Ugh.

If you are ever at a New York deli, never, ever eat anything containing breaded chicken or (especially) slices thereof. Because I promise you it is not chicken. More like greasy chicken-flavored rubber that will fill you with loathing upon consumption. I have had this experience in at least 3 or 4 delis that were otherwise at least tolerable.

Moving on ... I love how Wisconsin is, yet again, a battleground state. It trips the hell out of me to see Appleton and Oshkosh and Madison datelined in the New York Times, and even more so, to see my alma mater get a mention. (On that note, this fine publication is also doggedly following the campaign season in Blugold country).

I know that the primary system is designed for the maximium benefit of special-interest groups, and it does drag on for an excruciatingly long period of time. But it does have the side effect of forcing politicians to go to electoral pip-squeak states like Iowa and New Hampshire and Nevada and at least pretend to listen to their concerns. And since there was no coronation after Super Tuesday, the pandering continues. As Lauren Fox of Shorewood, Wis., puts it, "having zoomed from ignored to adored in one day, we might as well put on tons of sparkly eye shadow and enjoy ourselves, because no one will remember our name in the morning."

Of course, being that it's Wisconsin they'll be back to pander some more before the general election. I already miss living in a purple state, at least for now. But I've always had a love-hate attitude toward politics. It's the ultimate reality show, in that it has pretty much the same ratio of reality to utter ridiculousness as most reality shows. But follow it too closely and you'll start to lose brain cells and possibly your lunch.

But to end on a positive note, I the best story I edited today (well, besides the Wisconsin one, which was from the same series) was about the caucuses in small-town Maine. I think Jennifer Finney Boylan has a brilliant take on the Democratic race:

Toward the end of the event, though, someone asked, So what was it like, to grow up as the daughter of Bill and Hillary Clinton?

Well, she said, one day, when she was 6 and living in the governor’s mansion in Arkansas, Chelsea decided she’d like to have a coconut. So the Clintons went out and got one. When they got it home, though, the first family faced the traditional problem when it comes to coconuts: how do you open one up?

Chelsea allowed as how her father and she had gone outside, and thrown the coconut again and again onto the hard asphalt of the governor’s mansion’s driveway, hoping to make a dent. But the coconut, alas, refused to yield.

Finally, Hillary came outside with a hammer.

The point being, Chelsea said, that her mother knows how to solve problems.

In the 2004 election, voters repeatedly said that they’d rather have a beer with George W. Bush than with John Kerry. This election, it seems as if the question for Democrats is this: Whom would you call if you really, really needed to open a coconut? Hillary Clinton, with the Hammer of Experience? Or Barack Obama, with the Machetes of Bipartisanship and Change?