Here’s what it looks like:

Saturday

Louisiana primary:

Even after Katrina, which may have reduced the overall influence of black voters in this state, Barack Obama is in a strong position here.

In the 2004 primary, which was held a week after John Edwards bowed out and John Kerry became the presumptive nominee, blacks and whites turned out in even numbers (although statewide turnout was just 10 percent, due to the paltry stakes). If that pattern holds on Saturday, Obama—who now regularly wins more than 80 percent of the black vote in every primary—will win in a rout. And even if black turnout is substantially reduced, he should still have the advantage, since he also regularly claims at least 40 percent of the white vote.

The last two meaningful Louisiana primaries came in 1992, when it was part of Bill Clinton’s landslide sweep of the South, and 1988, when it was one of five Southern states to side with Jesse Jackson on Super Tuesday (by a 35-28 percent margin over Al Gore).

Nebraska caucuses:

Considering the overpowering victories Obama posted on Tuesday in North Dakota and Kansas, it’s hard to imagine a substantially different result in Nebraska, where Obama held a rally on Thursday. Like Kansas and North Dakota, Nebraska is also a caucus state, and with the exception of Nevada, he is undefeated in caucuses.

Nebraska’s most prominent elected Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson, endorsed Obama a while back. Bob Kerrey, the popular former governor and two-term senator who now lives in New York but who nearly returned to the state to run for the Senate this year, is with Hillary Clinton.

It’s been a long time since Nebraska has mattered at all in the nominating process. Traditionally, the state held a May primary, making it relevant from 1976 to 1984, when three straight Democratic primary fights stretched all the way to June. The state helped launch Frank Church’s last-minute (and fleetingly successful) challenge to Jimmy Carter’s inevitability in '76, sided with Carter over Ted Kennedy in '80, and favored Gary Hart over Walter Mondale in '84.

Washington caucuses:

Washington, which tends to favor candidates from the reform wing of the Democratic Party, should be fertile ground for Obama, who also picked up the endorsement of the state’s Democratic governor, Christine Gregoire, on Friday. Like Nebraska, the fact that this is a caucus state also plays to Obama’s advantage.

In 1992, Paul Tsongas won the caucuses here, a victory that he hoped would help demonstrate the national appeal of his candidacy. Four years before that, Michael Dukakis tried to same trick, making Washington part of his “four corners” Super Tuesday strategy, in which he used victories in all four regions of the country to demonstrate that he was the lone national candidate. Dukakis’ tactic worked much better than Tsongas’. The state was also targeted by Bill Bradley in 2000, but after his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire, it was too late.

There is one confusing and notable quirk about Washington: The state also holds a non-binding preference primary, for which ballots were mailed out weeks ago (Washington has some of the most lax mail-in voting procedures in the country). It is the caucuses that will award the actual convention delegates, but how many voters will skip them, believing they’ve already participated with their mail-in ballots?

Sunday

Maine: Here is where the Clintons believe they can make their stand. All three of them—Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea—have made trips to the state in the last few days or are scheduled to do so before Sunday’s caucuses. And the state’s Democratic governor, John Baldacci, is on board. In the wake of Super Tuesday, the Clinton campaign has put out word to the media that they don’t think they will win a single contest before March 4, when Texas and Ohio vote. Part of the reason for that spin: So that a win in Maine will look that much more significant.

But Obama can not be counted out here. He should run well around Portland (the largest city in the state, with about 65,000 residents) and in the more affluent and educated coastal communities in the southern part of the state. He should also make a score in the Orono area (near inland Bangor), where the state university is. Hillary should run much stronger in the lower-income northern and inland areas of the state, including the cities of Bangor, Lewiston and Auburn.

The Clintons actually made a play in Maine the last time the state mattered, back in 1992, hoping to demonstrate post-New Hampshire momentum (the caucuses were held the Sunday after New Hampshire) with a win in rival Paul Tsongas’ backyard. The plan backfired and Bill Clinton finished in third place. But Tsongas didn’t benefit either because the surprise winner was Jerry Brown, who had finished in a distant fifth in New Hampshire.

But the latest race-by-race data still portends a big day for Democrats tomorrow. For incumbents, the magic number in polling is supposedly 50 percent - the idea being that undecided voters overwhelmingly break for the challenger on Election Day.

The rule isn't universal, as George W. Bush's win over John Kerry proved. But for Republicans, it's a very bad sign that so many of their House and Senate incumbents - even in supposedly safe seats - continue to poll significantly below that halfway mark. A good example of this can be found in the upstate 20th District, where a weekend Siena College poll placed Kristen Gillibrand three points ahead of Republican Rep. John Sweeney, 46 to 43 percent.

Granted, there are some extenuating circumstances, but in the national picture, this has not even been a top-tier Democratic target. And it's not an aberration. In New Hampshire, for instance, which last sent a Democrat to Congress 14 years ago, Charlie Bass, an exceedingly moderate Republican incumbent with a famous-in-his-home-state surname, now can't even crack 40 percent -- this in a race that wasn't even among the Democrats' top 30 targets just two months ago.

