JUST SOMETIMES I'd like to hire Mimi Smartypants to sit in my house and chatter away while I'm fixing my dinner, but I suspect that at some point I would find her absolutely annoying and throw a bell pepper at her head. And she would find something unbearably clever to say about that, too. Her weblog's a nice alternative to a produce-inspired chattter storm, though.

p://talkingpointsmemo.com/jan0301.html#010203346am">APPEASEMENT OR FOLLY IN KOREA? Probably a little of both, says Josh Marshall. There are two arguments brewing about Korea at the moment, both of which (naturally, and unfortunately) have to do more with past decisions than current realities. Argument One: The Clinton administration appeased North Korea in 1994 and we got hoodwinked, so the Bush team is riding to the rescue to clean up Clinton's mess. Argument Two: The Bush administration is standing strong on the North Korean issue (sort of a continuation of argument one, sans finger pointing). The reality, as Marshall sees it, is that we're actually not standing firm. He uses the old 1938 Germany invasion of Poland scenario to make a point -- the point being that France and Britain didn't want to go to war against Germany, but they had to draw a line somewhere which meant they had to have a plan with teeth and consequences. That plan resulted in France's occupation, Britain being bombed to hell, and eventually the ugly defeat of Nazi Germany. The Bush team's desire to wear the mantle of Churchill falls short. They have no plan with teeth (Sure, economically isolate the most economically isolated country in the world. Hey, it worked with Iraq, didn't it?) and the North Koreans hold most of the cards. Look, no one wants to go to war in Korea (well, most people don't) and if a war breaks out, the South Koreans and the 38,000 U.S. troops on the peninsula are screwed. But the administration needs to either roll up its sleeves and get ready to fight; begin an honest process of negotiation and pray they do better than the Clinton team; or accept the fact that nuclear proliferation is the new, nasty reality (Brazil, South Africa, Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea and possibly Iran and Iraq are in the club now) and that a brand new framework is needed to deal with the issue. Because nibbling around the edges like we are is only going to piss off the wrong people.

THE WAY TO DEBATE Sarah Brown at queserasera pointed readers to her ongoing debate on theplug.net about the state of Bismarck, and what a debate it is. There really is nothing quite like having a debate without having facts, especially if you can be proud of yourself in the process and put a little whimsy into the whole affair.

THE NEW WORLD DISORDER I'll agree with the International Herald Tribune's William Pfaff on this one: al Qaeda has succeeded in disrupting the world order. One of the most significant consequences of the September 11 attacks has been the manner in which the Bush administration has responded -- no question about it. And, in general, the nature of that response has created more disorder and uncertainty than it has resolved -- on a global scale. Unfortunately, at the moment, there is little chance of that changing, as the Bush administration, the American public or international organizations all seem incapable of or uninterested in changing course. The Pope (odd to find myself agreeing with him) had it right in his New Year's message: a new global organization is needed capable of reestablishing some sense of stability. Or, as Cracker put it, "what the world needs now is another Frank Sinatra."

PRISONS, CELL PHONES AND VODKA That's what the Finns do best. The NYTimes takes a peek into the Finnish prison system [site registration required], and if you've ever been in an American jail you know right off that it's a whole different universe in Finland.

WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER, WE'RE MOVING TO MARYLAND The first baby of the New Year in the D.C. area is the biological daughter of a woman who (I know, this just sounds crazy, doesn't it?) has a female partner. They moved from Vienna, Virginia, to Bethesda, Maryland, just before the birth of their daughter because Virginia's 19th Century laws would not allow the non-biological mother (the biological mother's partner) to adopt the baby and share full parental responsibilities. The bottom line, according to the Post editorial team? -- " 'Family values,' in the term's strictest interpretation, is a fantasy. About half of American children don't grow up with their mother and father anyway. Lesbians will have children, as long as there is a live maternal instinct and a nearby fertility clinic. Gay men will adopt. All that the Virginia courts can achieve by standing firm is to drive them out of the state."

THE SOUND OF LITERARY GLASS BREAKING Neil Gaiman (one of the first to nudge his way into the crossover realm of "kiddylit") says that the newfound success of Henry Potter, Phillip Pullman and other authors of fantasy novels that appeal to adults and children alike have something to do with a strong cultural need for good stories. (Good marketing doesn't hurt either.) Of Michael Chabon's "Summerland," Gaiman has mostly good things to say. And if it stumbles periodically, well, it does so less than most. Gaiman writes that "...the engines that drive Summerland are real story engines, and they work hard to deliver: It's a fantasy with a young protagonist that fuses baseball, Native-American tales, Norse myths and shaggy god stories into a tasty, quest-driven stew. Whether this is enough, as the marketing material that accompanies the book trumpets, to make it "clearly and indisputably a classic" is much harder to judge, and one that time and popular taste will decide, not I. But it's a rollicking and fine tale, well told and with moments of real magic, peril, adventure, terror and triumph, not to mention what is, I am certain, the most delightful sound of a window breaking in all of fiction. And that ought to be enough."

