MINNESOTA BAR FIGHT I like Garrison Keillor more and more. I linked last week to a copy of his salon.com (premium) piece that tore into Senator-elect Norm Coleman, and for which the Republicans tore into Keillor. Keillor responds at salon.com (again premium), and us poor bums without the cash for a subscription can get a taste of his retort at the link above. My favorite graf? "...the use of Iraq as an election ploy, openly, brazenly, from the president and Karl Rove all the way down to Norman Coleman, who came within an inch of accusing Wellstone of being an agent of al-Qaida. To do that one day and then, two days later, to feign grief and claim the dead Wellstone's mantle and carry on his "passion and commitment" is simply too much for a decent person to stomach. It goes beyond the ordinary roughhouse of politics. To accept it and grin and shake the son of a bitch's hand is to ignore what cannot be ignored if you want your grandchildren to grow up in a country like the one that nurtured and inspired you. I would rather go down to defeat with the Democrats I know than go oiling around with opportunists of Coleman's stripe, and you can take that to the bank." I want more Democrats (hell, Republicans, too) who can roll their sleeves up, call someone a son-of-a-bitch fair and square, and fight for their beliefs. Even if what they're fighting for involves something as non-confrontational as a nurturing country.

I LIKE THE NIGHTLIFE, I WANT TO BOOGIE Hurrah! Nightlife is poised for it's 27.75 year cyclical return to greatness. Jim Holt provides this amazing synopsis of a century-plus of nightlife high points as a way of illuminating his theory that when Studio 54 closed in 1978, an era ended, and in 2005 it will begin again. Good theory, good article and good golly, mark your calendar!

EXPOSED NERVES All signs point toward disaster. That's not my read, but that of just about every newspaper and news program in the world this week. Kate Taylor provides a hearty, depressing synopsis of the coverage and perspectives of what is shaping up to be a winter of someone's discontent as al Qaeda stops nibbling at the edges and looks for a real meal.

REMEMBERING AUSTRALIA I wrote a while ago about the lack of public sympathy and media coverage of the death and carnage and loss in Bali -- the result of a terror attack on nightclubs that claimed the lives primarily of Australians, New Zealanders and Indonesia. The scale of the loss for Australia, in particular, is on par with the September 11 attacks. Here's the lead for today's Reuters story on the aftermath -- "BALI, Indonesia (Reuters) - A lone surfboard, a can of beer, a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, framed pictures of murdered sons and daughters, stacks of fruit and incense. With these symbolic offerings, grieving foreign and Indonesian families struggling to cope with last month's massive bomb attack on Bali joined hands with thousands of Balinese Friday to honor those who died. Grief was etched on almost every face at the elaborate ceremony at the bomb site aimed at ridding the Indonesian island of evil, and to succor those in mourning." It continues to be important to remember that the United States is not the only country to have faced, or face in the future, loss from the recent upsurge in terrorism.

DOWN WITH POINDEXTER A thousand reasons why I dislike and distrust Admiral John Poindexter, and his plans for "total information awareness" are near the top. Poindexter, famous for his role in the Iran-Contra Affair that gave my state the infamous Senate candidacy of Oliver North and raised a lot of questions about integrity in the Reagan White House, is doing a little Defense Department work -- developing a database that capture every imaginable detail about individuals around the globe. Tom Tomorrow's site had some good details about it today (but the article link is not working), and William Safire recently chimed in: "Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database."

COUNTER-MILITARY AGGRESSION ON THIS Jason's weblog is well-designed, well-written and has a name that makes you nervous, "negroplease.com." Today, he rants on wild and large about exactly why he has a problem with conflict against Iraq.

MR. SHOW LETS IT BLOW David Cross, co-creator of the hep "Mr. Show" comedy sketch program, lets loose in this interview at Nerve.com that ranges from sketch comedy to his political angst to his sex life to how much he really hates the "conformist neo-hippie" protesters.

