Who is John Galt?

First of all, I'd like to apologize for my accidental hiatus this week! One week off from work puts my head in the clouds for sure. But I've been wanting to write about the new movie, Atlas Shrugged, opening in theatres on April 15. When I saw the first tweet with the trailer, I was giddy as a child.

My mild infatuation with Ayn Rand (author of Atlas Shrugged, 1957) began in high school when this one boy who I disdained (but also crushed on) challenged me to read it. He said it would change my life, and it did. To give you a little background, Rand was one of the most confident, intelligent, logical women I've ever come across.

She founded her own philosophy, called Objectivism, which in an overly simplified description holds that reality is an objective absolute, independent of man's hopes; man's only source of knowledge is reason and logic; man must exist for his own sake, not for the sake of any other person; and the ideal political-economic system is a laissez-faire capitalism.

And yes, Rand always spoke using "man" not "woman." Oddly enough, for how powerful she perceived herself to be, she held men on a pedestal. In all of her books, the male is the hero, not the woman. The leading lady is always strong and smart, but she still needs the man. Then again, he seems to need her too.

I always use this example from her biogrophy to describe just how ridiculous she is. She decided that she wanted to have an affair with her biogropher's husband. So she simply convinced, the biogropher, the husband and her own husband to be okay with it. She said, very logically of course, that the other guy was better than her husband - may the best man win. They all went with it!

Okay so enough of my psycho-babble! My point is, go read the book because I'm worried they're not going to come even close to doing it justice on the big screen. But if your too lazy to read all 1368 pages, then go watch the movie. :)