@ Juliebird

Yeah. But the pundits assume voters only pick candidates for the most trivial reasons imaginable. It was the crying, or racism, or John Edwards' hair.

Matthews was acting yesterday like the failure of the polls to predict the race in NH was a catastrophe of incredible magnitude. And he's going to get to the bottom of it!!

Being 'about' 9/11 could be fine. The original Gojira was about Hiroshima/Nagasaki. And it's no coincidence that so much anime at some point features the slow-motion destruction of a city. (Although less so now than 20 years ago, it seems.)

I expect the film to be crap, because all of Abrams' TV shows have an intriguing set-up and then pointlessly unravel into nothing.

I've never understood the meme that Hillary Clinton is "shrill." She just doesn't come across that way to me. And I wonder if it's because we aren't use to hearing forceful women in the public arena. (btw, I'm quite undecided between Clinton and Obama, so I'm not a Clinton partisan.)

This is purely anecdotal but: I know a number of teachers and none of them are opposed to testing (or phonics) on principle. But most of them dislike No Child Left Behind because of how it's impemented, at least in Washington State. As it's been described to me, the main problems are:

• High-stakes testing. Testing is fine, but should everything depend on one test in the 10th grade?
• Inflexible criteria. Most of the teachers that I know have large numbers of ESL students, many of them refugees from countries like Somalia and Ethiopia.

Red state? 2004 results:

Kerry/Edwards: 52.8211%

Bush/Cheney: 45.6403%

This year was my first caucus. Some observations:

• Any registered voter can participate.
• The process is pretty straightforward. It took a little over an hour.
• In my precinct, people ranged from very young to elderly, with more women than men. Most were first-time caucus goers like myself.
• The discussion of candidates was respectful and thoughtful. Everyone agreed that both candidates are strong.
• Supposedly it was record turnout. The room was energized, there was kind of a festive atmosphere.

I'm sure the system has flaws, but getting to meet some of my neighbors and have political discourse and participate directly in politics with them was fantastic. And seeing hundreds of enthusiastic Democrats in supposedly Republican Bellevue was a definite plus.

When I was first getting into jazz, the most daunting part was the sheer size of the back catalog. Where to start? It's funny, but I can remember the exact order of the first few jazz albums that I bought, over the course of several years.

• Coltrane: My Favorite Things (At first I mostly liked it for McCoy Tyner's solos. It took me longer to appreciate Coltrane)
• Ella Fitzgerald: Cole Porter Songbook (best of the?)
• Chalie Parker: Savoy Masters vol 1 (loved it, but it sounded so odd!)
• Ornette Coleman: Ornette (took me literally years to appreciate)
• Charles Mingus: Changes One
• Miles Davis: Kind of Blue (instant love)
• Thelonious Monk: Solo Monk (ditto)
• Duke Ellington: At Newport
• Ellingont, Mingus, Roach: Money Jungle

After that I lose track, but by then I was hooked. It's funny, even though my selection was essentially random, I can see how it set the template for my current tastes. Slowly falling in love with Trane ... instant love for Miles Davis (spare and abstract but almost sensuous) and Mingus (the blues! yet weird and dissonant) ... initial incomprehension of Ornette (I finally "got" him when I heard "Shape of Jazz to Come", but by then I was ready, so to speak).

Anyway, to someone who is curious about jazz and doesn't know where to start, just dive in and listen to stuff. The internet makes this 100x easier than it used to be. If you find something you like, listen to more of that, eventually you will branch out (or not, it's all OK!)

Regarding the alleged affair, I'm surprised at everyone who has concluded the Times "must" have some dirt on McCain that they couldn't publish. We're talking about the bastion of journalistic credibility that published Judith Miller, for crying out loud.

That said, please Lord let it be true!!

Obama can orate like MLK, and McCain can get the Sunnis mixed up with the Zoroastrians, and it won't matter.

McCain will win in '08 because he's "tough," and because the MSM whores itself for its corporate masters. I don't care how inspirational Obama's speech was, the "secret muslim" meme will win every time. (Or if HRC gets the nomination, it will be the "secret lesbian who killed Vince Foster" meme.)

Nothing's changed. The press hasn't changed, the lobbyists haven't gone home, the voting population hasn't magically gotten smarter in four years. People vote for the candidate who wears a flag pin and talks the most like a good ole boy.

I was hopeful about this election for a total of about 10 minutes, but now it's just ####ing me off.

@achilleselbow: Hey, leave Project Runway out of this!

The "Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq" was spearheaded by Darcy Burner, who came within a hair's breadth of winning the traditionally Republican 8th Congressional District in WA (my district) in 2006, and is running again this year. I think she's got a real chance, because the Democrats here in the Seattle area are energized (read: P###ed off) like nothing before.

The "Obama is elitist and hates the working class" meme is right on schedule. They did it to Kerry and they did it to Gore. You can write these scripts before they happen.