Here's a blog I wrote on Ayn Rand and her influential novel, Atlas Shrugged:

Ayn Rand’s novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ was recently put into movie form and her works—plays, books, and essays-- have experienced a surge in purchases. You may think that the fad is just no big deal and will die out as soon as the movie is forgotten, however Rand’s works have been on shelves for decades since their publication. Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957 and since, has sold more than six and a half million copies. The rate of sale in recent years hung around 139,000 copies a year but tripled last year. There have been three autobiographies published about Rand in the last two years. While Rand was a great writer, it was her philosophical beliefs and literary messages that have caught on more than ever recently.

Read the whole piece here.

The owner of Luke's Lounge, a small bar and long-time music venue in downtown Dixon, was informed late last year that he could not have live music in his bar unless he payed exorbitant licensing fees to the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers). Here is part of a local article on the matter:

The bar no longer hosts live performances because of the cost of license fees that The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) demands for live performances.  It’s a fee that Luke’s Lounge owner Nate Luke said he is no longer willing to pay.

ASCAP is an organization that represents 400,000 or more U.S. composers, songwriters, lyricists, and music publishers of every kind of music, according to its web site.

ASCAP said it protects its members through licensing and collecting royalties for public performances of their work. Known among musicians as “the collection society,” ASCAP also said it makes giving and obtaining permission to perform music “simple for both creators and users of music.”

Risk of IP lawsuits are a major concern for unlicensed music venues. I believe that IP and copyright laws need to be changed to make it less risky for smaller music venues so that the form of legal extortion can be stopped. This is literally a "pay to play" situation.  Read the whole story here.

I was recently added to the Vacaville Reporter Reader Network, wich is the go-to group for response pieces. The first question I was asked as part of the network had to do with government spending, so here's part of the piece that was run on Thursday.

The following questions were put to The Reporter's Facebook fans and some Reader Network members: Cities, school districts, the state and the county are all looking for ways to save money. Where do you see waste in the public sector? What are you willing to give up? Here are their edited responses:

Devon Minnema, Dixon: I think there is a fundamental problem with the question "Where do you see waste in the public sector?" This is problematic because the public sector can only be wasteful. Government is a monopoly and therefore can stick the citizens with the bill and never have to worry about bankruptcy -- until now. Economics has proven that there are only a few things the government can do correctly; however, even these few things have been messed up because of the insistence that government can provide for man's every need and want. Government should focus on defending individual rights (including the right to fail), prosecuting and punishing individuals who violate others' rights, and creating a small yet effective national and state defense. You may have noticed that I didn't say government should fight poverty, subsidize American agriculture, regulate Wall Street, or even tell people not to smoke. These are all things that we can live without the government doing.

Thank you to Karen Nolan. Read the whole piece here.

My mother and I were in a discussion the other day on why government workers don’t see any fault in the way they accept subsidies or pay raises without taxpayers’ consent. This is because it is their kickback. Many people fail to realize that almost every person in America is receiving some kind of kickback from a government policy or program, whether that policy be costly or cost-saving for taxpayers.  Each issue in public policy is of course going to have at least a few supporters, but what happens when its supporters are exclusively benefitting economically from the existence of the policy?

Let’s take a look at some of the more obvious examples.

 The average federal workers’ compensation in the last 10 years has skyrocketed to well over $100,000. Understandably, federal workers would be in favor of these salary rates and ardently against cutting federal salaries. This is an obvious example because federal workers working to lower the average federal worker’s salary would be working to cut their own salary.