I *heart* Kid Ethnic

Maggie gushes:
My pal Saleem makes me as giddy as a kid on a sugar high sometimes. Or... just a "hot mama" high on wasabi rice crackers?

See for yourself why my crush endures.

Weekend reading

Maggie says:
I find myself fairly uninterested in the Superbowl this weekend (despite the compelling coaching storyline), and am instead puttering around in typical un-American fashion. Such puttering affords me lots of time to read, go shoe-shopping, have the strongest margaritas on the planet with Marjorie's fam, and go hiking. So before I meet Mikaela to head over to the foothills, here's what's peaking my interest word-wise this weekend:

• More than good food and friendliness. Facing South, a fantastic blog produced by one of my fave organizations, compiled a list of its top-five books on Southern populist history. I have a couple of these, and the comments remind me that I'm still hanging on to a Loomis loaner that I need to return. This list is a great place to start diving into the rich promise that those who love the South know it very much holds. After you're primed with good 'ol Southern history, give this important Nation cover story a try before you start trash-talking about how we'll be safe ignoring the South in '08. Who knows... it just might influence your pick for the party.
  

• Biden: not just inarticulate. Joe Biden's recent gaffe is, as this Times article points out, not a gaffe at all, but the latest proof that most Americans are still surprised when non-whites sound smart. The word of attack here is "articulate," and with good insight this article points out the so-called compliments we're compelled to offer up for non-whites who sound... white. '"Al Sharpton is incredibly articulate,” said Tricia Rose, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. “But because he speaks with a cadence and style that is firmly rooted in black rhetorical tradition you will rarely hear white people refer to him as articulate.”'

• Off to La-La Land. I'm heading to Los Angeles next week for a conference, and nothing has been amusing me in advance of the trip more than Curbed LA, a deliciously acerbic blog on planning and real estate in LA. More East Coast-oriented readers might enjoy the original NYC-based Curbed a little more. Same snarky real estate banter, only denser. Where else can I be pointed to the coolest Google image search result ever (for "urban planner") and news like this: "In order to make sure that Chinatown is catching up to the rest of downtown yuppie invasion, the City Council fast-tracked the approval of a new mixed-use development at 900 N. Broadway." Hee hee hee... Oh and!, see the sister blogs of Curbed for foodie talk: Eater and Eater LA. How much would I love to see a Curbed ABQ one day... Any takers?
  

• Local poets at it again. Yesterday I was lucky enough to get a preview of The Wellesley Poems, the forthcoming tome from local poet Adam Rubinstein. Adam's lastest poems are ruminations on growing up in the suburbs, the dangers of inventing - or ignoring - collective identity, and what "home" really means. Not to get ahead of myself, but I think this work is going to be my favorite of anything he's ever done. So while Adam's finishing this fantastic collection, go and peruse his other stuff to satiate your need for good words.

• Still loving 'Little Children'. I can't tell you how much I loved this movie, far and away my favorite of the year. I'll be cheering heartily for it to win Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars. Kate Winslet is her typical brilliantly glorious self, Jackie Earle Haley is a revelation, and the writing is the best I've seen on film in forever. I wish the downtown theater would bring it back in time for the Oscars, but this is ABQ, so I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, Google "Little Children" for a wealth of goodies, including interviews (don't miss anything featuring director Todd Fields), long think pieces on suburbia and infidelity, and more. Yum yum yum.
  

That Gene Grant magic

Maggie laughs:
Gene will cringe at that headline, but I can't help it, because Gene's one of my favorite people in town (okay, on the planet). Plus, the man just is magic, isn't he, Albuquerque? So since he's so magical, you KNOW you want to watch him do his thang (as he always says) on KNME, Channel 5, TONIGHT!

Here are the details for the show:

ELECT NEW MEXICO 2006: Decision Day
7:00 - 9:00

Host: Gene Grant
Panel: Margaret Montoya, Whitney Cheshire, Steve Lawrence, and Mario Burgos
Guests: Michael Rocca, Timothy Krebs, and Lonna Atkeson from the UNM Political Science Department

Featuring:

• A segment with Matt Farrauto from the Ds and George Buffet from the Rs, along with student reps from each party
• Gene's interview with Nancy Pelosi and another with Roy Blunt
• A blogger segment with Scot Key, Mario Burgos, and Sophie Martin
• Cut-ins from the BBC and the Newshour
• Tape of a mock debate at Jefferson Middle School (Scot Key's class!) between Wilson and Madrid

Now that's just too much fun for two hours, isn't it?!

