotten footnote in discussions of Flaubert and Balzac and the naturalist painters. But Sinclair has new life these days, what with the continuing stream of bad news about the food supply and meat processing in particular.

This was linked in to today's "Big Picture". It is about causes of the financial crisis, or What Hath Ayn Wrought?

3. Ayn Rand was a bad writer, and a horrible philosopher.

If one good thing’s come out of this whole disaster, it’s that Rand’s goofy, sophomoric philosophy has been exposed as the half-baked, ill-conceived narcissistic babble it is. I always thought “The Fountainhead” read like a bad soap opera. It was Rand’s prize pupil, Alan Greenspan, who made Rand’s philosophy the driving force behind the train wreck that is this recession.

There’s nothing wrong with Rand’s celebration of the individual. The light bulb wasn’t invented by a committee. But this thing of hers where she lifts the individual above society to the point where the former owes nothing to the latter is absurd, and in practice — as we’ve since seen — leads to ruin. And it’s just dumb. Without a safe, secure society in which to operate, we’d all just be more chimpanzees out in the wild, scrounging for berries, know what I mean?

Oh, and derivatives, as of this writing, remain unregulated.

Addendum: I negleted to mention the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that kept investment and commercial banks separate, as a major contributing factor to the credit crisis. It was.

Full article here

Speaking of Flaubert, I'm halfway through Bovary at the moment. Good stuff.

[RedScare]

This was linked in to today's "Big Picture". It is about causes of the financial crisis, or What Hath Ayn Wrought?

Full article here

Speaking of Flaubert, I'm halfway through Bovary at the moment. Good stuff.

Finally! Someone to speak the obvious, which when speaking of Ayn Rand, never seems to be spoken. Fans of unregulated greed put Rand on a pedestal that she does not deserve. Because they like the thought of a world where greed and gluttony are not only rewarded, but revered, they make the proponent of same into an insightful writer. Rand's writing is junk. Frankly, her ideas weren't that great, either. But, she has a following among those who believe that the individual is better than the group...except in football, corporations and armies.

[crunchtastic]

This was linked in to today's "Big Picture". It is about causes of the financial crisis, or What Hath Ayn Wrought?

Full article here

Speaking of Flaubert, I'm halfway through Bovary at the moment. Good stuff.

Oooh, I have not been over to TBP yet today. I'm pleased to see someone else think of soap opera and Rand in the same sentence.

Red, The Big Picture is excellent. You'll want to visit often.

[crunchtastic]

But, she has a following among those who believe that the individual is better than the group...

Which is precisely why her books were heady stuff --for teenagers and misfit geeks, that is. It's the people who don't grow out of it that you've got to worry about. Like the board of the Federal Reserve.

[AtticaFlinch]

Which is precisely why her books were heady stuff --for teenagers and misfit geeks, that is. It's the people who don't grow out of it that you've got to worry about. Like the board of the Federal Reserve.

And Hotel California.

[Subdude]

A review of two books about Rand, from the Economist.

Ayn Rand and the World She Made. By Anne Heller. Nan A. Talese; 592 pages; $35. Buy from Amazon.com

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right. By Jennifer Burns. Oxford University Press; 384 pages; $27.95 and £16.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk

FOR all its faults socialism is manifestly superior to capitalism in one area: the making of myths. Capitalists can never equal the emotional appeal of socialism’s martyred heroes. Ayn Rand, however, is a conspicuous exception to this rule. She has been given short shrift by the intellectual establishment. Literary critics bemoan her cardboard characters and tabloid style. Political theorists dismiss her as a shallow thinker whose appeal is restricted to adolescents. But such disdain has done nothing to damage her popular appeal.

Rand’s books have enjoyed impressive sales since her death in 1982. But America’s shift to the left—the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 and Barack Obama’s election two years later—has put her back at the heart of the political debate.

...

Rand was an uncompromising rationalist. But she was also the plaything of powerful emotions. She devoted her life to fighting collectivism. But she would not tolerate dissent among her followers—and even playfully called her inner-circle “the collective”. There was more than just a right kind of politics, one of her followers recalled. There was also a right kind of interior design, a right kind of dancing.