THE DEATH OF CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE RISE OF HIP-HOP HAVE BEEN EXAGGERATED In a new book, "The New HNIC (Head Nigga in Charge): The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign Hip-Hop," the University of Southern California's Todd Boyd gets it barely right -- maybe 10 percent right.. Boyd claims that civil rights as a movement is dead; what is dead is the ability of the movement's current leaders to energize the issue appropriately -- discrimination in many ugly forms exists as strongly today as in 1960, and Jesse Jackson ain't the man to lead the charge. Nor is Al Sharpton. And hip-hop doesn't reign, certainly not as a social force, and certainly not the way it did in 1984 or 1988 or 1991 under the angry, deft talents of Run DMC, Public Enemy, or a raft of lesser known mixers. Unfortunately, from the ivory palace, Boyd argues both issues from a very dated, very skewed perspective. A book about how hip-hop almost saved civil rights in the 1980s would be worth reading. A book about what the civil rights movement could do to reawaken would be worth reading. But Boyd's take is highly exaggerated, and miscued -- he fails to make music with either topical turntable.

THE DARK KNIGHT IS NO LARK In the late 1980s, Frank Miller rescued the comics industry with a graphic novel about Batman, titled "The Dark Knight Returns." It was, in the words of Flak reviewer Jason Sanford, a book that "created complex characters to whom readers responded. Bruce Wayne went from a silly playboy to a borderline psychotic obsessed with dying a good death. His nemesis, the Joker, became a demon bent on fulfilling a perverse love for the Batman by killing him." In this year's "The Dark Knight Strikes Back," Miller has been ripped apart by fans and critics alike for a change of tone. Sanford's take is more honest -- Miller's tone changed because the industry has changed, because the times have changed, and because the bleak, mythical setting for the story changed. Frank Miller deftly took a dark, cataclysmic tale of a world gone mad and one superhero's response and blended it with an appropriate amount of humor and parody. It works well, and it advances what was a very 90s tone into a very new decade.

WORRYING ABOUT CREDIT David Ignatius, editor of the International Herald-Tribune and a solid reader of economic and Middle Eastern trendlines, says the Bush administration might want to be putting some energy into sending the right signals on the economic front, starting with a new SEC appointment. "Ideally," Ignatius writes, "Bush will replace Pitt with someone of the stature of former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin or former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt. Both were constant worriers while in office; they saw the clouds behind the silver lining of the 1990s boom, even if they didn't always act on their foreboding." What is there to worry about? Bond defaults are up ten-fold since the 1980s, credit quality is plummeting, the issue is global and unregulated, and it involves hundreds of billions of dollars -- if you want a window that a severe global depression might jump through and shout "Boo!" you need look no farther.

ABOUT TIME TO ASK QUESTIONS Finally, Congress has moved forward on a bill authorizing an independent commission on the September 11 attacks. The 18-month probe will be conducted by a 10-member panel of citizens, evenly appointed between Democrats and Republicans. The scope of the investigation will be broad, and hopefully the outcomes will lead to clearer answers, and more productive solutions for the future.

IRAN'S DRY RUN Protests and pressure continue as the clerical government in Iran faces a choice: follow through with the execution of popular academic Hasehm Aghajari and let it feed a fire of dissent, or back off and demonstrate weakness in the face of public pressure. Coupled with popular, pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami's threat to resign over other decisions the government is prepared to make, and you've got either a dry run for reform or rebellion brewing in Tehran these days.

COMING OUT PARTY LACKS HELIUM You have to wonder about Al Gore, specifically you have to wonder about politicians who attempt to emerge from the shadow of a staggering defeat, even one painted as unjust by many. And what I really mean is that I find myself wondering, as Gore begins to muscle his way back into the public debate, whether he's a man who just can't find a new focus or if perhaps he truly believes he has the vision and personality to persevere in his quest for the White House. At this stage, the Democratic Party can't do much better than Gore, but I harken back to the "Seven Dwarves" who ran in 1988 or to the unknown governor from Arkansas who stunned the party in 1992. There's no second-guessing in politics. If you're going to run, run hard because nothing's going to work out the way you plan. It looks like Al Gore is going to run.

RICHMOND'S SMARTEST PUNKS Avail releases their sixth album, "Front Porch Stories," this weekend, which can only add to the hordes of rockers who swarm to their sold-out shows in Japan, Brazil, Europe and the States. The music has maintained its energy, but Avail seems to have more spirit mixed in with its angst these days. That's a good thing. "You gotta go full circle to gain perspective," says Tim Barry in this interview with Richmond.com's Kate Bredimus. "The words make more sense when you get home."