And that's not even taking into account the completely unforeseen surprise results that always accompany national political waves. But look at Nebraska's dirt-poor Third District - now represented by the retiring Tom Osborne, who coached the state university to one national football title and a share of two others - and you may get the feeling something big is coming. The district gave George W. Bush 75 percent of the vote in 2004, making it one of the reddest in the nation. And yet in the race for its open seat, Democrat Scott Kleeb is within striking distance of Republican Adrian Smith - so much so that Kleeb's national party ponied up $100,000 last week for his cause and Bush himself campaigned for Smith over the weekend.

If the John Sweeneys and Charlie Basses of the world are actually trailing the day before the election - and if President Bush is being forced to spend his time in the heart of what is supposedly his party's firewall - well, that's why some Democrats privately believe they're on the verge of a 30 to 40 seat gain in the House tomorrow.

-- Steve Kornacki

But the latest race-by-race data still portends a big day for Democrats tomorrow. For incumbents, the magic number in polling is supposedly 50 percent - the idea being that undecided voters overwhelmingly break for the challenger on Election Day.

One classic case study of this phenomenon was in New Jersey in 1993, when Jim Florio led Christie Whitman in poll after poll - sometimes by double digits - from June all the way until November. But he never surpassed 49 percent - which is exactly what he ended up with on Election Day, when he lost by 29,000 votes.

The rule is hardly universal, as George W. Bush's win over John Kerry proved. But for Republicans, it's a very ominous sign how many of their House and Senate incumbents - even in supposedly safe seats - continue to poll significantly below the 50 percent mark in independent polls. A good example of this can be found in the upstate 20th District, where a weekend Siena College poll placed Kristen Gillibrand three points ahead of Republican Rep. John Sweeney, 46 to 43 percent.

Granted, there are some extenuating circumstances, but in the national picture, this has not even been a top-tier Democratic target. And it's not an aberration. In New Hampshire, for instance, which last sent a Democrat to Congress 14 years ago, Charlie Bass, an exceedingly moderate Republican incumbent with a famous-in-his-home-state surname, now can't even crack 40 percent - this in a race that wasn't even in the Democrats' top 40 list of targets just two months ago.

And that's not even taking into account the completely unforeseen surprise results that always accompany national political waves. But look at Nebraska's dirt-poor Third District - now represented by the retiring Tom Osborne, who coached the state university to one national football title and a share of two others - and you may get the feeling something big is coming. The district gave George W. Bush 75 percent of the vote in 2004, making it one of the reddest in the nation. And yet in the race for its open seat, Democrat Scott Kleeb is within striking distance of Republican Adrian Smith - so much so that Kleeb's national party ponied up $100,000 last week for his cause and Bush himself campaigned for Smith over the weekend.

If the John Sweeneys and Charlie Basses of the world are actually trailing the day before the election - and if President Bush is being forced to spend his time in the heart of what is supposedly his party's firewall - well, that's why some Democrats privately believe they're on the verge of a 30 to 40 seat gain in the House tomorrow.

-- Steve Kornacki

Meghan Daum? Wasn’t she in Nebraska or somewhere?

Well, once upon a time she was, anyway. In 1999, Ms. Daum made her name with “My Misspent Youth,” a New Yorker essay describing how the vain pursuit of the New York lifestyle had left her $75,000 in debt—and how, therefore, for the sake of clarity and responsibility, she was quitting Manhattan and moving to Lincoln, Neb.

At the time, the essay was the sort of piece that everyone in the striving classes had to read, either to love it or to hate it. “To me, this kind of space did not connote wealth,” she wrote, describing the oak-floored Woody Allen–ish apartment she’d fetishized throughout her New Jersey youth. “These were places where smart people sat around drinking gin and tonics, having interesting conversations, and living, according to my logic, in an authentic way.”

But the apartment and what went with it—$45 dinners out, weekly fresh-cut flowers—were a crippling pose, one that left her unable to handle her dental bills. And rather than trying Queens, Ms. Daum declared her intention to chuck it all and move to the affordable heart of America.

So she did. Living in Lincoln, Ms. Daum did commentaries for NPR about the rural life and “driving along the gravel roads”; she appeared on an episode of Oprah Winfrey about people who had made radical changes in their lives; she wrote for magazines such as Harper’s and Vogue, and the Web site Beliefnet.

And she wrote a well-received novel— The Quality of Life Report, about a woman who chucks it all and moves from New York to “Prairie City.”

“I have a great love for that landscape, and the big sky and the prairie,” Ms. Daum said by phone from her current home in Echo Park in Los Angeles, where she’s lived for two years.

Ms. Daum praised the effects of her time among the farmers. “I didn’t like the kind of person I was becoming in New York,” she said. Living in Nebraska, “I think it made me a much better person, a much more interesting person. Maybe ‘interesting’ isn’t really the word. [But] I have less interest in conversations that are entirely about stuff that people heard on NPR, or the media-obsessed buzz and sensibility. I’m much happier to kind of interact with people who are who they are—I really have very little interest in people’s social qualifications.”

Well, then, what happened to that rural idyll?

“A lot of what happened in Nebraska was that my whole career started to be about having moved to Nebraska,” Ms. Daum said. “And after a while, I started to feel like I’d said everything I had to say about it.”

