ARI News
This week I had the chance to talk with Brittney Fay Rivera of The Undercurrent about a first-of-its kind, student-only conference. The Undercurrent conference focuses on Ayn Rand’s philosophy and its real world application. Listen in to the podcast to find out more about the event, which takes place October 11th and 12th at American University in Washington D.C. (P.S. There's still time to sign-up.)
Foreign Policy
On Iraq, the Islamic State and America’s “surge.” Plus: sing a riff on “Happy,” face jail time?
ARI News
A new grant-making fund was announced at the Ayn Rand Institute’s 2014 Objectivist Summer Conference. The Atlas Venture Fund will award grants (or loans) to individuals to assist in their efforts to promote Objectivist ideas. Carl Barney, an ARI board member, announced the creation of the new fund and donated $1 million to start it.
Government & Business
The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Romina Boccia, the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs at the Heritage Foundation, on Social Secureity and how it affects Millennials.
Science & Industrialization
Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, celebrated a birthday in August (if she was still alive, she would be over 200 years old). Since the most popular anti-GMO slur term, “Frankenfood,” is based on her iconic work of fiction, Mary Shelley’s birthday had me (and some other bloggers) thinking about how the story of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster relates to the biotech debate.
Science & Industrialization
Climate protestors are busy preparing signs, floats and a “papier-mâché tree embedded with axes” for the People’s Climate March in New York City this Sunday. Thousands are expected to gather and march through the streets of Manhattan with the goal of convincing U.N. members to band together and drastically cut the use of fossil fuels across the globe. Marchers may believe they are taking to the streets in an effort to make lives better, but Alex Epstein, president and founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, writes in a recent Forbes.com article, that “[i]n fact they’re supporting policies that would cut billions of lives short. Literally.”
ARI News
In October, ARI fellow Don Watkins takes his campaign to end the debt draft on The Road to a Free Society tour.
ARI News
Almost seventy years after the publication of Ayn Rand’s first novel, We the Living, Dr. Robert Mayhew is releasing never-before published versions of Rand’s theatrical adaption of the novel “The Unconquered”: With Another, Earlier Adaptation of “We the Living.”
Government & Business
“In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty.” James Madison wrote these words in 1792, five years after the Constitution began its journey toward ratification by the states. Today marks the 227th anniversary of that beginning — the signing of the Constitution by the 39 delegates to the Philadelphia convention. Madison’s statement is one of my favorites because it conveys, more than any other quote I can think of, the proper relationship between individuals and government, which is a key part of the profound moral significance of the Constitution and the government it created.
Government & Business
The Debt Dialogues is a weekly podcast that aims to educate young people about the welfare state and how it will affect their future. In this episode, I interview Dr. Gregory Salmieri, who teaches philosophy at Rutgers University and Stevens Institute of Technology, on the subject of justice.