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I like it! And the fact is, LotR is probably more popular at the starry-eyed space dreamers than it is with the weird eco-freak Greenies. Some people just can't forget the hippies used to like Tolkien - but they certainly didn't get his message!

Wasn't that a funny letter in which JRRT talked about winning some sci fi and fantasy award? He'd been given a trophy in the shape of a space rocket and wasn't sure what to do with it.

I think he was kind of ticked with the hippies and leftists that kept misinterpreting him.

I sort of think the fact that Nader is associated with the greens proves that their agenda lies somewhere other than conservation of wilderness or whatever.

And the fact is, LotR is probably more popular at the starry-eyed space dreamers than it is with the weird eco-freak Greenies. Some people just can't forget the hippies used to like Tolkien - but they certainly didn't get his message!

And the most appreciative group to "get it" are military people who are introduced to Tolkien. If you can get them to read past the first five or six chapters, they realize that Tolkien had "seen the elephant" (to use a Civil War phrase) himself, and knew how to express what they had gone through, too.

I don't know which group is more rewarding to "hook" on to Tolkien: the young and impressionable, or the old and experienced. Getting someone else to read LotR usually brings sincere thanks from a new fan.