Moreover, if the simple life cost less money, it also paid less. Ms. Daum took other jobs to make ends meet—including marketing work for a social-service agency—but, she said, “I just wasn’t making any money. I think I made $12,000 one year.”

So: Goodbye, cornfields—hello, freeways! In 2003, Ms. Daum slid the rest of the way across the continent. There, she wrote the screenplay of the novel that she’d moved to Lincoln to write.

Unsuccessful in two bids to buy Nebraska farms, Ms. Daum is now a homeowner in Echo Park. The Quality of Life Report script has been optioned twice, according to Ms. Daum, and is currently under option to Nicole Kidman, for Ms. Kidman to produce.

Ms. Daum has also been teaching, doing more freelancing and working on another book, this one about “real estate as fetish.” She said the Times column, which she has been writing for several weeks on a trial basis, will be “the stuff that I’ve always been interested in—social politics, class identity issues, certain gender issues. But its not a ‘woman’s column.’ I’m not trying to be Anna Quindlen or anything like that.”

The Los Angeles Times, and the opinion page in particular, has been undergoing some remodeling as of late. After the short-lived, tinkering-intensive tenure of Michael Kinsley as opinion boss, Andres Martinez, the new editorial-page editor, announced his own round of moves: Gregory Rodriguez, who has been writing for other sections of the paper, will be writing a weekly column on the op-ed page; Joel Stein—the ex- Time magazine ex-wunderkind brought on by Kinsley—who has been writing a column about Hollywood in the Sunday Current section (one recent piece was about how E! hadn’t paid him yet for some work he did), will be moving to the op-ed page to write a “general interest” column. Mr. Goldberg said that “more changes are coming,” but he wouldn’t specify what.

As for Ms. Daum, she fit a whole bunch of categories: “She lives here,” Mr. Goldberg said. “She’s a woman, which we like. She writes about culture. We’re always looking for people who write about things that are not straight politics, who can create an intelligent argument around a cultural issue or debate in the world of universities or advertising or in the movies or TV. That’s stuff that we need on the op-ed page.”

And Ms. Daum sounded happy to be there. “For the kind of work I like to do, writing for a newspaper has been the most satisfying experience!” said Ms. Daum. “I’ve been a magazine writer for so long, I always thought newspaper writing would be very dry, but it’s quite the opposite. I’m allowed to be much smarter in the L.A. Times than I’ve been allowed to in any other publication. I think a lot of writers feel that way.”

Though a weekly newspaper column seems like a fairly secure gig, Ms. Daum said that her money troubles still haven’t completely disappeared. “It’s getting old,” she said of the freelance life. “I’m torn. Some days I think, ‘This is awful—I’m just going to get a job at Wal-Mart for the health insurance, if they still offer it.’ But some days I think, ‘This is great—I get to travel.’”

Would Ms. Daum consider moving back to New York if things improved? “Obviously, I would love to be in a position to have my house here and have a farm in Nebraska and have an apartment in New York, and maybe someday that’ll happen,” said Ms. Daum. “I miss my friends in New York a lot but I also see them plenty and go back plenty. I don’t think my dog would want to move back to New York. I think Joan Didion’s line, that it’s a place for the very rich and the very young, still holds up, and I’m not young any more and I’m not rich.”

The Crime Blotter recently reported on a July 8 incident at an East 78th Street sushi joint where the chef, unceremoniously aroused from a nap, walloped a busboy with his fists and then struck him over the head with a stool, rendering the lowly worker momentarily unconscious.

Such corporal punishment seems to constitute an emerging pattern—perhaps even a trend—in the city’s Asian eateries. On July 21, a co-worker got into a verbal dispute with a cook at Wu Liang Ye, a Chinese restaurant at 215 East 86th Street. The argument was settled when the chef de cuisine picked up a metal-tipped stick and proceeded to strike his victim on the left ear, prompting pain, swelling, a welt and a trip to Mount Sinai Hospital.

While the victim, a 21-year-old 103rd Street resident, was unable to provide his attacker’s name, he assured the cops that he was the restaurant’s cook.

The following day, a fight broke out at Suan Eating Thai, a Thai restaurant at 872 Lexington Avenue. The victim, apparently an employee of the restaurant, said that she and the cashier got into an argument “about orders in the restaurant.”

The cashier, her victim alleges, decided to solve their differences not by establishing a protocol for the processing of food orders, but rather by scratching her chest and right arm, leaving marks. Her assailant also kicked her in the left leg.

The victim, a 21-year-old Queens resident, described her 28-year-old adversary as five feet (and zero inches) of fighting fury.

Screen Door?

A screen door was a less treacherous obstacle for a robber who visited an East 80th Street address on July 23. His victim, a 69-year-old male, told the police that he was sitting in his ground-floor office when he buzzed in a stranger who presently appeared at his screen door.

Screen doors are fine for keeping out flies in, say, Nebraska, but the average hardened New York City crook requires a slightly more formidable barrier. The perp, simulating a firearm, put his hand through the screen, opened the latch and then approached the man, demanding his wallet.