A LESSON FROM KOREA I'm still sorting through the whole North Korea brinkmanship situation, but one thing that Fred Kaplan gets right is that the Bush administration is very adept at initiating a crisis and then allowing the opponent to seize (and hold) the initiative. (Actually, Kaplan simply says that President Kim is defining the terms of the current crisis.) Afghanistan, Pakistan-India, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, North Korea, al Qaeda -- in every situation, the administration has leaped, looked, then backed off, only to be pulled back into the crisis by events. Which is a bit off-topic. Kaplan's slate.com piece asks what exactly is so bad about acquiescing to North Korea...

LET THE CARPING BEGIN 16-year-old Senator John Edwards (D-NC) just announced that he wants to continue his oh-so-useful work of being "a champion for regular people" by becoming President. Someone please start beating me with a stick now, because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to stand 20 months of candidates hedging, whining and talking about how they're down with the common folk. Edwards is a punk. I'll go on the record with that right now.

THE WAR MISTAKE As the politicos focus on Iraq, the conversation about the nature of terrorism and the nature of the U.S. response to it have become so much background noise. Analyst William Arkin tries to peel through some of the static in the L.A. Times -- terrorism has defined our foreign policy for 16 months in a dangerous manner, he argues. Our leadership has become blind to the consequences of their decisions, because it is easier to simplify the crisis of terrorism than to sort through and address the complexities. Looking back over the past year, we have marshalled the troops, stood up massive new governmental structures, chipped away at civil liberties -- but what has changed for the better? Radicalism's voice in the Middle East (and elsewhere) is not diminished, the threat to national security remains, and we are spending tens of millions of dollars "killing ants," as some military officials refer to our al Qaeda manhunt. Perhaps it's time for people to honestly question our tactics, if not some major components of our strategy.

LIFE IN LATTAKIA A fascinating, first-person account of Gretchen McCullough's time in Syria in 1999 and 2000, cha cha.

JUST WRITE I don't make New Year's resolutions, but if I did one of them would be to drop by oneword every day and churn out 30 seconds of free association. This remains one of my favorite websites.

THE 2002 TALLY Almost 7,000 visits in 200 days of tracking, which doesn't include hits on the Caffeine, poetry or review pages. The number of unique visitors per month ranged from 119 in July to 757 in December. I'll be working on getting the rest of Caffeine Magazine's archives up (sure, sure) in the near future. Thanks for visiting and the mean-spirited emails. Have a splendid New Year.

ENDING THE YEAR WITH A NERVOUS LAUGH The Post's Dana Milbank obviously has been disenfranchised by the White House, because his White House Notebooks have been taking more and more amusing potshots at the Prez. Today, Milbank reminds readers that the Commander in Chief has taken exactly one question from the press in the past 26 days -- even as Trent Lott took a fall, and North Korea reawoke. And he's been clearing brush at his Texas ranch for what feels like weeks. Milbank concludes by noting that Bush has mentioned "shut-ins" (those elderly folk who can't get out) 76 times this year to remind people how to be compassionate and conservative (No, not by shutting more people in, but by [Bush's words] finding "somebody shut-in and [say] 'I think I'm going to spread a little love today.' "). And Milbank's kicker? He pens in conclusion, "Is it possible that Bush, so often homebound himself, has come to see himself as a shut-in? After all, the intense security makes it prohibitively difficult for presidents to leave home, whether he's here, at the White House or Camp David. Maybe he just wants somebody to visit him at home and tell him, 'I'd like to just love you for a second.'" We love Dana Milbank.

THE 2002 MOVIES BY E-MAIL DEBATE In which slate.com's David Edelstein invites critics Roger Ebert, Sarah Kerr and A.O. Scott to an email fist-fight as they rifle through the best films of the year. The bell rings daily this week, so check back for the latest retorts. (I'm pretty much with Edelstein on his list, especially his runners-up list.)

IS TARGET KILLING DESIGN? Brad McKee gives us this simple slide show with commentary to ask what in the hell Target Stores thinks it's doing with its "democratization of design" theory of stocking shelves. Inexpensive, tasteful design is a good thing -- but slip-shod design is inexcusable. And the notion that EVERYTHING needs to be hyper-designed is just silly.

PUTTING THE RISK INTO BLOGGING If for nothing else, I applaud this line: "How anybody could live in Alaska, and not expect to be invaded from Kamchatka and Irkutsk is beyond me. Haven't these people ever played RISK? You watch out, or they'll be fucking you in the Ukraine next." Oh yeah, there's a link to the story raging in Alaska these days about the giant eagle as big as a truck.

A BETTER YEAR IN MOVIES THAN MOST I enjoyed Juan-Carlos Selznick's take on the 2002 crop of films -- he has good taste, but also lives in a bit of a cultural desert (Chico) that has a stronger Hispanic sensibility than most American cities.

