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OPINIONS MONDAY, APRIL 25, 201 1 B7 Trump: A blunt-talking flash in the pan I can't imagine the boomlet for Do- YOUR VOICE COUNTS E-mail: opinionsarizona republic.com. Mail: Letters to the Editor, The Arizona Republic, P.O. Box 1950, Phoenix, AZ 85001. Online: Current and past editorials, letters and Benson cartoons are available at arizonarepublic.comopinions. nafd Trump lasting.

There's something in his past personal, professional, political to alienate every conceivable voter. The intensive interest he is getting, not just in the celebrity-driven Aztalk.azcentral.com is your one-stop place to read staff and community blogs, the most-discussed stories, editorials and Benson. rneuid, uues reiieci iwo imponani po- Join i litical realities: a hunger for blunt talk "I'm glad we still have national parks. You know, land untouched by mini-malls or Starbucks or Kardashians." Craig Ferguson Quick Hit among Republican primary voters and ROBERT ROBB, a lack of enthusiasm for the current Republic columnist Republican presidential field. the conversation at aztalk.azcentral.com WHAT IS AYN HAND'S APPEAL TO CONSERVATIVES? 'ATLAS': UTOPIA THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC Talk OF SELFISHNESS Ronald Reagan's faith in the people instead of elites.

Rand re garded the people as "looters" and "parasites." She was a WASHINGTON The movie "Atlas Shrugged," adapted from Ayn Rand's 1957 novel of the same name, is a triumph of cinematic irony. A work that lectures us endlessly on the moral superiority of heroic achievement is itself a model of mediocrity. In this, the film perfectly reflects both the novel and the mind behind it. Rand is something of a Taylor Schilling stars in "Atlas Shrugged: Part 1." The movie is based on the novel by Ayn Rand (top left), strike productions ml cultural phenomenon the author of potboilers who became an ethical and political philosopher, a libertarian heroine. But Rand's distinctive mix of expressive egotism, free MICHAEL CERSON Washington Post Writers Group strenuous advocate for class warfare, except that she took the side of a mythical class of capitalist supermen.

Rand, in fact, pronounced herself "profoundly opposed" to Reagan's presidential candidacy, because he did not meet her exacting ideological standards. Rand had particular disdain for Christianity. The cross, she said, is "the symbol of the sacrifice of the ideal to the non-ideal. It is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors. That is precisely how the symbolism is used.

That is torture." Yet some conservatives marked Holy Week by attending and embracing "Atlas Shrugged." Reaction to Rand draws a line in political theory. Some believe with Rand that all government is coercion and theft the tearing down of the strong for the benefit of the undeserving. Others believe that government has a limited but noble role in helping the most vulnerable in society not motivated by egali-tarianism, which is destructive, but by compassion, which is human. And some root this duty in God's particular concern for the vulnerable and undeserving, which eventually includes us all. This is the message of Easter, and it is inconsistent with the gospel of Rand.

Many libertarians trace their inspiration to Rand's novels, while sometimes distancing themselves from Objectivism. But both libertarians and Objectivists are moved by the mania of a single idea a freedom indistinguishable from selfishness. This unbalanced emphasis on one element of political theory at the expense of other public goals, such as" justice and equal opportunity is the evidence of a rigid ideology. Socialists take a similar path, embracing equality as an absolute value. Both ideologies have led good people into supporting policies with serious human costs.

Conservatives have been generally suspicious of all ideologies, preferring long practice and moral tradition to Utopian schemes of left or right. And Rand is nothing if not Utopian. In "Atlas Shrugged," she refers to her libertarian valley of the blessed as Atlantis. It is an attractive place, which does not exist, and those who seek it drown. servility and inferiority of the masses one does not question their wisdom in leaving the movie.

None of the characters expresses a hint of sympathetic human emotion, which is precisely the point. Rand's novels are vehicles for a system of thought known as Objectivism. Rand developed this philosophy at the length of Tolstoy, with the intellectual pretensions of Hegel, but it can be summarized on a napkin. Reason is everything. Religion is a fraud.

Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is a crime against human excellence. Self-sacrifice is weakness. Weakness is contemptible. "The Objectivist ethics, in essence, hold that man exists for his own sake, that the pursuit of his own happiness is his highest moral purpose, that he must not sacrifice himself to others, nor sacrifice others to himself," Rand said.

If Objectivism seems familiar, it is because most people know it under another name: adolescence. Many of us experienced a few unfortunate years of invincible self-involvement, testing moral boundaries and prone to stormy egotism and hero worship. Most of us eventually discovered that the quality of our lives is tied to the benefit of others. Rand's achievement was to turn a phase into a philosophy, as attractive as an outbreak of acne. The appeal of Ayn Rand to conservatives is both considerable and inexplicable.

Modern conservatism was largely defined by love and free-market metallurgy does not hold up very well on-screen. The emotional center of the movie is the success of high-speed rail oddly similar to a proposal in Barack Obama's last State of the Union address. All the characters are ideological puppets. Visionary, comely capitalists are assaulted by sniveling government planners, smirking lobbyists, nagging wives, rented scientists and cynical humanitarians. When characters begin disappearing on strike against the 2 Movie stays faithful to philosophy NEW YORK How is it a novel so many readers describe as "life-changing" took 54 years and a gaggle of producers, writers and directors to bring to the screen? One answer is clear contempt for the poor (since they're clearly lazy and incompetent leeches) as well as those who seek to help them, since Ayn Rand felt that altruism was evil." Jonathan Kim, Huffington Post What America is "It's a novel that couldn't have existed and couldn't have been written anywhere else in the world.