The billfold contained $100, an American Express card and the victim’s New York driver’s license. The thief, described as 5-foot-8, 175 pounds and 32 years old, fled in an unknown direction. An NYPD evidence-collection team was sent to investigate.

The Mummy

A metal pipe came crashing through the front window of Centolire, a restaurant at 1167 Madison Avenue, on July 23, and was followed apace by a left hand heavily swaddled in what a witness described as a “white-bandage material”—the resourceful perp apparently deciding to protect himself from injury as he punched a hole through the remaining window glass in order to enter the establishment and raid its cash register.

Alas, his foresight was lacking in other respects: The restaurant was still occupied, which prompted the would-be robber to flee southbound on Madison Avenue. It will cost $250 to replace the window. The police canvassed the area for somebody wrapped in gauze, but with negative results.

Customer Service

Identity theft is a national epidemic, but few of the perpetrators are as brazen as the crook who approached a 71-year-old woman as she was leaving Bloomingdale’s on July 14. Catching up to the woman at the northwest corner of 60th Street and Park Avenue at 11 a.m., the man claimed to be a Bloomingdale’s security guard and explained that there had been a problem with the customer’s credit-card transaction.

He asked to see her Bloomie’s card, so the lady, an East 72nd Street resident, helpfully handed it over to him. Then the supposed security guard asked to see a second credit card so he could compare the two. The septuagenarian’s suspicions were definitely aroused when he gave her back the Bloomie’s card but kept the second one, a Citibank Advantage MasterCard.

When the woman demanded it back, even reaching her hand out for it, the perp bolted eastbound on 60th Street. The victim promptly contacted her credit-card company, apparently tripping up the bogus security guard, figuratively if not literally, before he could use her plastic.

Partisan though his speech at New York University surely was, however, much the same message is being delivered by the most respected figures in the ruling party.

So if you don’t want to hear a Democrat say that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating dangerously, listen to a Republican Senator instead. "The worst thing we can do is hold ourselves hostage to some grand illusion we’re winning," said Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska. "Right now, we are not winning. Things are getting worse …. The fact is, we’re in deep trouble in Iraq."

If you don’t want to hear a Democrat tell how the Bush administration botched the mission that is further from being accomplished today than a year ago, listen to another Republican Senator. "We made serious mistakes right after the initial successes by not having enough troops there on the ground, by allowing the looting, by not securing the borders," said Arizona’s John McCain, still a fervent supporter of the war. "There were a number of things that we did. Most of it can be traced back to not having sufficient numbers of troops there."

If you don’t want to hear a Democrat criticize the President and his associates for their delusional approach to Iraq, listen to a very senior Republican Senator.

"Our committee heard blindly optimistic people from the administration prior to the war and people outside the administration—what I call the ‘dancing in the street’ crowd—that we just simply will be greeted with open arms," said Richard Lugar of Indiana, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "The nonsense of all that is apparent. The lack of planning is apparent."

Those three Senators are speaking out because they believe the President isn’t being candid about the crisis in Iraq, and because they fear that he has no plan to stabilize the country and extricate our troops.

They’re rightly outraged when Mr. Bush, the would-be Woodrow Wilson, declares himself pleased by the "progress" toward "democracy" in Baghdad, where nobody can travel without bodyguards. They’re furious that his administration cannot account for billions spent, and cannot even spend the billions they authorized. While the President complains constantly about Mr. Kerry’s vote against the $87 billion supplemental appropriation last year, the sad fact is that his appointees so far have found no way to use that money wisely—and are now asking Congress to allow them to "reprogram" the funds they failed to spend.

The three Republican Senators are appalled as well by the evident influence of politics on military strategy, as American commanders struggle to pacify an increasingly alienated population. While Islamist and Baathist insurgents consolidate, the administration hesitates to act—because a sudden spike in U.S. casualties would endanger Mr. Bush’s electoral prospects.

And although they politely avoided the topic, those honest Republicans may well wonder how Mr. Bush can pretend ignorance of the grim assessment delivered by U.S. intelligence agencies last July. That estimate warns that Iraq will remain unstable at best for the foreseeable future, and at worst will descend into civil war.

That is a sickening prospect—not only for the continuous suffering it would cause the Iraqi people, but for the opportunity such internecine strife would afford our most determined enemies. There is already reason to worry that the Shiite rebellion has created an opening for Iranian agents to extend their influence in Iraq—and for terrorists linked to Al Qaeda to find refuge there.

The American occupation already seems to have inspired new cooperation between Shiite and Sunni Islamists, despite their religious antipathy. A chaotic "failed state" is the perfect environment for terror to flourish, posing a worse threat to our security than Saddam Hussein ever did.

Actually, as a timely leak from the C.I.A.’s Iraq Survey Group reiterated last week, Mr. Hussein had no "weapons of mass destruction" and no way to manufacture such weapons in meaningful amounts. That isn’t Democratic propaganda, or an outtake from a Michael Moore movie. It is merely factual information, gathered over many months by Mr. Bush’s own appointees, that explodes any justification for war.

Having made war anyway, Mr. Bush eventually will be forced to confront its unsustainable realities. This could mean a series of horrifically violent confrontations in Iraq’s cities, a postponement of the January elections, a wider call-up of National Guard and Reserve units, or even a renewed military draft.