THE BOSNIA-IRAQ CONNECTION The Post editorial board and Alan Lynch are on the same wavelength. The professor and military advisor spoke in Richmond the other night on the origins of conflict in the Balkans, and on the challenges of democracy. As echoed by the Post here, Lynch said that the Balkans are not exactly a reflection of NATO's failings -- except perhaps a failure of foresight -- but points to the challenges of quickly standing up a representative democracy in a region or nation that is ethnically partitioned, has no institutions designed to advance a national political agenda (of a democratic nature), and is economically shattered. Lynch doesn't suggested these issues as reasons not to invade Iraq, but rather as a realistic look about the outcomes and challenges. After all, it's been six years and 12,000 foreign troops continue to administrate Bosnia in a rather Romanesque fashion.

THE BALD GUY SPEAKS The Monitor sat down with Democratic consultants James Carville and Stanley Greenberg. Among some other cogent statements, Carville noted that "there is a cultural problem with the Democratic party... we exude weakness. It is not just national defense and foreign policy, it is anything [where] we don't ... make a choice. ...America is not going to trust a political party to defend America that will not defend itself."

ON BEDFELLOWS DEBKAfile, an internet news service based in Jerusalem, has been offering up some detailed, curious explorations into world news of late. This latest provides an interesting look at anti-terror activities being undertaken by the Jordanian government, especially the pursuit of the murderers of USAID's Lawrence Foley.

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO TRANSCRIPTS NPR has a section that pulls together all of its coverage on issues related to the Middle East -- offering content both in audio and transcript format at no charge. Recent offerings include conflict between Iraqi opposition groups, and an interview with Mohamed El Baradei, chief of U.N. nuclear weapons inspections.

ECONOMIES BUILT ON SAND It's not like the Middle East was all that for investment before last September, but analysts say terrorism and the threat of war with Iraq have helped most economic gains in the region evaporate.

NO SOLUTION IN SIGHT Kofi Annan is right when he waxes pessimistic about the hope for any resolution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the near future. Sharon has, rightly or wrongly, led the Israeli public into a corner with little room for compromise without a significant shift, while Arafat has simultaneously forced some Israeli action and lost control (if he ever had it) of more radical Palestinian elements. And Arafat has never had a vision for peace to begin with -- the Oslo vision came from outside sources. New leadership, and the debates that should be launched leading into the January Israeli elections and February Palestinian elections, offer the only hope for change for the near-term.

REALITY BEHIND THE IDEALISM In a conversation with a military advisor this week about the situation in the Balkans (shaky peace maintained by NATO forces, virtually total homogenization of once mixed populations, increasingly strident elections -- very bleak, very real, not-too-promising stuff in some regards), I was reminded of a scorecard that was popular in the early 1990s. It was known as the Cold War Scorecard, and it ran nine innings. The "teams" it tracked were the political realists and political idealists who had been engaged in ongoing debates since the 1950s. Inning after inning, the realists kicked ass, 3-0 and 5-0 scores -- basically because the events throughout the Cold War were not of the cheerful, "best of human nature" sort. The ninth inning of the scorecard was telling. Realists:0 Idealists: 1. It's a good reminder for folks who spend a huge amount of time angsting over tracking polls, or outcomes, or trying to second-guess the future.

RECONSTRUCTING DERRIDA Sure, you've heard of him. But have you ever read Jacques Derrida, one of the Titans of postmodernism? Well, save yourself the headache you'd inevitably get muscling through one of his dense treatises, and explore this very readable, very educational interview with the 72-year-old French philosopher from the L.A. Weekly.

WHEN WE STOPPED LISTENING Seth Green arrived in the UK several weeks after the September 11 attacks, and says he has seen opinion about the United States shift from sympathy and support to anger and frustration. Which is what happens when conversations stop. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is in the best position to get a global dialogue on important issues restarted and they're not particularly focused on the need to engage world opinion.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE STARTS HERE For Sarah Hepola, getting involved started with a friend running for office. He won last week, becoming the first Green to hold elected office in Maine.

