Quick Roundup 51

Woo-Hoo! (For the Most Part)

I went to Barnes and Noble the other day to spend some accumulated gift cards and left with copies of Glenn Reynolds's An Army of Davids, and Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy. I had to order Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics, by Tara Smith, and James Valliant's The Passion of Ayn Rand's Critics.

I'm about halfway through the Reynolds book, getting to read it only in fits and starts. Tara Smith's book arrived yesterday in the same box -- the same box! -- with Barbara Branden's hatchet job, The Passion of Ayn Rand. So I'll have to stop by Barnes and Noble to return it and have them send me the right book.

Word to the wise: When ordering Valliant's book, be careful that some sloppy clerk doesn't just enter the first part of the title and let some auto-"complete" function on his computer send you the wrong book.

Or you could just order it from The Ayn Rand Bookstore.... And now that I've gotten curious, I see that they do indeed offer gift certificates. It looks like the folks at Barnes and Noble may have just lost some sales.... Oops!

Atlas Shrugged to Hit the Silver Screen ...

... for, oh the thousandth time. Every few years, someone makes a big deal out of plans to bring Ayn Rand's master work to screen, only for all the hype to turn out to be just that. In fact, it's something of a running joke to me. One of the biggest problems would be this: What would you cut to turn this into a decent, standard-length movie with some modicum of faithfulness to the book? The best Idea I've heard floated on this would be to make it into a miniseries or a series of movies.

Anyway, here's an excerpt from the link I got via Matt Drudge.

Lionsgate has picked up worldwide distribution rights to "Atlas Shrugged" from Howard and Karen Baldwin ("Ray"), who will produce with John Aglialoro.

As for stars, book provides an ideal role for an actress in lead character Dagny Taggart, so it's not a stretch to assume Rand enthusiast Angelina Jolie's name has been brought up. Brad PittBrad Pitt, also a fan, is rumored to be among the names suggested for lead male character John Galt.

"Atlas Shrugged," which runs more than 1,100 pages, has faced a lengthy and circuitous journey to a film adaptation. [links dropped]

Color me cautiously optimistic, but don't color me blue. I won't be holding my breath for this to pan out.

Somewhat amusingly, today's Randex -- a site that lists media references pertaining to Ayn Rand -- has a distinctly tabloid-like feel with all its mentions of Hollywood figures, especially in the way it is displayed in my news aggregator. Here that is, complete with links.

• A life filled with drama, by Rich Copley - Lexington Herald-Leader (KY). On actress Patricia Neal. [She co-starred in the movie adaptation of The Fountainhead. --ed]
• John Fund vs the truth: How liberty lost, by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster - OpEdNews. On the Wall Street Journal editorial page editor and columnist.
• Atlas shrugs for Angelina, by Josh Tyler - Cinema Blend.
• Pitt, Jolie may join Atlas, by Paul Davidson - IGN FilmForce.
• A gouging market, by Matthew Rothschild - The Progressive. Commentary in favor of government intervention to reduce gasoline prices.
• Pitt and Jolie to team up for "Atlas Shrugged"? - New York Post. Lionsgate Films has bought the rights to the film version of the 1957 novel, considered in many polls to be one of the most influential books in history.
• A paper trail to the White House, by Lorraine Ahearn - News & Record (Greensboro, NC). On the appointment of Tony Snow as White House spokesman.

Greg Perkins has further thoughts at Noodle food, if you haven't been there already.

State to Metastasize to "Fight Cancer"

Texas has just moved a little closer to passing a one dollar per pack cigarette tax.

Why not just ban tobacco outright? That would be too obvious an assault on freedom. Then why not eliminate such "sin taxes" altogether? Because that would stick everyone with the bill for the cancer caused by the fact that, presumably, more fools who choose to smoke.

If we want to continue to remain free, more of us have to reject the notion that it is okay for the state to make us pay for the foolishness of others. Until this happens, their foolishness is our foolishness and, for supporters of such notions, justifiably so.

Recycled Ideas

And speaking of foolishness....


I love this Cox and Forkum cartoon on "The Real Recycling Problem"! It isn't that more of us need to recycle. It's that fewer of us ought to listen uncritically to the recycled ideas that emanate from the left.

Graduate School vs. Passion

Toiler has a very interesting link on why so many lovers of literature are staying away from graduate school in droves. One of my undergraduate majors was English Literature. While my decision not to pursue this in graduate school was based on many other things, I would certainly stay away now for such reasons. And I do sometimes wonder how my life might have been different were our educational system not afflicted from top to bottom with so many empty enthusiams standing in the stead of actual education....

Mesmerizing

Follow the links to see a video loop of a busy, chaotic intersection in India at which, somehow, no one gets killed! I'll never complain about driving in Houston again, and that's saying something!

-- CAV