Dissembling now may preserve Mr. Bush’s advantage for the next six weeks. But should he win a second term, beware the "November surprise" that will begin to bring home the true costs of his feckless adventure.

For the delegates and other convention participants:

Remember that you are a visitor. Yes, we are all Americans, but we come together from vastly different cultures. If you observe an unusual or particularly colorful local custom, don't express contempt or attempt to show your moral superiority. You wouldn't want us to react that way in your town, would you?

Be ambassadors of good will. If you have a good experience here-and we sincerely hope you do-tell the folks back home about it. Write a letter to your local newspaper. Encourage your friends and family to plan a trip to New York. Like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life , one person can do a lot of good for a community-even if it's not yours.

Clean up after yourself. Sure, you've heard the expression, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." Well, that doesn't mean you should throw trash on the street or spit on the sidewalk, even if you see the natives doing so. We're the ones responsible for cleaning up after the party, so do us a favor and make the job a little bit easier for us, please.

Be a patriot . It has become fashionable in some Republican circles to question the patriotism of those who don't support the war in Iraq. Please abandon this attitude before setting foot in New York. Whether Republican or Democrat, we are all proud to be Americans, even if we strongly reject some of the policies of the current administration. We didn't question your patriotism during the Clinton years, so please don't question ours now. The true patriot is the one who embraces political diversity.

Spend your money. No matter what you may have heard to the contrary, we're happy that you chose New York as your convention town. Visit our restaurants, buy tickets to Broadway shows and use our public transportation regularly. Three years after 9/11, the city is still struggling financially, so spend, spend, spend those hard-earned dollars! We may not share your political point of view, but we welcome your cash. And being New Yorkers, we're not afraid to tell you so.

And here's some advice for New Yorkers:

Be hospitable. Believe it or not, we have a reputation for being rude. Let's show our visitors that we're just as friendly as anyone from their own hometown. Take the time to give directions when asked, or even to volunteer them if someone looks lost. Recommend your favorite restaurant. Smile.

Do no harm. It would be great if everyone could be decent, kind and compassionate to our visitors, but at the very least, we should avoid causing any pain, psychic or otherwise. There is no justification for making our visitors feel unwelcome in any way.

Go the extra mile. We may not have an ethical obligation to do so, but it would be gracious to give more of ourselves than we have to. Let's offer a seat on the bus or subway to that delegate who looks scared or confused. Let's give the Republican from Iowa or Nebraska the taxi we were going to take-or, better yet, let's share it and strike up a friendly conversation during the ride.

Take the high road. Many of us will choose to express our views about President George W. Bush's policies through the constitutionally protected right of protest. However, there are better and worse ways to protest. Gathering in Central Park or in front of Madison Square Garden is one thing; lobbing invective at individuals we encounter on the street is another. Outside of organized, lawful protests, our mothers were right when they told us, "If you don't have anything nice to say about someone, don't say anything at all." Save the Bronx cheers for a baseball game.

Remember the golden rule. Granted, New York's version of this precept may be "Do unto others before they do unto you." But it's important to remember that people from the rest of the country learned a slightly different version of the golden rule. Let's treat our out-of-town guests the way we'd like to be treated as visitors in their neck of the woods.

If New Yorkers and Republicans can live together peacefully for a few days in late summer, there just may be hope for the rest of the world.

Twice in George Bush's life, when all hell broke loose, he vamoosed. His first disappearing act was during the Vietnam War, when he was a no-show officer in the Air National Guard. The second time he skedaddled was 9/11.

The Wall Street Journal has reconstructed the President's movements on that day. What he did and when he did it has been fuzzed over by the President and his operatives, but the facts are out. He said, for example, that on the day in question, "one of the first acts I did was to put our military on alert." But he didn't. Air Force General Richard Myers, then the acting head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave that order without having consulted him. The reason for the fib was to show George to the voters as a man in control of himself and the situation through shot and shell.

On Dec. 3, 2001, Mr. Bush, who had been visiting a school in Florida when the attack happened, told an audience that "I was sitting outside the classroom, waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower-the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, 'Well, there's one terrible pilot.'" It didn't happen, at least not as Mr. Bush tells it; instead of issuing orders, he must have been making up stories. The television set wasn't on where he was; no pictures of the first plane hitting the tower were shown until 12 hours after he had left Florida, so he was BS-ing. We all like to embellish, but if the President throws bull feces around, it inspires doubts, not confidence.

At four minutes of 10 a.m. on 9/11, the President took off from Sarasota/Bradenton International Airport and headed where? Not back to Washington, but to a stop in Louisiana and then on to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska and an underground bunker. Why?

Because Dick Cheney told him there was a plot afoot to shoot down Air Force One. But by noon, there was not one nonmilitary plane aloft over the United States. Thus, making an attempt on Air Force One was impossible. The President was safe, but evidently not safe enough, for the Valiant One remained in his Nebraska bunker until after 5 p.m. Eastern Time, when he climbed back on his airplane and returned to the vacant seat of government.

So it transpires that, throughout this day of crisis and dismay, the President of the United States was not at his post. Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki became the heroes of the hour. These two men, at their place of duty, were the calm faces and voices of courage and national determination. From leaderless Washington, there was little more than a void.

