This is ... just sooooo stupid. Russell Pearce is a loon.

The Wall Street Journal has a neat little graphic featuring poll results from Zogby Interactive. It's interesting. It shows Janet Napolitano leading that homophobe by only 9.4 points, while it has Jon Kyl leading Jim Pederson by a mere 6.5 points. What to make of all this? Probably nothing. Nonetheless, it is interesting.

Well, kids, the Best of Tucson is finally completed, published and making its way to all our hundreds of distribution spots. It's also online and ready to go, along with all the savory goodness that you can find in every issue of the Tucson Weekly. So, enjoy!

-- The latest KAET TV/ASU poll has Napolitano and Kyl holding their enormous leads.

-- It's big news that Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens tried to commit suicide, according to police. But you know who I feel really bad for? His publicist, who was the one who reportedly found Owens trying to off himself. According to ESPN, she is denying it was a suicide attempt. Of COURSE she is. She's his publicist!

-- The University of Phoenix rolled out the dough for naming rights to the Arizona Cardinals' new stadium. Um, seeing as Phoenix is part of the school's name, this could get very confusing.

He says: 

Now listen to this, the UN says that there is more torture going on now in Iraq than when Saddam was in power. And Bush shot back—he said, 'That is just the opinion of one individual who doesn't know the difference between regular torture and freedom torture.'

I made a big delicious spinach salad with cherry tomatoes and flecks of goat cheese the day before the spinach recall. Fortunately, I'm not one of the three people in Pima County who is infected. I was lamenting to a friend and wondering if I would ever feel safe eating spinach again, and she reminded me about the Tylenol and Jack-in-the-Box recalls and how they bounced back because the public has short memories. They also spent millions of dollars on good PR spin machines.

According to the FDA, the spinach implicated in the outbreak was grown in three Calif. counties: Monterey, San Benito and Santa Clara. Spinach grown in the rest of the United States has not been implicated in the current E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. On any given day, the FDA recalls something whether edible or not.

Can you imagine the panic if chocolate was recalled?

Bad news: Aaron McGruder does not appear to be resuming his strip anytime soon. I learned this yesterday, when Universal Press Syndicate called and said that "Boondocks" would not be back, as was expected.

We picked up the strip right around the launch of the Iraq War in 2003, and ran it until McGruder announced he was going on what was supposed to be a six-month hiatus. Of course, considering he has a Boondocks TV show now on Cartoon Network, and considering doing a daily strip can be a major grind, his lack of a return can't be a total surprise.

So, we at the Weekly are debating what to do with that space, currently occupied by "The Last Days of Roland and Cid" and "Tom the Dancing Bug." If you have any thoughts, let me know.

Proposition 107 proponents are decidedly unamused by a Web site, which, according to an article on azcentral.com, is a spoof. For those of you who don't know, Prop 107 is Protect Marriage Arizona, which would deny legal recognition of relationships outside traditional man-and-woman marriage.

Prop107.com asks people to take a "Straight Arizona Pledge" and outlines the Center for Arizona Policy's future legislative goal of defining the terms "man" and "woman" in the state constitution.

The Web site says such a definition would go something like this:

1. Be it enacted by the People of Arizona:

2. 1. Article: XXXI. Constitution of Arizona is proposed to be added

3. as follows if approved by the voters and on proclamation of the Governor:

4. ARTICLE XXXI. GENDER

5. OF ALL ARIZONA CITIZENS IS SUBJECT TO VERIFICATION

6. BY THE STATE, AND SHALL BE SUBJECT TO CONTEST BY

7. ANY OTHER CITIZEN BY FILING A DISPITE (sic) WITH THE

8. MINISTRY OF GENDER. THE MINISTRY OF GENDER HAS

9. FINAL AUTHORITY TO DETERMINE GENDER BY USING THE

10. PRESCRIBED METHODS IN THIS ARTCLE. GENDER MUST BE

11. VERIFIED BY THE MINISTRY OF GENDER PRIOR TO THE

12. ISSUANCE OF ANY MARRIAGE LICENSE.

13. 2. A man must have a natural and fully

14. functioning unaltered human penis and testicles. A

15. woman must have a natural and fully functioning

16. unaltered human vagina and ovaries.

17. 3. Upon contest filed by any other Arizona

18. citizen, the citizen in question must pay for a

19. mandatory genetic screening not to exceed $10,000. If

20. citizen refuses such screening, they will be

21. ineligable for marriage and referred to the Ministry of

22. Gender for gender restoration."

A poll on Prop107.com claims to show that out of 20,000 married Arizonans, 58 percent said their marriage was special to them "because gays can't have it." Similarly, 54 percent said the most likely thing to break up their marriages was "the legalization of gay marriage by activist judges"—with adultery, incarceration of a spouse, abuse and financial difficulties far less likely to cause a discontinuation of their marital bliss.

Check it out, because it could be gone soon. Nathan Sproul of the real Proposition 107 campaign is reportedly planning to ask the Secretary of State's Office to investigate.

-- Is there a more worthless person in this world than Nancy Grace? Seriously. Is there? I can't think of one. Even the people who write "Thorns and Flowers" have some worth, even if it involves unintentional humor.

-- C.T Revere may be right that John McCain is standing up to George W. Bush on the prisoner-treatment issue because of values. However, I am still having trouble respecting McCain because of his snuggling up to Bush during the last presidential campaign. Oh, and for speaking at schools run by bigots. And for supporting hateful crap like Prop 107 and Len Munsil. Seriously, the next time some cretin mainstream media outlet calls him moderate, I may snap.

-- You may now take that bottled water you bought at the airport kiosk on the airplane. Sigh.

Happy Jewish New Year, or Shona Tova, as some like to say.

I am a lapsed Jew.

I grew up in a kosher home with religious parents who ardently followed all the traditions and directives without question. Somewhere along the line, both my brother and I failed to move forward with that belief system, which really happened to a generation of us. My brother often lights candles on Friday night for Shabbot. My only Friday night tradition that I do with any regularity is to leave my computer on so it goes through its Norton Anti Virus scheduled program of looking for bad things that may have attacked my livelihood.  

This year Jewish New Year coincides with my sixth anniversary in Tucson. It's hard to believe that I've only lived here six years, but I think surviving six summers is somehow akin to animal years which is why I feel like I've lived here much longer. I think I've been writing Noshing Around for 3.5 years which does not seem like dog years.

Jewish New Year is a time to reflect (I just did), to clean out your closets and in this case, to unclutter my desk. Eat, drink and be merry. Your day of atonement (Yom Kippur) is right around the corner.