In The People Reloaded, Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel have put together a collection of essays that help explain what happened. Though both are unabashed supporters of the Green Movement, and their anthology makes the case from that angle, it does so based on the perspectives of some of the leading scholars, analysts, and journalists who have been following Iran, many of them for decades.

There does not appear to be any appreciation that very ordinary concerns might be driving the protesters. What was touted as an economic miracle was disastrous for those on the lower end of the economic scale; Nomi Prins called this “the appearance of enhancement.”

The Final Report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission talks about Suspicious Activity Reports, but doesn’t connect the dots. Neither did FinCEN, the federal agency responsible for handling them, or Timothy Geithner, who is in charge of FinCEN, or Eric Holder, the AG, charged with prosecuting mortgage fraud and failure to file SARS, among other things.

Considering that even the members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission who I’ve asked believe we haven’t even settled this financial crisis yet, the pace of crises may have accelerated.

I’ve never ruled a country, or been in a situation even close to what is going on among the protesters in Cairo. But in listening to Hosni Mubarak this week, I realized that I had seen the events of this past week play out on a much smaller stage, and so have many others. Face it: what we’re seeing is the national version of a battered wife confronting her batterer.

Hosni Mubarak resigns as head of the National Democratic Party in Egypt. He has not resigned as President however.

At a security conference in Munich today, Hillary Clinton announced that America’s torturer, Omar Suleiman, must be in charge of Egypt’s “transition” to “democracy.”

“The US secretary of state Hillary Clinton today signaled how far the US has swung its support behind vice-president Omar Suleiman and the transition process he is leading in Egypt.”

Courage is contagious, whether in Egypt or out. So is integrity.

The day after the Day of Departure, everyone wants to speak for the Youth Protesters in Tahrir Square.

Sounds like there was a lot of snow in the Midwest. According to HuffPost, all flights in Chicago were canceled. How about you? Any difficulties traveling around in the past few days? Do you like to ski? And do you prefer downhill or cross-country? Should we plan a virtual ski trip in these threads?