But what if he had been in danger? What if there had been a plan to attack Air Force One? Was Mr. Bush right to execute his Nebraska skedaddle? Yes, had he been a private citizen. In such a situation, you and I would not be criticized if we high-tailed ourselves off to safety. Do the same standards of discretion before valor hold for a President, for the Commander in Chief, for one who would soon send his young fellow citizens to face the dangers that he hid from?

Is part of the job of being President to risk your life? To expose yourself to danger? Mr. Bush answered no. Other Presidents have answered differently.

Since he cannot be compared to Abraham Lincoln in other respects, it would be unfair to compare George Bush's want of courage to Abraham Lincoln's. Lincoln was repeatedly warned of the nearness of danger, but he understood that a wartime leader must show his face in public.

Lincoln's fate did not deter his successors from moving about among the people. James Garfield was assassinated in a Washington, D.C., railroad station in 1881, and William McKinley-who, like Garfield, had seen more than his share of action during the Civil War-was gunned down in 1901 in Buffalo, N.Y., at the Pan-American Exposition greeting citizens at an open reception. Presidents do that kind of thing, and it is dangerous.

John Kennedy, a World War II combat veteran who knew his Presidential history, nevertheless was riding in an open car when he was assassinated. He believed that Presidents ought not to hide; they should be seen up close, and they should mingle. The perils of doing so go with the territory.

Harry Truman knew that. On the afternoon of Nov. 1, 1950, President Truman was taking a nap. He was living at Blair House while the White House, across the street, was being rebuilt. As he slept, two assassins armed with pistols rushed the building, killing one Secret Service agent and wounding two others. One of the would-be murderers was also killed. After the shooting stopped, it was one of those 9/11 moments when nobody could say whether or not more attacks were coming. But Truman was scheduled to preside at a ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery, and he never gave a thought to canceling. Nor did he give up his daily health walk through the streets of Washington. "A President has to expect these things," said Truman, a man who had fought in France in World War I.

Whatever the misgivings about movie actors, America knew that it had a President when, after Ronald Reagan had been shot and grievously wounded, the country heard about his joking with his surgeons as he was wheeled into the emergency room.

The gutsiest example of Presidential moxie under fire was given us in 1933 by Franklin Roosevelt. On a pleasant February evening, President-elect Roosevelt went to Miami's Bay Front Park to address a crowd of 20,000 people. Roosevelt, who was unable to walk by himself, spoke from the rear of an open touring car. Near his automobile was Anton J. (Tony) Cermak, the Mayor of Chicago. A little after 9:30, a man in the second row of the audience, about 35 feet from Roosevelt, jumped up and began firing a revolver at him. The Mayor, still near Roosevelt, went down, as did a Mrs. Joseph Gill, shot twice in the stomach. Several other people went down as Roosevelt appraised what suddenly had become bedlam. Nobody knew how many gunmen there might be, or what could happen next. What did happen next was that the crippled Roosevelt took command. This is how Roosevelt remembered it, in his own words:

"The chauffeur started the car …. I looked around and saw Mayor Cermak doubled over and Mrs. Gill collapsing …. I called to the chauffeur to stop. He did-about fifteen feet from where we started. The Secret Service men shouted to him to get out of the crowd and he started forward again. I stopped him a second time ….

"I saw Mayor Cermak being carried. I motioned to have him put in the back of the car, which would be the first out. He was alive, but I didn't think he was going to last. I put my left arm around him and my hand on his pulse, but I couldn't find any pulse. He slumped forward ….

"After we had gone another block, Mayor Cermak straightened up and I got his pulse. It was surprising …. I held him all the way to the hospital and his pulse constantly improved. That trip to the hospital seemed thirty miles long. I talked to Mayor Cermak nearly all the way. I remember I said, 'Tony, keep quiet-don't move. It won't hurt you if you keep quiet …. '"

Anton Cermak lived only a short time, but in the gloom of his death, and the Great Depression that F.D.R. would shortly have to contend with, the nation found out it had elected a man who defied danger, who kept his wits and his command of himself and others under fire, who was a leader. A few days later, Roosevelt was inaugurated and told the nation that it had "nothing to fear but fear itself." By his actions, he had made his words believable.

The man who lingered in the Nebraska bunker doesn't have the balls for the job.

Mr. Oberst is in quite a confessional mood on his latest, somewhat grandly titled CD, Lifted, or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Saddle Creek).

But don't let that smudge of pretension get in the way. On Lifted , Mr. Oberst–as–Bright Eyes enlists the listener to become his shrink as the singer/songwriter examines himself vividly and ruthlessly, spilling his guts across 13 songs that total 73 minutes of music. It's an incredibly ballsy album: naked and real, uneven at times, but completely honest. It's also his best, most emotionally sophisticated and tuneful album to date. Mr. Oberst is an authentic Ryan Adams, with the kind of passion and purpose that hasn't been applied by a fashion stylist.

