We made our way towards downtown St. Paul, and before long we saw the sign we'd been looking for looming up ahead like a beacon, visible from several blocks in each direction: the Excel Energy Center, where the majority of events are scheduled this week.

Still no signs of protest. No, it was all pretty dull.

A few hours later, we were driving around as Nezua checked his iPhone for updates from coldsnaplegal via Twitter.com, and a few other blogs. The arrest count, according to his sources, was rising by the minute. Felonies were numbering over 100. The journalist Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now, had been man-handled and arrested.

In his regularly updated blog at Salon.com, Glenn Greenwald likened St. Paul this week to Manhattan in the aftermath of 9/11.

Yet we still hadn't seen anything but Minnesotans being Minnesotans: taking walks, jogging, sitting in restaurants and bars having generous portions of pasta and beer. And the national media was barely covering the unfolding events (and still isn't), focusing all of its attention instead on Bristol Palin's pregnancy, Hurricane Gustav and the whereabouts of John McCain (New Orleans, of course, in a transparent effort to separate himself from Bush by responding with great urgency to the crisis pummeling the gulf right now).

So we set out to find the chaos.

Driving towards the Excel Center this time, we came upon a fenced-off area, behind which were dozens of National Guard soldiers in camouflage, donning riot gear. What the hell is this? we all exclaimed. Our car was suddenly redirected away from Excel and toward the Interstate, which led us a few miles out of town before we could turn around.

Talk about a police state: we were literally forced out of town.

We navigated our way back, and found ourselves a few blocks from a huge demonstration at Kellogg and Wabasha (the latter street made famous by Bob Dylan, whose early protest songs would influence generations, in his tune "Meet Me In the Morning").

In the shadows surrounding the area we saw squadrons of police on horseback in riot gear, military personnel beside walls of buildings and in parking lots, and a surprising lack of protest activity beyond the "big" one that we couldn't access. Not even a lone protester making a statement with a T-shirt or placard.

It seemed as if the local police and national military had successfully scared everyone back into their hovels, from which they will either emerge again this week or remain, for fear of joining the hundreds of others already in jail for doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment rights.

All I know is that our team has already talked about what to do in the very real event that one of us gets arrested. (And to be clear: this has been advised by several people; we're not simply being paranoid.)

We'll see.