A SNAPSHOT OF AUTUMN'S HUM In the course of ten days: The State Fair where I was swindled into popping balloons with darts in exchange for a plush toy, and convinced by a companion that the giant-sized bag of cotton candy is a smart buy. A backyard fish fry to celebrate a friend's segue into school, complete with hush puppies and children battering a pinata. Lentil soup and red wine. Looking for the moon in the night sky with a two-year-old who calls it "Luna." A midnight drive from Charlotesville. Art openings and drinks. Dismemberment Plan. The Ballet. The crackle of leaves. A low bank of morning fog. The amazing ability to post to this site no matter where I am in the world. I'm out of here for a while, folks. At least for day, perhaps a few more.

THE LETTER OF THE LAW If you've got a yen for legal documents and diplomacy (really, some people do!), get thee to this Yale Law School site. It's got slews, reams, lots of diplomatic and international agreements on file in text format. I was pointed in this direction by Boing Boing, which noted how surprisingly brief both the Balfour Declaration and the Oslo Peace Accord were. Maybe that's why they failed. We need more longer, denser agreements. (Seriously, just pick a document or two. Peruse. There's some pretty amazing stuff here.)

WHAT WILL THE REVOLUTION CHANGE? "The Catalog of Tomorrow" has been published and is apparently a doozy. Looking 20 years into the future, it traces possible developments in a variety of areas. It's perhaps the only book you'll need as you start planning for your retirement! "Nearly one hundred topics are showcased, in a clearly written and visually arresting style that provides an overview of current and future developments, with timelines, statistics, and pointers to online resources. Deeply researched and beautifully designed, TechTV's Catalog of Tomorrow is more than a book: its a tool for thinking about the future."

KATE LAMENTS LOSS Just after she goes on a bit too much about the "new" Nirvana single, Kate throws her hands up in despair at the death of her newsprint home, the L.A. New Times, which apparently got the axe in a corporate bit of wrangling. But she's getting a new puppy, so I wonder what she's really fussing about.

SOMEONE DETAIN THIS MAN Attorney General John Ashcroft is dismayed, disappointed, appalled that people would question any of the heavy-handed tactics of the Justice Department. According to the Washington Post, at a recent conference of U.S. attorneys, "he expressed dismay that secret detentions and 'military detentions of unlawful enemy combatants' -- which is to say locking up American citizens without trial or access to lawyers -- might be controversial." The sooner Ashcroft leaves his offices in the building named for Robert Kennedy, the happier I'll be.

IRANIAN AND ECUADORIAN SNAPSHOTS Two brief looks at two compelling women in today's Diplomatic Dispatches. The first is a portrait of Iranian Soudabeh Ardavan, who was imprisoned at age 23 for appearing at a protest and used art as an escape from what sounds to have been a dismally large chunk of her adult life. The second captures the essence of Ecuador's only female presidential candidate -- Ivonne Abdel Baki, the Iron Butterfly: "At one of her rallies, a man stood up from the back of the crowd to challenge her. He reminded her that Jamil Mahuad, with whom she had once been politically allied, was chased out of the presidential palace. 'You are a woman and you are not afraid?' he asked. 'I wear trousers and they are tightly fitted,' she snapped back."

I NEED TO GET THIS OFF MY CHEST Andrew Sullivan has become polemic. He rants, he raves, he focuses almost exclusively on raking people over the coals (and primarily Democrats). And it makes me misty eyed, because he used to be a pretty damned thoughtful, sometimes even insightful, writer who focused on formulating his own sense of the world. Or, at least that was the impression I had. It's not that his web log pisses me off -- it actually doesn't. It just makes me roll my eyes and click the mouse onward.

SARAH POSTS SOME CARDS I was distressed when Sarah Hepola finished her 'round the country jaunt, but this lively number on The Morning News (the best, I think, of their "Best of...") made me happy that she took five months to roam the land. The main reason, you see, is that she learned how to write good postcards.

THE BEST OF THE MORNING NEWS While Andrew kisses the bride, The Morning News is taking a breather. To tide the world over, the writers have selected their favorite selections from the archives. They made good selections, as I noted just above.

ONE RING TO MAKE US GEEKS Forgive me for my occassional lapse into unabashed awe. The trailer for the second Lord of the Rings film, "The Two Towers," is simply amazing.

TOP 10 REASONS TO INVADE Number 10: Sudan has requested Iraq’s spot on the "Axis of Evil."

THIS YEAR'S (RUSHDIE) MODEL French writer Michel Houellebecq is on his way to court, defending himself against several Islamic organizations in France who are accusing him of inciting racial and religious hositility. What did Houellebecq do? Well, he called Islam "the dumbest religion," among other things. The original Salman Rushdie is one of a very small number of writers to stand up and defend Houellebecq, which he does in this commentary.