....

Yet Rand’s appeal has been undimmed by either the vituperation of her critics or the peculiarity of her admirers. Her insight in “Atlas Shrugged”—that society cannot thrive unless it is willing to give freedom to its entrepreneurs and innovators—has proved to be prescient. Even if John Galt is under threat once again in the West, he is back in business in China and India.

Link to full article

[Subdude]

Rand is all over the news today. Review from NY Times:

Ayn Rand’s Revenge

A specter is haunting the Republican Party — the specter of John Galt. In Ayn Rand’s libertarian epic “Atlas Shrugged,” Galt, an inventor disgusted by creeping American collectivism, leads the country’s capitalists on a retributive strike. “We have granted you everything you demanded of us, we who had always been the givers, but have only now understood it,” Galt lectures the “looters” and “moochers” who make up the populace.

...

Rand’s style of vehement individualism has never been universally popular among conservatives — back in 1957, Whittaker Chambers denounced the “wickedness” of “Atlas Shrugged” in National Review — and Rand still has her critics on the right today. But it can often seem, as Jonathan Chait, a senior editor at The New Republic recently observed, that “Rand is everywhere in this right-wing mood.”

...

This is at once the failure and the making of Rand’s fiction. The plotting and characterization in her books may be vulgar and unbelievable, just as one would expect from the middling Holly­wood screenwriter she once was; but her message, while not necessarily more sophisticated, is magnified by the power of its absolute sincerity. It is the message that turned her, from the publication of “Atlas Shrugged” in 1957 until her death in 1982, into the leader of a kind of sect.

...

Rand’s particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism — to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished. Or, rather, that they could distinguish themselves by the ardor of their commitment to Rand’s teaching. The very form of her novels makes the same point: they are as cartoonish and sexed-up as any best seller, yet they are constantly suggesting that the reader who appreciates them is one of the elect.

Link to full article

And from GQ via WSJ via FT Alphaville

She died in 1982, but her spawn soldier on. And the Great Recession is all their fault

the experience of being 19 years old and reading Ayn Rand! The crystal-shivering-at-the-breaking-pitch intensity of it! Not just for that 19-year-old, but for everybody unfortunate enough to be caught in his psychic blast radius. Is "experience" even the right word for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged? Ayn Rand's idolization of Mickey Spillane and cigarettes and capitalism—an experience? Her tentacular contempt for Shakespeare and Beethoven and Karl Marx and facial hair and government and "subnormal" children and the poor and the Baby Jesus and the U.N. and homosexuals and "simpering" social workers and French Impressionism and a thousand other things the flesh is heir to: experience?

Does a 19-year-old "experience" the likes of "She looked at the lone straight shaft of the Taggart Building rising in the distance—and…understood: these people hated Jim because they envied him"?

A weirdly specific thing happens with the books of Ayn Rand. It's not just the what of the books, but when a reader discovers them—almost always during the first or second year of college. Rand grabs a reader at a time of maximum vulnerability and malleability, when he's getting his first accurate sense of how he measures up in the world in terms of intellect and talent. The longing to regard oneself as misunderstood and underrated can be powerful; the temptation to project oneself as such, irresistible.

The days during which that 19-year-old has Rand's worldview vectored into his cerebral cortex are feverish and sleepless. Days of beautiful affliction during which the intransigence of others—roommates, a coed the patient has been hitting on, professors, parents, everyone—are shown to be the product of their shortcomings, their idiocy and sublimated envy of the patient's intelligence and talent. Days during which the infected comes to see himself and Roark/Galt as avatars of one another: superheroically mirthless protagonists in a drama of historical import. It's the damnedest thing. One day you've got a bright young kid dutifully connecting the dots of his liberal-arts education; the next, he's got Roark and Galt in the marrow and has become…an insufferable asshole.

Well, yes, it's true that in most cases, the fever breaks. That kid stands up, walks outside, and reflects on the 727 pages of Fountainhead and 1,168 of Atlas he's just wolfed down. And realizes: That was nearly 2,000 pages (more, really, given that Rand's loathing of collectivist parasites is matched only by her loathing of paragraph indents) without a single instance of irony or humor. Or subtlety. Or grace. Nearly 2,000 hectoring, brook-no-ambiguity, you're-either-a-lion-or-a-leech pages of breathtaking psychological obtuseness.

