I noticed that the wonderful Brin article was taken from a longer piece that he published on his web site. I ran a diff and found out that this longer version contains two or three sections that deal with the development of Western culture without any talk of Tolkien, which could by why Salon excluded them. The font and style make the longer version harder to read, but the inclusions make the article better, so I’ll point to that one as well. (Don’t bother reading both, they’re mostly the same!)