NYTimes -- Propaganda and 'Lord of the Rings'

Hey! I beat the New York Times, see Lord of the Rings and Iraqi-US politics below.

hen Viggo Mortensen appeared on "Charlie Rose" last week to flog "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," the second of the three films by Peter Jackson based on J. R. R. Tolkien's beloved trilogy, he ended up talking mostly about politics. Mr. Mortensen, whose brave warrior knight Aragorn spends much of "The Two Towers" rallying the troops and leading them into battle against the forces of darkness, was wearing a homemade T-shirt with the slogan, "No Blood for Oil." Although he opposes the Bush administration's prospective invasion of Iraq, Mr. Mortensen said he wore the shirt to protest something that hit even closer to home — the interpretation he keeps hearing of the new movie, which opens Wednesday, as both an allegory and an endorsement of the invasion.