"Who Reads in America?" by Mark Schurman at AlterNet is short but interesting; yet another take on the lamentable diminishment of reading among the American public.

Well the Dems have managed to delay a vote on Alito for another week. IndependentCourt.org is an excellent resource-center for the resistance to Alito's appointment.

"The Reviews Are In" is a collection of excerpts from and links to editorials from newspapers throughout the country, all of which oppose Sammy Alito's appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, at savethecourt.org.

The March of Progress Dept.:

More on controlling soldiers with scent:

"Soldiers Trained To Obey Odors With Scent Delivery Device" at the intriguing Technovelgy.com, which tracks science fictional ideas of yore becoming real today.

"Who's on First for the Next Generation" has probably been floating around for a bit, considering the number of hits recorded on the counter at the bottom of the page, but, well, it's new to me and it's good for a laugh.

". . . there's a basis for democratic change. Take what happened in Bolivia a couple of days ago. How did a leftist indigenous leader get elected? Was it showing up at the polls once every four years and saying, 'Vote for me!'? No. It's because there are mass popular organizations which are working all the time on everything from blocking privatization of water to resources to local issues and so on, and they're actually participatory organizations. Well, that's democracy. We're a long way from it. And that's one task of organizing."

"Chomsky: 'There Is No War On Terror" is an interview of Noam Chomsky conducted by Geov Parrish at AlterNet.

In the interview Chomsky talks briefly about Bolivia. Now there's the election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile. Roberto Espíndola in the linked-to article reports that Bachelet faced heavy right-wing opposition in the form of "an expensive, negative campaign focussing on her and seeking to persuade voters that a woman – and a divorced, agnostic, socialist single mother, into the bargain – couldn’t possibly become Chile’s president." Apparently enough people in Chile didn't believe that. (Holy shit--a female President of a country in macho South America? Yes.)

(What John Perkins said recently in an article at AlterNet may also be illuminating as to what's going on down south.)

Dept. of Impossible Dreams:

"Considered politically feeble and unimportant, why are writers then persecuted by totalitarian regimes as if they really mattered?" asks Carlos Fuentes, speaking of the Novel and of Don Quixote and of related matters in a speech given at the Internationales Literaturfestival in Berlin last year. It is a brilliant examination of literature, freedom, justice, humanity, truth.

"In praise of the novel" at openDemocracy.

Fuentes, waxing with nobly Quixotic dignity, goes on:

"We can become the slaves of hypnotic images that we have not chosen.

"We can become cheerful robots amusing ourselves to death.

"I believe that these are realities that should move us to affirm that language is the foundation of culture, the door of experience, the roof of the imagination, the basement of memory, the bedchamber of love and, above all, the window open to the air of doubt, uncertainty and questioning.

"I find, in all great novels, a human project, call it passion, love, liberty, justice, inviting us to actualize it to make it real, even if we know that it is doomed to fail."

Here's a summary of polling results and related stuff regarding the possible impeachment of George W. Bush, collected at afterdowningstreet.org.

Apparently a growing majority of Americans want Georgie to be forced to face the music. According to a Democrats.com e-mail newsletter:

"By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by After Downing Street and conducted by Zogby International."

Big Brother Is Watching You Dept.:

"To take another example, scientific warnings about the catastrophic consequences of unchecked global warming were censored by a political appointee in the White House who had no scientific training. And today one of the leading scientific experts on global warming in NASA has been ordered not to talk to members of the press and to keep a careful log of everyone he meets with so that the Executive Branch can monitor and control his discussions of global warming."

"In Martin Luther King Day address, Gore compares wiretapping of Americans to surveillance of King" at The Raw Story.

Gore sweeps across quite a bit of territory here; it's almost a State of the Union address, appropriate enough from one of either of the last two elected Presidents of the United States . . . . Would that it actually were.

"How would Sherlock Holmes fare in real life?" is a review by Marjorie Kehe of Julian Barnes' new novel Arthur & George at the Christian Science Monitor's website.

Why They "Hate" Us Dept.:

"Unrest in New York and Latin America, as well as in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East are harbingers of the difficulties that will haunt future generations -- unless we take heed. They serve notice that if we want a peaceful and prosperous future for our children, we must recognize basic human needs; we must insist that all people -- not just those at the top -- have the right to justice and dignity. Bolivian voters, NYC transit workers and democratically elected presidents of other countries are warning us that the bottom line of the corporate balance sheet is not the final statement upon which our society will ultimately be graded."

"Predictions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins at AlterNet.

Which is all to say that the winds of a "Left" revolution are gathering force. But what's interesting and important about what Perkins says in this article is really in how he puts it. He isn't being "positive," he isn't getting fired up and excited by it, and he isn't evangelizing; he's observing and what he sees isn't necessarily pretty . . . and he's right: we are in the eye of a storm whose winds are gathering into a hurricane.