Election 2006: Dare I predict?

Maggie says:
...Nope. Well okay, but only a little bit. :-)

Local races are too personal, too (literally) close to home, too big, too... everything. So instead, I hide in the national races, perfect for my wonky, big-picture sensibilities. Yet as we know, all politics are local, so here are the only things I'll say about in-town races:

• Voting is a breeze. Been getting calls from friends all day who say they were in and out of their polling place in record time. There was so much angst over those long early voting lines, but let's face it: twelve voting locations for an entire city = lines; citywide voting locations = decentralized ease. So go vote! I'll be heading over in an hour or so myself...
• Sorry, Mary. I'd already decided I just couldn't bring myself to vote for Mary Herrera for Secretary of State, and then I saw the Alibi "endorsement" of neither candidate and busted out laughing. I'm leaving that one blank; I just have to. People I care about are confident she'll be a fine Secretary of State, and I know she's from the Valley and all... but as a Bernalillo County voter for the last four years, I'm not exactly confident. Enough said.
• Poor Jim. The Land Commissioner race really disappoints me... and I agree with other local bloggers who say it points to the disconnect folks have between environmentalism and their own lives. This gap will continue to get wider as our environmental problems worsen, and we should all worry about that. Baca v. Lyons represented such a clear choice between philosophies, and I really regret that the majority of New Mexicans seems to be favoring an oil/gas/sprawl man rather than a true advocate for public land.
  
• Madrid/Wilson. Can't do it, and those of you who know, you know why... It'll be tight, and it'll all depend on turnout, and that's about all I can say right now.
  

Onto the national scene:
Whew! This is where I'm much more comfortable... I've spent a week doing not much besides obsessing over the latest polls and reading way too much about candidates whose names I'll promptly forget tomorrow, so it's time for tonight to HAPPEN already.

If you're unlucky enough to be on my e-mail distribution list, you already received my exhaustively nerdy House and Senate spreadsheets, where thanks to the goodness of Pollster I've compiled averages of all the latest polls per race along with an outcome category: "Lean Dem," "Toss-up," etc. Going through the numbers race by race, it's hard not to foresee huge Democratic victories tonight... But being realistic, I'm not going to go all-out rosy in my predictions. So here we go:

• House. I'm going to go with 25 pickups. Look through Pollster yourself and you'll see how astronomical some predictions could be, simply based on the lastest polls. But haven't we all been disappointed enough in the past few years by predictions v. outcome? This time I'm choosing to be pleasantly surprised tonight... hopefully. 25 seems reasonable.
• Senate. This will be verrrrry interesting to watch tonight. My prediction is picking up 5 seats, but I can't break that number down at all. Race-by-race I've chosen six pickups, the magic number. Yet I know one of them will fall, one of them will be the "should have won" race that just won't be able to pull it off in the end. Which, I don't know. But I love McCaskill's spunk and Jon Tester makes me want to move to Montana just to vote for him, so how could I predict one of them going down? I've lost hope for Ford in Tennessee, but I'm still predicting Dem wins in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Virginia. I could see Rhode Island falling, maybe... Not sure, but one of them likely will, and we'll get five. And that's not a number to be ashamed of.

So what's on tap for tonight? I'll be joining other fellow bloggers at the Democratic party at the Hotel Albuquerque. M-pyre fave Gene Grant is hosting election coverage on KNME from 7:00-9:00 (featuring the lovely Sophie Martin, among other guests), and all our big-hair newscasters will be on the scene everywhere, I'm sure. Where are you going to camp out?

It's going to be a long night... but a fun one, I hope.

I want to wake up tomorrow and SMILE... don't you?

Sushi time

Maggie says:
My oft-mentioned pal Saleem has a charming video on his blog that is likely to:
A) Inspire cravings for sushi
B) Spark wonder and appreciation for other cultures
C) Cause confusion as to how suburban North Carolina could possibly produce someone like Saleem*
D) All of the above

Watch "Sushi Time" featuring Saleem: friendly narrator and Apex High's "Best Personality" back in the day.

*Not a dig. The old high school crowd always wonders this. Not to mention how "The Peak of Good Living" produced the rest of us, too.