Exactly three weeks before Christmas, my bank failed.

(FINAL UPDATE: According to People Magazine, the woman taken from Tiger Wood's home in an ambulance was his mother-in-law, Barbro Holmberg. Hospital spokesman Dan Yates told reporters that Holmberg, a well-known politician in Sweden, was admitted for stomach pain and is currently undergoing evaluation. He described her condition as stable. A family member also confirms that Holmberg is in stable condition and undergoing evaluation. -- WKW)

Something just happened in Dallas that hit me in the gut. Forty-six years ago, it was (as Noam Chomsky is quoted as dismissively saying) "a man in a building shooting a man in a car." For most people, however, the JFK assassination significantly changed how they viewed the world. This week, hardly anybody noticed when management of the Dallas Morning News sent out an internal memo announcing a structural reorganization. Huffington Post ran an article about it, as did Editor & Publisher, but for most of the public it was all "inside baseball."

Mike Finnigan is:

A) A universally respected musician that has played with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Etta James;

B) A one-time player on the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team;

C) A liberal d-list blogger’s best friend;

D) The coolest cat you’ll ever know;

E) Long-time Husband to Intervention`s Candy Finnigan

F) All of the above.

At the beginning of this year, I had a grand ambition to explore world music and write about it. I got off to a pretty good start and then my year took a turn. For me, music is a happy experience and I haven’t had a particularly happy year. As a results, I’ve had almost zero interest in listening even to my favorites, let alone exploring new musical styles.

But 2009 is ending on a bit of a high note. I’m about to make a big change and in honor of that change, I’m resurrecting the world music series with a post in honor of my soon-to-be new home: Jakarta.

In the latest bit of proof that today`s politicians are running the show only because the best and brightest wouldn`t get within 20 miles of politics, Sen. Harry Reid showed his compassion and transparency, all the while loading up on Tiger Woods Keywords.

From HuffPo

WASHINGTON - Journalist William K. Wolfrum has uncovered his latest blockbuster, as he says he now has proof that U.S. Senators Diane Feinstein and Dick Durbin once shot a homeless guy in Reno.

Wolfrum had admitted to sitting on the story for various reasons, but admitted that possible changes in the media shield law made him feel that now was the right time to come forward.

I'm shocked by this whole Tiger Woods scandal. Not by Tiger's behavior, of course, but by the silence that seems to be accompanying it, at least in my circle of friends on Facebook.

I really expected to be bombarded today with status updates addressing the emerging Tiger Woods scandal. I expected them to be mainly from women expressing some degree of disappointment or outrage. Instead, I only saw one status update that fit the bill.

The day before President Obama announced his Afghanistan strategy, Politico published John F. Harris's very important and newsy thumbsucker about the peril that "anti-Obama storylines" pose to Obama's Presidency. The first sentence of the article is, no kidding, "Presidential politics is about storytelling."

Storytelling. Huh. And here I thought it was about the economy and the two wars.

Demonstrating the brilliance of direct democracy, the Swiss people declared their nation to be a minaret-free zone. One cannot help but admire the simplicity of Swiss thinking. They did not bother with definitions or rationales. There was no legal gobbledygook, no extended rationales, no conscience-driven caveats. They simply voted to amend their constitution with the inspirational words, "The building of minarets is prohibited."

After a lifetime of being casual about her appearance, Candy Finnigan - one of three Interventionists on the hit Reality show “Intervention” (which debuts its new season tonight on A&E, Nov. 30 8/9c) - has learned that fame can make you change your perspective.