SHAMELESS PLUG Not only has the web log gotten a facelift, but I'm rolling my sleeves up in a few weeks to manhandle the rest of the Caffeine Magazine archives into the site. I was inspired, oddly enough, by myself. I read my intro piece to the failed relaunch of Caffeine (circa 1997) and thought, "Damn. I used to be able to write." So did the rest of the Caffeine staff, as I hope you'll discover in the weeks ahead.

JUDGE ME LIGHTLY Linking to the Weekly Standard is a bit like drinking a gallon of vinegar, but here goes nothing. Eve Tushnet presents a good overview of the web log phenom in the Middle East, most notably in Iran (yes, theme of the week). But will these new channels for discussion and dissent actually move the debates within the countries she mentions?

THE RESULTS OF FREE SPEECH IN IRAN alt.muslim sums the arrest and conviction -- "and if death wasn't enough, he also gets 8 years in jail, 74 lashes, and a 10-year ban on teaching" -- of reformer Hashem Aghajari rather well. And with just the right dash of panache.

CHANGING CHANNELS Howard Kurtz reminds us that even the best information managers can't control every headline: "White House officials don't want to hear from Osama; they're trying to rally the country against Saddam. In fact, it's remarkable how bin Laden, who was denounced daily by the president in the months after 9/11, had become an official non-person. The United States had to get him – 'dead or alive,' Bush said – but the administration eventually stopped talking about him. And bin Laden all but disappeared from the American radar screen, but for the occasional did-he-bite-the-dust piece... Now he's back."

TEHRAN A GO-GO For a fourth day, students took to the streets in increasing numbers to protest the scheduled execution of a popular academician, while moderate President Mohammad Khatami, elected in a landslide last year, finds himself facing of with conservative, clerical (and currently dominant) government forces. The times, they are a'changing (hopefully).

MIDDLE EAST EARTHQUAKES Dennis Ross has been a key diplomatic player in the Middle East for several decades. Here's his take on how a successful overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime could shake up the region, and specifically the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Ross says, "Saddam's removal would represent a seismic change in the Middle East. But like any earthquake the land resettles, and if the seismic change is to mean anything, action would be required quickly to try to promote longer term change in the region -- including on the peace process. In the immediate aftermath of Saddam's demise, there is likely to be increased calm for several reasons. First, Saddam will not be paying $25000 to the families of the suicide bombers. Second, Iran and Syria are likely to believe that this is not the time to provoke the United States, and will press Hamas and Islamic Jihad to stop the suicide bombers for the time-being. Iranian and Syrian pressure on the external Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- operating out of Damascus -- has driven continuing suicidal bombing attacks in Israel. But the calm is not likely to last for very long absent a credible political process. The question is how best to put one together. In all liklihood, it will take an effort by the Bush Administration, and if it takes a page from the first Bush Administration, it might try something like a Madrid conference. Then the purpose was to break the taboo on direct talks. Now, it would have to be to get Arabs to reach out to Israelis, and to support the reformers among the Palestinians by backing a prime minister. It would have to require the Palestinians to assume a responsibility for ensuring their territory would not be a safe haven for those who attack Israel -- not in words but in deeds. And it would require the Israelis to create an environment in which Palestinian reformers would have a chance to succeed and would see that a credible political pathway for achieving Palestinian aspirations is possible." In other words, it's not going to get any easier to make progress in the region, but progress might become more likely.

LOSING AN ARGUMENT? JUST FLAIL. Nicholas Kristoff has seen the sea change in stupidity and emotional reactionism, and it's sweeping the world of political liberals. "In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look sillier than the way they excoriated Bill and Hillary Clinton as traitors and even murderers," Kristoff writes in the NYTimes (registration required). "Yet these days, the intelligent left is dumbing down and showing signs of slipping into a similar cesspool of outraged incoherence. It's debasing and marginalizing itself by marshaling epithets rather than arguments. President Bush is criticized not just for catastrophically frittering away our budget surplus or for rushing us into a mess in Iraq. Rather, Citizens for Legitimate Government put it this way in its e-mail newsletter: 'We have an Idiot Usurping Lying Weasel for a President.' Close your eyes, and it sounds just like Rush Limbaugh." Running out of good, rational arguments? No problem. Just turn to paranoia and insult.

