1. Ayn Rand Institute archivist Brian Lisi has an interesting discussion of Rand’s speaking career.
2. OCON 2026 will be held later this month in New Orleans. As I’ve mentioned before, psychologist Steven Pinker will be taking part in an hour-and-one-half panel discussion. Pinker’s best-known book is probably The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. I don’t know much about Pinker, but he has said that intelligence is largely genetic and some gaps in IQ among ethnic groups might have a genetic component. I thought this was anathema in Objectivism.
3. At OCON, Shoshana Knapp will be giving a talk on Ayn Rand’s writing on Marilyn Monroe. (Monroe would have been 100 this month.) I’ve always thought that Rand’s brief piece on the death of Monroe was one of the more unusual things she wrote.
—Neil Parille
