Commentary on how dictators think, the beauty of reading, this year, Chinese protests, and authenticity.

Blame Canada or whatever.

Telegraph -- From Fidel Castro to Hugo Chavez: with great power comes truly great paranoia
Plainly lunatic ideas can take on serious importance when no one contradicts you.

Related. (ed’s note – good riddance).

Independent -- Bonfire of the dictators
In the last part of our series, Robert Fisk ponders the fate of the despots who fought grimly against a revolutionary tide.

Read.

Guardian -- Humans have the need to read
It doesn't matter if books are delivered in print or by smartphone, the main thing is to get lost in reading them.

Doug Noland on 2011.

Prudent Bear -- 2011 in Review
Coming into the year, I held to the thesis that 2011 was a “Bubble Year.” 

Noisy China.

New York Review of Books -- Do China’s Village Protests Help the Regime?
Over the past two weeks, the western press has focused on a striking story out of China: a riveting series of protests in Wukan, a fishing village in the country’s prosperous south.

Is it his?

London Review of Books -- The Chill of Disillusion
In the middle room of the Leonardo show at the National Gallery you can swivel on one heel and see, almost simultaneously, the two versions of his Virgin of the Rocks.