OOPS, WE DID IT AGAIN I imagine in a few years, or months, there will be a six aisle section of books in every Barnes and Noble, sitting between sports and travel, called terrorism. The latest addition to the growing list of mostly half-assed books on the subject is "The Age of Sacred Terror" by two former directors of counterterrorism of President Clinton's National Security Council. The authors paint a picture of an administration eager to combat al Qaeda after the embassy attacks in Africa, but hampered by political infighting -- especially from the FBI, and the animosity of its director, Louis Freeh.

RENT-A-BOOK Virginia-based Booksfree.com is almost an electronic bookmobile, offering it's members the ability to rent books over the Internet. The books are shipped out to the members, who return them after they're read. A novel idea, but an even better one is the physical bookmobile that navigates primarily lower-income neighborhoods. The bookmobile has no books. Instead, it has a printer and access to thousands of royalty-free works, which are printed for free and given to bookmobile visitors.

ARCHIVALLY YOURS The Buttermilk & Molasses archives are back up. Thanks for letting me know they were glitchy.

WHAT'S THE MORAL ISSUE IN IRAQ "All Things Considered senior host Robert Siegel interviews three people with a unique perspective on the debate -- a military general, a political philosopher and a theologian -- 'all concerned about the intersection of morality, war and law,' Siegel says."

GAINING PERSPECTIVE National Public Radio is turning its ears toward history this week with five 10-minute segments that trace the origins of some of the key current conflicts in the Middle East. The series starts with Theodore Hertzl and the Zionist Movement and winds its way through the British Mandate, several wars and the demise of the Oslo peace accords. The first two have been very good -- audio versions and transcripts are available at this link.

DEAD-ON, OR JUST CLOSE, THE AIDS CRISIS LOOMS LARGE The National Intelligence Council, which advises a host of government agencies, including the White House and CIA, just released a new report that says the spread of AIDS in India, China and Russia could reach 50 million people within the next 8 years. Nigeria and Ethiopia could see upwards of 30 percent of their adult populations stricken by the disease. Critics contend that the numbers are high. Many people would be happy to see the critics right. But 30 million or 50 million, AIDS continues to ravage huge swaths of the world.

TOO FOCUSED ON THE LAST LINE? Michael Krepon had one sentence is this commentary that leapt off the page as the clearest summation of where this administration is most wrong in its views of America and global threats. Krepon, president emeritus of the Henry L. Stimson Center, says, "But at present, the Bush administration is strengthening the last lines of defense while weakening the front lines." By this Krepon means that the Bush team's almost compulsive focus on military strength and gunboat diplomacy almost ensures that global solutions to global problems will come at the end of a stick. It's a shame that the nation that drove the creation of the most significant global institutions in history has taken a chisel to their foundations.

GIDDYUP GONZO GIRLS Just a plug for my pal Mary who spent the weekend cleaning Crisco from under her fingernails.

GET OUT OF YOUR SPACESHIP AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN File this under strange, but true. As Peter Maass notes, apparently the Taliban were convinced that the American troops had a death ray that could be used against them, which led to some sqift surrenders last fall. (The title here, by the way, is from a growly little number by the now-defunct Grifters.)

IN THE MARKET FOR A GOOD WAR? Lisa English takes a harsh view of the administrations efforts to package the idea of war with Iraq. Given the shifting and constant rejustification being fired out of Pennsylvania Avenue these past months, I can't say I'm inclined to disagree that someone behind the scenes is looking for a billable sale of goods that the American public might cling to. Which isn't to say the issue is cut-and-dry. It just certainly doesn't need to be so foggy and disingenuous as it's felt recently. Attacking Iraq isn't about patriotism, thank you.

FAIRLY WELL The sojourn to the State Fair of Virginia was a good day in a terrifying environment. While the mullet factor was low, the plethora of Confederate flags and fried foods (fried pickles, fried Snickers bars, fried Oreos) were enough to unsettle the strongest stomach. But we persevered, had fun and won a stuffed animal. Carol Morello casts a colorful eye on the state of the fair (including the FFV -- "no, not the first families of Virginia but fattening, fried victuals") in the accompanying link.

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID The Post's lead editorial today raises an old concern. This year, for the first time in 8 years, the number of people in poverty increased -- even as household income dropped and the number of uninsured children soared. Two years into the Bush administration should mean that it's time to stop passing the buck backwards in time, and start focusing on opportunities to step up and be responsible for the economic state of the nation.