Jen, I agree that Tolkien and Rand wouldn't have liked each other much. But that doesn't mean that both didn't have something important to say.
"Taka" means hawk in Japanese. I was interested in anime for a while, but not right now.
Mm, perhaps. I take Rand more as a warning - that libertarianism and Objectivism aren't for me. It wasn't "Atlas Shrugged" that convinced me, but a philosophy professor who suggested I read "The Fountainhead" if I really wanted to understand Rand's philosophy...
I guess what I'm trying to say is, if I knew people like Rand's characters, I'd avoid them. But people like Tolkien's heroes keep the world from going completely to bits.