2002: A YEAR OF DEATH Sure, people die all of the time. Every year even. On the face of it, there was nothing special about 2002 -- at least not as far as dying was concerned. Paul Wellstone, Jam Master Jay, Stephen Jay Gould and Joe Strummer all died, but so did Marvel Comics' icon John Buscema and NYTimes film critic Howard Thompson. Baltimore's City Paper provides thoughtful obituaries on nine notable corpses.

FOREIGN POLICY A.D.D.? Former Secretary of State Warren Christopher asks whether the United States can focus on multiple foreign policy crisis' -- and how the administration can best balance the ones currently in the hopper. Christopher is right to note that this is a time like no other in our history: the United States is engaged in a labor-intensive, low-level conflict against terrorism, girding itself for a major war/occupation in the Middle East, slipping on rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, and facing a serious threat on the Korean peninsula. His question is valid, but the answer might be out of our hands -- the U.S. has committed itself to battlling terrorism and rebuilding Afghanistan. The only "choices" on the table have to do with whether we can change course vis-a-vis Iraq and North Korea, and both regimes might make those choices for us. (Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger gives some clarity on this exact point in the Washington Post today.)

AL JAZEERA IN ENGLISH After several years of revolutionizing Arab news (no joke), Al Jazeera has announced that it will be launching an English language website and cable news program in 2003. While the network's spin on the news might make some Americans uncomfortable, Al Jazeera's move will open a vital channel of information about a culture and region few in the West understand. And a peripheral benefit will be that more Western media outlets will begin utilizing Al Jazeera source material -- either running it attributed, or utilizing it as a base for their own stories.

THE KOREAN GAMBIT The problem with the Bush strategy of containment and isolation -- in regards to North Korea -- is that the country is about as contained and isolated as it gets. Worse, the approach reinforces whatever notions North Korea has that the United States is interested only in pushing the tiny, well-armed dictatorship to the brink of war. North Korea is not the USSR with enough to lose that deterrence sounds appealing, and it is not Cuba, which represents no physical threat to its neighbors. North Korea has little to lose in this confrontation (one problem with isolation) and represents a significant threat to South Korea, Japan and to American interests (and a more than minor threat to global stability). No one will flock to North Korea's side if war breaks out, but that's not going to stop a nuclear warhead from being aimed at Seoul or Tokyo.

THE YEAR IN LIBERTY The Washington Post editorial team ends 2002 with a clear call for someone -- anyone -- to focus on the balance between protecting our civil liberties and combatting terrorism. "The fight [against terrorism] stretched from the scope of surveillance authority, to the power to detain citizens and immigrants, to the government's ability to keep information secret. And yet the debate has taken on a frustrating character. The administration too often acts as though there is no useful discussion to be had -- as though it is merely seeking isolated technical changes and the anxiety many people feel reflects weakness in the face of evil. Civil libertarians, meanwhile, describe each proposed change as though the sky were falling. Lost has been a sense of the big picture: what the stakes really are as the government's counterterrorism powers grow." The editorial goes on to explain some of the forgotten nuances, and issues a call for Congress to pick up the issue in 2003.

LOTR SECRET DIARIES A second round of Lord of the Ring secret diaries from The Two Towers. Scroll down to December 22, 2002, for Aragorn's.

THE FBI DEFENSE Vernon Loeb allows former FBI counterterrorism chief Robert Blitzer an opportunity to respond to criticisms made in "The Age of Sacred Terror," and he does so -- rather candidly. The book traces events in the 1990s that led to the September 11 attacks, and while the authors (former NSC staffers) provide a comprehensive look, it's clear they missed some of the marks. Still, it provides a good roadmap, and also explains the history behind Islamic fundamentalism, as well as why the authors believe that religious fundamentalism in general will be a problem for years to come.

YULETIME LEERS Mimi Smartypants returns to regale readers with tales of woe from the streets of St. Nick Land.

DRAMA AND HOPE IN KENYA The election of Mwai Kibaki won't erase Kenya's woes -- a social, ethnic and economic mess -- but the first democratically elected president in decades has given Kenya hope for the future. Kibaki's challenges will be huge, but how exciting for a nation that has seen its fortunes erode for decades to have a chance at renewal.

TWO SIDES OF THE IMPERIAL COIN How did the Bush administration suddenly find itself leading a global charge against terrorism and nuclear weapons proliferation? Jackson Diehl says there are two answers -- on the one hand, that Bush's tough rhetoric in January of 2002 fueled Iraq and North Korea's disengagement from the world, or, on the other hand, it really was an unavoidable matter of timing. Regardless of how we landed in six simultaneous frying pans, it's clear that the American public is going to be dragged onto the global stage in the coming year; none of these problems will go away with wishful thinking or drum circles.