Perhaps because Mr. Oberst, given his age, is still struggling to find his identity, the subject looms large on Lifted . In "False Advertising," one of the finer cuts from the album, Bright Eyes sings: "And I know what must change / Fuck my face / Fuck my name, / They are brief and false advertisements …. "

Lifted is Bright Eyes' fourth full-length record (not counting a number of EP's he's released over the years), and the artistic distance he's come is notable. Earlier records veered toward the punkish, and though traces of that genre persist-most notably in Mr. Oberst's other project, Los Desaparecidos-he seems to have settled into a folk-rockish singer/songwriter mode.

On Lifted , Mr. Oberst's melodic skills are on full display as he shifts gracefully through a spectrum of styles, from pseudo–talking blues to waltzes. He's managed to curtail the metaphorical excess of his earlier albums, while once again demonstrating that he is one of the most literate and witty songwriters of his generation.

Lifted is a coming-of-age song cycle that deals with the moment at which love can no longer be idealized; that moment when the innocence of youth becomes hardened by the complacency and cynicism of adulthood. It's a well-trodden path, full of fragrant, sophomoric soap opera, but Mr. Oberst finds fresh material by essentially flaying himself alive. On the stark "Waste of Paint," Mr. Oberst seems to sing from a street puddle, nearly shouting the lines "Like love is some kind of lottery / Where you scratch and see what's underneath / It's 'Sorry,' just one cherry / 'Play again' / Get lucky."

Throughout the album, Mr. Oberst, who sounds like a more fragile version of the Cure's Robert Smith, inhabits his lyrics, communicating his emotional distress with whispers and bellows and wavers and cracks in his voice.

The best song of the album-and arguably of his career-is "You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will." And as its Raymond Carver–esque title suggests, it surgically cuts to the very heart of the matter, which is the end of a relationship in which the woman seems to have grown up faster than the singer. "You say that I treat you like a book on a shelf," he sings nearly matter-of-factly, "I don't take you out that often / Because I know that I completed you / And that is why you are here / That is the reason you stay here / How awful that must feel." The metaphor-somewhat clunky though it may be-is beautifully attenuated. He comes back to it in one of the final verses, singing "It took so long to figure out / What this book has been about."

The final verse is the punch in the gut-the relationship isn't dead, just dying: "Now I write when I'm away / letters that you'll never read / You said to go explore those other women / the geography of their bodies / but there's just one map you'll need / You are a boomerang, you'll see / You will return to me."

Listening to Mr. Oberst is like listening to Bob Dylan in the mid-60's: What he's saying is fundamentally altered by the way he says it. He's his only interpreter, and a consummate one at that. When he looks back-and sometimes it can be nauseating when someone so young adopts that role-we are interested, because his desire is not to regress, but rather to push into a clearing.

Lifted isn't perfect, even if certain songs are damn close. "Lover I Don't Have to Love," with its sharply grating drum loop, is nearly unbearable and makes you reach for the skip button. And the final cut, "Let's Not Shit Ourselves," falls flat on its face once Mr. Oberst starts to rail against the mass media. He's too fine a student of the soul to waste his words on such tired targets. Mr. Oberst gives-and shows you-everything that's in him; he practically turns himself inside-out on this album. So take the good with the bad; forgive his excesses even as you embrace them. It's the kind of contradiction Bright Eyes would appreciate, and Mr. Oberst would despise.

"Basically," Ms. Young said, "you're on your back, and you bring your legs over your head until you can, um … almost kiss your own butt, you know?"

The pose started out fine for Ms. Young. "It felt good," she said. Then, as Paul was coming around to adjust her pose, the unspeakable happened: Ms. Young passed gas. Loudly. Three times in a row.

"No one said anything," Ms. Young said. "It was like stunned silence. But everyone was looking at me, twisting around from under their legs. I could see them. And then after class, I heard one woman say, 'God, I feel sorry for her.' And her friend was like, 'Well I don't. You're not supposed to eat anything before class.'

"But I didn't eat before class!" Ms. Young said. "I swear ."

Soon afterwards, Ms. Young-who works as a sales executive-decided to switch yoga studios. On this day, she was clad in a gray sweatsuit, on her way to Integral Yoga studio on West 13th Street to see if it might be "more accepting-maybe less judgmental."

Before visiting Integral Yoga, Ms. Young ducked into a nearby Duane Reade. "I'm not taking any chances this time," she said. She twisted open a bottle of Alka-Seltzer Gas-Relief liquid gel caps and popped one in her mouth. In her other hand was a pack of Rolaids.

Miguel, a clerk at the store who would not give his last name, said he sees lots of what he called "yoga ladies" stocking up on intestinal-gas medication.

"Yeah, they come in here with their designer sweatpants and, like, T-shirts, and they're like, 'I have a yoga class in a few minutes and I need something to make sure I don't have any gas,'" Miguel said. "I don't really know what works for that, but, you know, I tell them Alka-Seltzer is O.K. Sometimes they get two or three different kinds. I think that's kind of weird, but I never do yoga, so what do I know?"

Boris Pisman, a teacher and manager at Integral Yoga, said the subject of passing gas comes up from time to time among his students. "A couple of people have mentioned to me in the past that they were paranoid about it," he said. "Once in a while it just happens, in an inverted position especially. By bringing the knees to the chest, you are pressing your abdominal organs. You are also massaging or squeezing. You put pressure on your stomach and on your colon, so when you bend, a certain amount of air escapes."