BOTTOM-UP REFORM Virginia Governor Mark Warner (D) alerted local elected officials that life is about to get a little bit uncomfortable in the Old Dominion -- the result of an additional $1 billion slated to be cut from the state's budget in January. The $25 billion annual budget has been slashed by almost $5 billion in 2002. Local officials, gathered for a conference, are laying the blame squarely at the feet of the Republican-dominated General Assembly. "They are so proud of being a low-tax state. Then we slobs in the trenches have to raise taxes," said Fairfax County Supervisor Gerald E. Connolly (D-Providence), the chairman of the group's finance committee. "We're tired of the accountability being put on our doorstep and the General Assembly getting away scott-free." The real debate, according to Gov. Warner, is pretty basic: What should citizens expect from their government. It's a debate that needs to happen at a national level, but will likely be heard in more and more statehouses as serious budget shortfalls force the issue onto the table.

WHY PR IS BAD FOR WAR Jack Shafer looks at the spin -- swallowed hook, line and sinker by much of the media -- on last week's announcements of arrests in drugs-for-weapons cases. Spun as arrests that foiled plots to send arms to al Qaeda, the arrests actually foiled plots to send arms to the FBI and DEA, since the drug and weapons smugglers weren't actually dealing with al Qaeda, but with federal agents. Good arrests? Sure. But why can't the media and the DEA, FBI and Justice Departments just play these stories straight?

PICTURING ANGOLA It's the seventh largest producer of oil in the world, and yet most of Angola's 12 million people exist in poverty. Guy Tillim's photographs of the provincial capital, Cuito, are rich, stark and compelling for the glimpse they provide into a nation consumed by conflict and hunger.

THE STORY WITHIN THE STORY The lead in this piece about former Secretary of the Navy James Webb's talk last week focuses on Webb's unabashed criticism of the Bush administration's intents vis-a-vis Iraq. But the real story is at locale of his talk -- the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey -- and the nature of the U.S. military's officer's corps. John Arquilla, professor of defense analysis, says of his mid-career students, "Most of my students are in special operations, they want to be challenged, they are off-design thinkers by nature... Overall, military officers have a great openness of mind. There's a great capacity for innovative thinking. They've seen a lot, they've done a lot, they come here at mid-career. Now, we're getting many who are rotating out of Afghanistan. This isn't like four-star generals who are just thinking how to protect their conventional force structures."

WHAT'S WRONG WITH POLITICS? Kate posted the text from this salon.com premium (pay) article by Garrison Keillor. Keillor presents a gently scathing look at Minnesota's newest Senator, Norm Coleman, that unabashedly displays Keillor's colors as much as it rips into Coleman's. As true as this might ring for Norm Coleman, I suspect it rings as true for a majority of our elected officials.

FILMING FRIDA I stand a pace or two apart from this salon.com review of "Frida," but found it to be as comprehensive and generous as any I've read to date. The film, which is a nice film, ultimately doesn't feel as honest and disruptive as I had expected, and as a result didn't rescue Frida Kahlo from her icon status so much as it refined it.

BROKEN ENGLISH FROM IRAQ One of the Hussein boys publishes his own newspaper, Babil. It's available online in reasonably good English translation here.

LOOK AWAY DOWN SOUTH Early in his exploration of when exactly the death knell sounded for Southern literature, Linton Weeks shares an anecdote. "Around the time Walker Percy accepted the National Book Award for his 1962 novel "The Moviegoer," he was asked what made the South different from the rest of the country. We lost, he said." Loss and recovery, and a fair amount of madness, informed Southern literature through most of the last century, but those times, arguably, are gone. Weeks doesn't dare guess what will fill the void.

THE TEHRAN WALL Protests calling for reform in Iran have swelled in recent days after the hard-line, clerical court sentenced popular academic Hashem Aghajari to death last week. Aghajari was sentenced after he questioned the right of the clergy to rule the Islamic country. It will be interesting to see if this becomes another minor Prague Spring in Iran, as protests are harshly quelled, or if this slides the push for change further down the board.