For me, it's deepened my understanding of what America is. The potential for this country is infinite." Grant Bowler, Australian actor who plays protagonist Hank Rearden in "Atlas Shrugged" Not a crazy, old bat "It's easy to make fun of Rand for being a simplistic philosopher, bombastic writer and I'm just saying crazy old bat. But the 20th century was no joke. A hundred years, from Bolsheviks to al-Qaida, were spent proving Ayn Rand right." P.J. O'Rourke, Wall Street Journal A contempt for poor "The film unabashedly worships wealthy CEOs, claiming that they're the smartest, most hard-working and deserving people among us who apparently run their businesses sin-glehandedly.

The film has a Ayn Rand herself, author of "Atlas Shrugged," which was published in 1957. Earlier at- "Atlas" is unlikely to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year. I say this as both an admirer of Rand's ideas and a devotee of the book. The movie is faithful to Rand's philosophy, which is known as objectivism: the idea that reality is objective. Or, as encapsulated by the novel's hero, John Gait, in a 60-page monologue near the end of the book, "A is No wonder the faithful are heaping lavish praise on the movie.

For them, adherence to Rand's ideas is enough. A is A. "Atlas Shrugged" is "Atlas Shrugged." Caroline Baum is a Bloomberg News columnist. acters are caricatures that reflect her ideas and ideals. Businessmen are good, government bureaucrats are bad.

There is no middle ground. A third reason, one implied by those involved, is the nature of the material. "She's a very controversial author," said John Aglialoro, one of the film's producers, who acquired the rights to "Atlas" in August 1992 from Rand's estate. "She threw selfishness as a virtue in the face of society." That virtue is better described as rational self-interest. For Rand, capitalism was the only moral system, with each individual acting in his own self-interest.

Productive achievement was the noblest activity and happiness, the ultimate goal. tempts to make a iak 14 movie based on the book were foiled by Rand's insistence on creative control. CAROLINE BAUM Bloomberg The second reason is the nature of the book. It's about ideas. Rand's char- VALLEY STATE in MOTOROLA 52ND STREET SUPERFUND SITE Sampling will update soil-gas data from 1995 to determine if indoor air sampling is necessary and if there is a health risk from exposure to low levels of the chemicals over a long period of time.

Specialists plan to take soil-gas samples at 26 locations within the Motorola 52nd Street Superfund site. TUCSON 1 I 1 Soil-sample location rJ'i 1 McDowell Road I I I ism van i OU1 Brill Street it r- 2MV M'M-Zzzi id Workers drill a well to take a soil-gas sample just outside the Motorola 52nd Street Super-fund site in Phoenix. DAVID WALLACE THE REPUBLIC V-S facility iJ LJ- Roosevelt Street I 1 JM Soil gas Continued from B1 Man killed as truck flips near Davis-Monthan base Tucson police say a 45-year-old man died when his pickup flipped just north of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. The crash Saturday killed Joseph J. Mazon.

Police say he was westbound on Golf Links Road when he lost control, crossed the median and the truck flipped. YUMA Middle-school teacher being held in sex abuse Police say they have arrested a middle-school teacher on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old boy. Jessica Coz, 30, a teacher at Castle Dome Middle School, was booked last week into Yuma County jail on suspicion of continuous sexual abuse, sexual conduct with a minor and child molestation. WILLIAMS Restoration project being planned for Kaibab forest Kaibab National Forest officials have proposed a restoration project on over 15,000 acres in north-central Arizona. A ranger official says the goal is to improve the health and sus-tainability of forest land near Bill Williams Mountain, about four miles southwest of here.

Wire reports roethene at its facility at 52nd Street. TCE is a man-made industrial solvent suspected of causing cancer. In 1989 the area was designated a federal Superfund site, which is any contaminated land that poses a risk to public health or the environment. Contaminants in the groundwater flowed west. The 7-mile-long site extends from 52nd Street to Seventh Avenue and from McDowell to Buckeye roads.

Rosati said the Phoenix plume isn't causing health problems because the contamination is more than 80 feet below the surface, and there are no drinking-water wells in the area. But environmental officials say it's still important to get it cleaned up. Rosati said in addition to the soil-gas sampling for TCE and perchloroeth-ylene, crews are sampling for other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in soil and groundwater. Last Monday, a trained technician and a geologist began drilling the 15-foot-deep wells. The technician uses a rotary saw to cut a small square out of the asphalt.

A small probe mounted onto a truck is pushed down through the soil. Clear sampling tubing and a sampling tip are lowered into the well at two different depths. KATHLEEN RUDELLTHE REPUBLIC completed in late May. The EPA anticipates validated soil-gas data in July. Since 1992, Motorola, now Freescale, has operated a groundwater-ex-traction and -treatment system at the 52nd Street facility.

Freescale is responsible for the remediation of the Superfund site while ON Semiconductor owns most of the former Motorola 52nd Street property and buildings. For more information, go to www.epa.govre-gion09Motorola 52ndSt. Source: Freescale Semiconductor The drilling crew caps the well then moves to the next site. A few hours later, the technician returns, the well vault is opened and the technician collects a soil-vapor sample through the tubing and into a glass syringe. The sample is taken to a mobile lab near 52nd and Roosevelt streets where technicians measure the results.

Once the first round of sampling is completed, crews will conduct a second round. Sampling should be borhood can accurately predict the risk to residents and students at a nearby elementary school. "I think this will give a better picture of the soil-gas-vapor concentrations, but it's not clear that the sampling will be representative of the potential for vapor intrusion," Moore said. Residents have known about the contaminated groundwater and soil for decades. In 1982, Motorola Inc.

reported a leak from a underground tank containing trichlo-.