DON'T MIND ME I'm not here. It's Friday, it's going to be sunny and 100 degrees, and I'm away for the day spending time with my peeps. We're at the edge of summer, folks -- hold on for dear life. You'll miss this sunshine state of glazed defeat come January.

MY EVIL DEED OF THE MONTH The Bonsai Kitten site takes the bonsai concept to an entirely new level. I cringed, even as I laughed.

SHADES OF RED SOVINE Imagine how startled I was to discover a weblog run by a 28-year-old long-haul trucker named Susie. And imagine how delighted I was to discover that it's interesting and well-written. She's driven a front-load garbage truck from Minneapolis to... well, find out for yourself.

ECUADORIAN ENVIRONMENTS Radio Netherlands continues to dive into intriguing realms without overwhelming readers with encyclopedic details. This piece looks at how several non-governmental organizations are helping rural villages develop local solutions to globalization pressures while slowing encroachment on the Amazonian rainforests. (Note to all you text skimmers: Radio Netherlands always has good links at the end of their articles.)

STATE OF THE UNION The State Department provides us with this hearty roundup of world opinion on the newly created African Union. It provides a well-balanced look at some of the key attributes of this new organization, and lays out some pretty clear views about the challenges facing the continent. And more importantly, it does much of it from the perspective of the African media.

ON RUSHDIE Until last week, I had never read a word by Salman Rushdie, a curious confession from a compulsive reader with strong affections for South-Central Asia. His latest novel, "Fury," is out in paperback, and turns out to be significantly more grounded than I had anticipated. It is several tales told at once, though not clumsily -- of an Indian professor and puppetmaker who flees his family in England for New York City; of his origins and the origins of his craft; of modern culture and America's place in the world. Despite its title and the heavy lacing of modern pop references, "Fury" is an old tale; it feels like an old story, or like old storytelling, which may simply just be the result of Rushdie's poetic hand. I'd been looking for a good book all summer, and I found one just in time. The link here is to a Star Tribune interview with Rushdie last August. Not surprisingly, "Fury" reads quite differently after September 11 -- ironically, Rushdie was scheduled to give a reading at the Fitzgerald Theater that night.

AUTUMN IS ALMOST HERE [POEM] Stanley Kunitz is as close to being 100 years old as I ever want to get, and was most recently the Poet Laureate, and continues to write. Last summer, he gave a three-hour reading. Standing. Outstanding. He is quite an amazing poet. For your pre-fall reading pleasure, here is a link to "Hornworm: Autumn Lamentation," as featured on the Favorite Poem Project website.

SATED BY SEDARIS Why waste money on Esquire when you can read the rare, good stuff online? Like this nice number by the caustic humorist David Sedaris about the marriage of his brother.

LIMPING TOWARD MONTICELLO IN THE MIDEAST A plan unveiled by the Bush Administration focused on the promotion of democracy and human rights in the Middle East sounds good on paper. And I'll be one of the first to give a little leap of joy if it looks good in practice.

THE HAVES AND THE OTHER 90 PERCENT When the Lusaka Post editorial staff looks at the state of the world, they see a much bleaker future than most of you reading this. And with good reason. The divisions between people, regions, cultures and economies continue to grow, and with that growth comes an increase in tension and disparity. Listen to this voice from Lusaka. It's not an angry voice, and it's not a voice without hope. It's just rather honest.

JAPAN TO EARTH, COME IN EARTH The Daily Yomiuri has it right when it looks at the upcoming Earth Summit in Johannesburg: "The issues are not right, there is no political will, and the world is not ready for yet another summit on sustainable development right now. So let it fail, and let it fail miserably."

LE BLEU BLOG Becky still makes a random appearance at mybluehouse, and I still feel some obligation to point her out. This time primarily because of the toilet seat cover, which I am confident is ONLY available in France.

ASHCROFT'S STILL A PUNK It's reassuring that staunch believers of the separation of powers -- John Ashcroft, for instance -- like to line the crevasse with barbed wire. Just for good measure. The good news is that the longer he's Attorney General the less likely it is that he'll ever run for President. That, and now Republicans are starting to hate him.

WEIRDLY VIRGINIA There are several weird things about Linda Korbert's "Seven Weird Wonders of Virginia," including the fact that without exception they all seem to have been culled from a 1932 travel guide of the Old Dominion. Close runner-up is that I've experienced five of them, and not but a few weeks ago was regaled with a story of a sixth. Believe me, there are weirder reasons to visit Virginia.

LET'S BEGIN AGAIN Futurescan is described as follows: The Future of the Future -- A collaborative effort of the Futures Studies Department at the University of Houston at Clear Lake. Now this is an excellent way to use a weblog. Good stuff.

GARREAU'S HEAT INDEX Joel Garreau, a lost treasure of my early years of Washington Post lust, always makes my toes tingle when I read his articles. Especially if I'm wearing a pair of too-tight, steel-toed boots at the same time. Today, Joel tackles the basic question of summer: How should it be measured? And by it, I mean the proper one word summary of the feeling I had Saturday walking past two weddings just north of the U.S. Capitol in the blazing sun with the Reparations Protest on the Mall as a backdrop and the two Australian shepards barking with distinctly American accents as the soundtrack. That moment situated between thinking I might just want to lie down and die, and buying a bottle of water at Union Station.

APPLE PHONE HOME The NYTimes has a pulse-racing piece this morning (well, pulse-racing for the handful of Apple fanatics out there) about Apple's possible plans to introduce iPhone in the near future. iPhone would feature 20Gb of MP3 storage capacity, a cell phone and a handheld organizer all tied via Bluetooth to your Apple laptop or desktop. Yum.

BOO! Yah. So, "Coraline" is my pick of the year when it comes to finding a good book for the neices and nephews. It's just this side of creepy and should leave them gnawing nervously on their nails. So, points to Bloomsbury Magazine for tossing Coraline e-cards onto their site.

AMERICAN JUSTICE Human Rights Watch has released a 95-page report on the sharp climb in civil rights violations in the United States since September 11. Limiting judicial oversight and clamping down on open public scrutiny has only made things worse, HRW says.

CAMILLE Camille Paglia makes an appearance at Andrew Sullivan's site this week, and pens a long, but generally well-reasoned, reply to a reader's question about where she stands on the Israel-Palestine issue. She frames her reply broadly before answering the specific question, and along the way she hits on some of the core issues that will face many of us for years to come.