IS THE LORD OF THE RINGS RACIST? Steven Chapman responds with admirable restraint to the maker of that claim:

Now we now why the modern human rights movement has produced no Paine or Jefferson: its proponents seem to prefer instead to adopt the snippy tone of the schoolma’am or head prefect to anything that might actually move us. . . .

I wonder how many of the critics of LotR (you’ll find links to their pieces via the link above) would fawn uncritically over the oral traditions of myth-making and storytelling among the ethnic tribal folk of the Congo and Amazon? Yet, strangely, when a white Englishman tells a story with a strong mythic component, they jerk awake from their guilt-induced slumber and launch into a highly predictable and highly tedious political critique with all the clanking, grinding and letting off of steam we’ve come to expect. Who’s the determinist now, Mr Yatt?

Indeed.