text:
Kyle Hyams Interview
The Full Kyle Hyams Interview, now with more zaniness and pizazz.
A person's style in wakeskating is quite revealing. It not only proves to the viewer that individual's view of what riding means to them, but it also is an uncanny reflection of a person's inner character; something that is not revealed in too many other ways. Style is subconscious: it seeps out from an individual's mind and manifests itself in the feet of wakeskaters across the globe, oftentimes without them even knowing. It's not hard to recognize what Kyle Hyams is all about when watching him on the water. He cares more about the portrayal of his riding then almost anyone I've ever met, and will not be satisfied with something on the water unless it is exactly how he wants it to look. What's amazing is he can actually make it happen. I could even recognize his style while answering these questions: precise, calculated, and to the point.
AW: Kyle, where did you grow up wakeskating at?
Fort Lauderdale. South Florida.
AW: Come clean now, were you a strapper first?
Yeah, I strapped for about three or four years, but it was never consistent because I never had a boat. There's no lakes or anything that people down there live on, so you hit up canal ways, and the people that had the boats don't go out much or they stopped riding so I couldn't really strap on a regular basis.
AW: How old are you now?
Twenty-four. You didn't check myspace?
AW: When did you end up moving to Orlando?
Summer of '02, right after I graduated [high school].
AW: Just came for college pretty much, to wakeskate and stuff?
Yeah, 'cause right that year I started wakeskating, really got into it. And moving to Orlando is just incentive to try to ride more.
AW: Alright here's a good one. What's most important to you: contests, magazines, videos parts, or street cred?
Damn that's really hard. It'd be close between media and street cred. Because, I mean, having a good image is just as important as having a good video part or getting good shots or even doing well in contests. But I mean, I would have to say the media is probably the most important, because that's an important issue. I mean there are riders that are really big contest riders, but in my eyes, the riders that I think are good, or do or should get more credit, are the guys that are killing it in the magazines and the videos. But I mean street credibility is just right up there as well, 'cause I mean if the kids don't like you then that's that!
AW: Alright, alright. Favorite trip you've ever been on for wakeskating?
I'd probably have to say Brostock last year at Smith Mountain Lake. It was a fun time, and it was like the first LF trip I've been on, with everyone together. It was fun just relaxing and partying with everyone, when everyone was out of "serious mode." Having all the big riders in one spot at the same time is usually just like for a contest, so it's not the same. But, yeah, it was a real laid back atmosphere, just shooting a bunch of photos and videos with like Joey Meddock, and Keith Lant, he was out there. I think it kind of like pushed my relationship with Liquid Force a little bit, because after that I started getting a little more love from them.
AW: Well speaking of which, what's it like being on a team with Liquid Force, I mean if you're going to talk about top brands, they're obviously up there…
Yeah, Liquid Force is definitely up there, and getting recognition and being with them is pretty rad. I mean, they're all really cool people in the company. So I mean just having people like that is cool to work with, easy to talk to and all that.
AW: I mean you're on the same team as Aaron Reed, Danny Hampson…
AW: You're in good company.
Yeah, I guess it's cool just in part being on a team with those guys, especially Aaron and Danny.
AW: What's your favorite location you've ridden at?
Smith Mountain Lake is pretty awesome… that and Lake McClure in California, not too far from Lake Don Pedro, where Malibu does their boat shoots and all that. Wide open lake, calm water, just way different from any typical Florida brackish water.
AW: What was that for?
The Alliance Coming Up trip last year, we were on a houseboat, but it was on Lake McClure.
AW: Have you seen Homeless?
No, not yet.
AW: Darn, I was going to talk about that.
AW: It's just really good.
You should have brought it over.
AW: I should have.
I'm horrible at videos. I mean, the most current video I've watched was Esoteric. That and Volume Issue 2, maybe… That's pretty bad.
AW: Let's talk a little bit about your riding. I notice that you lean more towards a stylish type of riding: your riding is really focused and precise on all the different aspects like pop and flow every time you do a trick, rather than going towards crazy technicality.
There's no right or wrong way on your flow or your style. It's just like an extension of your personality, sort of… I mean, having technical tricks is awesome and everything but you know like… (long pause). I don't know I've always just liked having more of just a solid flow.
AW: Yeah, it just feels good.
Rather than just like having crazy hammers that might not work as good, you know? (pause) Did I really answer that?
AW: I don't know, it's all your opinion. I think you answered it.
Well…I don't know let me think about it real quick … it's partly of just how I ride. But I'm real self conscious about my riding, and sometimes if I'm not really feeling a trick or like when I'm watching footage, if I don't do it right, or how I envision it to be right, it's hard me to watch it. So that's why I kind of try to make every trick look good and solid. Not half-ass, basically.
What in your opinion is the greatest/most progressive invention in wakeskating so far?
Is that pee on the floor? (cleans up his dog's pee)
So you thought about it a little bit and…
Let's come back to that, that's a pretty deep question.
AW: What are you different inspirations and motivations, and different things that get you stoked to go ride?
Riding with other people is big. I'm fortunate enough to be friends with a fair amount of guys who are killing it in the sport, if not now then very soon only because of the fact that they're not getting coverage. Guys like that really pump me up to do tricks. Even just sitting there and envisioning a trick gets me motivated to go out there and do it, or try to do it how I portray it.
AW: Oh absolutely.
A good video part, that'll definitely do it. Even going back and watching skateboarding videos, that really does it for me. Not just any skateboard videos, either, like certain ones. Skate More was a good one. I just saw Fully Flared and that was crazy.