But most fell into that hapless group of Rand readers—the ones whose postadolescent insecurity was alchemized upon contact with The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged into a bizarre unlaughing superiority. Some snapped out of it after a semester or two, becoming people who later in life—like Hillary Clinton—could refer with a shake of the head to their "Ayn Rand phase." Some didn't, and I lost them as friends. And for years I've wondered whether they:

(1) bolted upright in bed at three in the morning a year or two after we'd graduated and exclaimed, "Mon Dieu! I have been an Ayn Rand ***hole! I must immediately cease and desist!"

(2) took it all the way, and now spend their days in the bowels of the Cato Institute, stroking hairless lap cats and smirking sourly as they develop strategies for deregulating the law of gravity.

GQ's own Critic columnist, Tom Carson, puts it best: "Her books are capitalism's version of middlebrow religious novels like Ben-Hur and the Left Behind series." Even Todd Seavey sees a parallel: "Hard-core Randians tend to regurgitate Randian observations in a way that's not mindless but very redundant. Unless you're fully signed on, they assume you're not getting it. Which is exactly the way some Christians are when they can't get somebody to accept Jesus Christ as their savior."

When it comes to irritation, the capo di tutti capi is an Ayn Rand ***hole who responds to the headlines of the past fifteen months by…doubling down. Who claims that there should have been less regulation of the markets. Who admits that, yeah, Alan Greenspan was the one who put this country in an economic hole—but only because he wasn't nearly Randian enough.

Link to it

[bachanon]

Rand is all over the news today. Review from NY Times:

Link to full article

And from GQ via WSJ via FT Alphaville

Link to it

responses to the GQ article.

Excellent article. To be fair to Rand, it was probably her early experience under totalitarian Communism that drove her quite insane. Greenspan, however, has no such excuse. I recall his pathetic mea culpa (my entire worldview was idiotic, duh!) but I do not believe his sincerity any more than I would a scorpion's. I also appreciate the confirmation to bypass "Atlas Shrugged". In "We the Living [Dead]" and "The Fountainhead" I discovered nothing but isolationist dystopian nightmares---extremely tedious descriptions of a loveless, lonely hell in the preachy tone of wounded, angry ideologue. And now what perfect confirmation you have here in comments here from those humorless, cold-blooded AR ***holes themselves. Their Kool-Aid is indeed a potent brew and they aptly make your case for you. It is a hideous, dark world these Darwinian predators inhabit. Ultimately, they are only capable of understanding 'might makes right', and it's high time to cull the pack.

Posted 10/31/2009 11:49:20pm

by Guerrillero

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Thank you, thank you, thank you--this is brilliant and much needed. And the comments just prove everything you've argued.

Posted 10/31/2009 3:17:02pm

by cantstandrand

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Bravo, and let the howling begin! As a previous poster stated, the comments speak for themselves. It seems there are two things you can count on when a Democrat is elected president: a resurgence of Ayn Rand horse ****, and increased attacks on abortion clinics. As far as Rand-recovery is concerned, I will add that taking a "Basic Logic: Fundamentals and Fallacies" course may help (night school, anyone?) When the great "Go Galt" strike...er...ideological/financial exodus happens, I'm often told (rather dramatically, of course) that I will eat my words. Believe me, if we can find a gulf big enough to hold the self-inflated egos, I'll render the map and pay for gas (indeed a weak and altruistic act for the betterment of everyone BUT me). **** Ayn Rand? No. **** John Galt.

Posted 10/31/2009 6:55:22am

by tastytone

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An insufferable ***hole making ad hominem attacks isn't going to make Rand less relevant. The reason she's "2009's most influential author" is because she's being proven right. Apparently the author is so uncomfortable with Rand because he's the sort of whiny sycophant she spent her career attacking.