It's nothing to be ashamed of, Mr. Pisman said. "In a way, yoga-being a holistic science-encourages people to let go," he said. "If one needs to pass the gas, they should be able to do it. Chances are they are embarrassed or feel uncomfortable because of their previous conditioning. I definitely don't object."

Mr. Pisman even acknowledged that he occasionally teaches a position called the Wind-Relieving Pose. The idea here is apparently to ameliorate gas pain. "Basically, a person lying on the floor bends the knees and brings the knees toward the chest, then wraps his or her arms around the knees, inhales, holds the breath for 10 seconds, and brings the forehead towards the knees. Then they will release the head onto the floor and release the knees, straighten the legs, and lie quietly for a few seconds." If the proverbial wind is not relieved, Mr. Pisman said, the move can be repeated. "It often takes a few times," he added. "Then you should feel better."

This posture was deemed "disgusting" by Beth Stein, a former dot-com executive who was smoking a cigarette near the entrance to Be Yoga downtown. "I can't understand why a bunch of normal adult strangers would want to sit in a room together and fart," she said. "I'm going to try this one time, but if somebody tells me to break wind in class, there is no fucking way. I don't care. I'm going to get up and leave."

Ms. Stein's friend, Sissy Lawson-a sometime yoga practitioner who recently moved here from California-said she had never "released wind" during a yoga class. "But I have come close," Ms. Lawson said. "Actually, I would say maybe three times a class at least. My guess is, if you go into a given class, like everyone is exhausting themselves holding in farts. Maybe not 100 percent of the time. But enough that it disrupts the concentration. And it's like, if someone does fart, you think to yourself, 'I'm glad it wasn't me,' but also, 'I wish I could have gotten some relief, too!'"

-Ian Blecher

Dear Bruce Springsteen,

I read that you're making another big comeback, with a new album out about 9/11. Well, that's just great ! Because that's what we all need: A Bruce album about 9/11 will help with the whole healing process, even if it's all a little downbeat. This will bring closure. Hope it really sells!

See, the truth is I'm not a big Bruce Springsteen fan. I'm sure this doesn't really bother you since everyone else in New York seems to be, or feels they have to be or they're an asshole. Well, I'd rather be an asshole than pretend to enjoy your music, pal.

I used to think maybe if I read that legendary Time cover story about you or took a course on you at N.Y.U., I could understand you and your amazing popularity. Maybe if I spent some time in Asbury Park, I'd get it. After high school, I spent the summer in Mantoloking on the Jersey Shore, and you know what? It really sucked. My two pals and I ran out of money fast in two weeks, and all we had in the fridge were Kraft singles and beer. We got jobs handing out change at an arcade on the Point Pleasant Boardwalk. I fooled around with two or three homely Jersey girls but did not get laid. My friend caught crabs from a 15-year-old. We had no money. No A.C., either ….

That's all I remember, Bruce, and let me tell you, it wasn't anything to write home about, let alone write a song about.

Here's what pops into my mind when I think about "the Boss," and none of it is good. For starters, there's Clarence Clemons. He's not "the man," or whatever you call your saxophone player-he's a goofball. The song "Streets of Philadelphia": good cause, crappy tune. Blue jeans: Because of you, I haven't worn them since 1984, around the time of Born in the U.S.A. … which had that song on it about how you "wake up with the sheets soaking wet / and a freight train running through the middle of my head." Not my favorite masturbation song. And what was up with not letting Reagan play the friggin' title track on the campaign trail? Before that, you put out a beloved album called Nebraska . Nebraska ? I'm from the state right under it, and I still don't get what you were doing.

What else? Courteney Cox in that "Dancing in the Dark" video. When Adam Sandler parodied this on SNL , it wasn't done affectionately, I'm afraid. That video is an even worse memory than Billy Joel's "Pressure," or any of Haircut 100's.

I remember a photograph of you in Rolling Stone partying it up with Sting. That's when I first started wondering about you. Then you married Julianne Phillips. Hmmm .

Look, I've seen you on Charlie Rose a few times and in that VH1 History of Rock & Roll special, and it's a sorry sight. You're not funny. You're delusional. You don't even have a substance-abuse problem to blame it on.

Let's see, that "spontaneous" preacher bit on your recent HBO concert special was simply ludicrous and embarrassing, not at all hip or cool or funny. Your fans are mostly pathetic (and I worry about writing that; I might as well be writing about how the firemen suck and "long live Osama bin Laden!").

But so what if you play for four hours? Give me Elvis Costello for 20 minutes. Seriously, I'd rather see John Stamos in Cabaret again than see you at the Garden (pronounced "duh Gow -din").

"We Are the World," remember that? Take a look at that video, why don't you: You look really silly in it. Why do you always wear boots? Bruce, you don't need boots. You're not working construction, O.K.? And why are you always sweating, even in an air-conditioned studio-is that from a spray bottle in the back of your perfectly imperfect jeans?

And to all you "big Springsteen fans" out there: Take your Bic lighters and ….

-George Gurley