Dynamic content areas with JQuery-Mobile and Ruby on Rails

Question

Working with Jquery-Mobile 1.0 Final and Ruby on Rails 3.2.0.rc2: I am attempting to set up a persistant sidebar existing in views/layouts/application.html.haml where accessing any other link within the site the content will be dynamically loaded in a designated content area and the sidebar remains persistant.

The issue I am running into is JQuery-Mobile already taking care of the Ajax and then producing animation for the entirety of the page. I don't have a firm understanding of the flow of a page transition in JQuery-Mobile, aside for the doc on their homepage is there another resource which may better educate me about this process?

How does making the class of a div ui-state-persistant affect how JQuery-Mobile is handling a new page access?

What is the best way to set up a persistant sidebar building on JQuery-Mobile?