Posted 10/31/2009 2:56:03am

by kafka

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You are not gentlemen, you are just punks and pussies. You hate Ayn Rand, because it would mean you have to "think" get some data before you made a decision...and not merely engage in mental diarrhea with your hand on your *****. It is most interesting as those who "hate" Ayn Rand never read her. How sad. You are relegated to the back of that little yellow "special" school bus, with all the other ignorant twits who "believe" just like the religious, that some imaginary utopian "belief" system is out there, if you just "believe." Gentlemen are most of all smart, with elan' and manners, and you have none. So where does that leave you? Just another one of the stupid, unwashed, poor little twits who buy GQ and then sit on the toilet whacking off...thinking about really cool you, living in your imaginary dream world. Please do not vote and I beg you...get a vasectomy as soon as is possible. Do not have any more dumb, ignorant children the rest of us have to support. The United States is now filled with such jerk offs as yourselves, who vote for the likes of Obama, that rank amateur, and his Chicago thugs. Nah, you aren't cool...you are just $3000 dollar a month "millionaires" who wish you were a big fat ______ mammy so you could live on welfare. Why don't you do something useful, like clean toilets, or pick up garbage on the side of the road....

Posted 10/30/2009 7:45:09pm

by weismonger

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All well and good but it's a long way from "teenagers suck and Ayn Rand isn't much of a writer" to "we could have avoided the financial crisis if only we'd had more vote buying, graft and nonsensical rules for the benefit of big campaign donors."

Posted 10/30/2009 5:42:32pm

by nowonder

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Gentleman's? Quarterly? You sir are an example of a louse masquerading as a journalist for a magazine that was once intended for "gentlemen"? The philosophy of Ayn Rand is so far above your meager ability to comprehend and your sense of justice so undeveloped that hopefully this will be the last opportunity you have to pontificate such drivel. You are a supreme example of what is wrong in the world today........cynicism without sense...common or otherwise. Long live Lady Liberty!!!!!

Posted 10/30/2009 4:21:40pm

by JackFrake

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This article was clearly written by an an insufferable ***hole.

Posted 10/30/2009 3:10:35pm

by CWEarl

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Oh, writer of little brain, how you reveal your fear of what this giant in philosophical thinking does to your comfortable little world! And so you attempt to misrepresent her and her ideas. This article should be an embarrassment to GQ; you haven't a crumb of understanding of her ideas or who the proponents of Objectivism are. Too bad for you that the truth hurts so much. Stick to non-intellectual subjects; this one is way over your head.

Posted 10/30/2009 2:58:09pm

by hkrening

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The ***hole doth protest too much, methinks. While perhaps quite stylish in some readers' eyes, this article is simply incompetent, from subtitle to end. Let's glance at the author's prime examples illustrating his two basic complaints. First, there is Greenspan, held up for his supposed Randian role in the economic mess. Well, the simple fact is that deregulation has not been happening, by his urging or anyone's: overall there was more regulation than ever -- go check out the Federal Register -- and the financial and housing industries are among the most heavily regulated of all. So when analyzed on even that superficial level, one should begin with the suspicion that this mess is a failure of the regulatory state, not the free market. And to characterize Greenspan as some Randian champion of deregulation and free markets is ridiculous: the man assumed the role of the central controller of the heart of our economy! That would be the precise opposite of what Rand or any Objectivist would do; while in Rand's orbit, Greenspan himself argued in print that the job he would later on should not even exist. (See http://bit.ly/BHBte and http://bit.ly/GdO5p) Then there is Exhibit B: Michael Malice, the author's perfect picture of a Flaming Randian Jerk. Aside from amply illustrating the fact that being a flaming jerk is independent of whether one is an Objectivist, there is that telling word in the article's introduction of Mr. Malice: anarchist. To anybody with a clue, this shouts that he is certainly no Objectivist and did not pay much attention to what Rand said in the books he's so lovingly collected to bolster his being a flaming jerk. (See http://bit.ly/3Do0yC and http://bit.ly/2yhMpF) The examples abound, but you get the idea. Fail.

Posted 10/30/2009 2:10:52pm

by gregperk

[sevfiv]

From NPR:

Ayn Rand's Conservative Call Echoes Today

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114373264

[bachanon]

From NPR:

Ayn Rand's Conservative Call Echoes Today

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114373264

nice, thanks sevfiv.