merely we link along

Smothered in Optimism as usual (I'll be adding to this post as the day wears itself). Peter Bergen thoroughly reviews The Power of Nightmares. I'm thrilled to see The Nation finally picking this up on its radar, and his analysis seems pretty much spot-on.

Still, despite my many disagreements with The Power of Nightmares, which sometimes has the feel of a Noam Chomsky lecture channeled by Monty Python, it is a richly rewarding film because it treats its audience as adults capable of following complex arguments. This is a vision of the audience that has been almost entirely abandoned in the executive suites of American television networks. It would be refreshing if one of those executives took a chance on The Power of Nightmares. After all, its American counterpart, Fahrenheit 9/11, earned more money than any documentary in history. And what Curtis has to say is a helluva lot more interesting than what Michael Moore had to say.

So there's one for the sidebar, anyway.

Also from The Nation Naomi Klein argues for a resource-oriented nationalism, the cooler son Christian Parenti reports from Bolivia (see also Blog From Bolivia for astute commentary), and Gore Vidal a bit belatedly finds an avenue to stroll his aptest phrase.

Moving on to more important matters, Mr. Iyer has a poetic review at the Brit-centric, semi-Blanchodian ReadySteadyBook, one whose central trope struck me as a rather deft turn on the Enlightenment-light language contaminating even Bary Lopez.

The standards-bearing US literary weblog The Elegant Variation carries a guest review of Chicano Sketches by Daniel Olivas.

Golden Rule Jones visits "the lot" of English bookshops in Paris and The Literary Saloon continues to review everything under the stars.