Yeah! I had that written down I was gonna ask you…
Yeah, and Stereo's Way Out East. I think like those guys on Stereo ride, how they portray skateboarding, I think that's kind of how I kind of portray my riding. Not like the craziest, most technical tricks, but ya know, they can hit the hammers. And they make it look good and flow.
AW: Back to this: Most progressive invention ever in wakeskating.
The most progressive invention ever in my eyes is the winch, for sure. 'Cause that just opened up a whole 'nother door or three of ways to wakeskate and make it more like skateboarding, because now you can hit ledges, you can hit gaps, you can hit drops. I mean, more skate simulation, you could say.
AW: Have you ever slid a cement ledge?
AW: Darn, me neither. I want to so bad. What do you like to do to get better at wakeskating, what do you do to make that happen. What do you attribute your progression to?
Riding. First and foremost, riding. Riding, and making yourself try the trick … a lot. If there's a rider or there's a trick like how I would want to do the trick, or if someone does a trick that inspires me to want to do it that way, then I look at how they do it, and like analyze it. Even just going back to watching it in my mind and envisioning it…that's another way too, 'cause that makes me think about the steps involved in that trick.
AW: What is one of your favorite things about wakeskating? Ya know…it can be anything.
It can be anything?
AW: Just what makes you happy when you wakeskate?
(pause)… Landing tricks. Landing tricks feels good. As of recently, landsliding, that's been pretty fun, just getting whipped into a patch of grass and just goin' for it.
AW: What's your favorite trick to do.
Bigspins. Frontside and backside… I think we should go back a bit about that last question…
AW: Favorite thing about wakeskating?
Yeah… favorite thing about wakeskating. Hell, just ollieing. Everything about it really: being on top of the water, popping over rollers, carving… I don't know. Yeah. I mean you take some funny falls. The falls can be fun too. So I don't know, I don't think there is one aspect I don't like about wakeskating.
AW: Well that answers my next question: I was going to ask if you have any annoyances in wakeskating? I guess it doesn't have to be negative…
Yeah, I got a couple annoyances… Falling backwards is never a fun one. Especially like if you're not wearing a good vest, like when the foam inside the thing is not properly set. If it's not stitched and it gets all bunched up, I hate that. You go all hunchback… Also, if you're wearing a top or a wetsuit, and the impact of the fall is hard enough to where you shoot water into your wetsuit, or like your top will flip backwards… so like when you get up you look like you have fat arms, ya know, like jiggling arms? Um… winter water. Cold, cold water. And it's always colder in Clermont.
AW: Yes, it is, that is true. That is a downfall.
I believe that.
AW: Toe Jam. Your thoughts.
Hmmm… I don't know. Cutthroat. That's my thought. Cutthroat.
AW: (Laughs) What's that mean?
Because, it's like… I don't know…
AW: Brutal?
Yeah, it literally is brutal because … not like physically. But I mean, if you don't make it out of your qualifying heat… and most cases now like each heat is pretty stacked. I mean at least the heats I'm in 'cause I usually pull the crap cards.
AW: Get lucky?
No, that is the complete opposite of lucky, really. But, I mean, it's good for the sport. Ya know, the whole tour thing. But yeah, the competition, at the heats I've been in this year…
AW: Who's always been one of your favorite riders to watch, and who inspires you in wakeskating?
Aaron Reed.
AW: Aaron Reed in both of them?
Yeah. I mean, seriously he does. Andrew [Pastura], he's been killing it. Even just watching video footage of him…it's pretty wild.
AW: What are some up and comers you know about, who's coming up?
Andy P. I don't know, I mean the kid…you know you live with him. He literally lives and breathes wakeskating, and that's it. Yeah…wild. So, he's gonna dominate everyone.
AW: (Laughs) What advice do you have for kids getting started into wakeskating, and also kids that want to make a name for themselves?
Well, shit, first and foremost, have fun with it. If you're not having fun with it you might as well not do it. I would say know the roots, for sure. Especially when it comes to learning tricks. Get the basics, kids that learn flip tricks first and can't even backside 180 or three shove or big spin, not saying that those tricks should come first, but it's good to have a good repertoire under your belt. I think attitude, really. 'Cause you can come up there and claim tricks and make yourself look like you're the shit but people aren't really going to be into you or really want to talk to you.
AW: What's it going to take for wakeskating to be more of a "profession" so there can be professional wakeskaters that don't have to work a job? It seems like every other boardsport has money.
Well, that's the thing, the money. But it depends on where the money is coming from. I mean sports like skating, surfing, snowboarding, they all have large, large companies that really back the riders. Ya know, like the big guns, basically. And what big guns do we have in wakeskating? DVS, they were more one of the big companies in there. DVS is an awesome company and it's awesome what they've done to support wakeskating. There are a lot of companies that surface, but then they just come and go. But really it's just having those companies be into wakeskating and want to support it, and want to even make a budget for it. I mean Nike's doing it. And that's not just for wakeskating, that's for wakeboarding, too. It also legitimizes wakeskating in itself, when a company would go so far as to draw itself into our industry.
AW: What are your thoughts on Orlando?
I mean, it is what it is, really, ya know. Anybody who's anybody in the sport is gonna be here eventually.
AW: Think so? I don't think that's healthy though.
Well, maybe not actually residing here, but spending time here. There are guys that travel here for a certain amount of time then go home. Guys that spend summers here then go home once the summers up. You don't have to come to Orlando, but I don't know, it just so happens that a lot of shit happens here.
AW: Name a trick that you can't do and one that you refuse to do.
The trick that I want to do still is a freakin' flip trick. I'm still trying them, but just haven't come up with it yet. And the trick that I refuse to do…any sort of shove-it while on a rail or down a rail. Like in the middle of a rail? That's just absurd.
AW: Absolutely. What do you see in your near future, what do you hope to be happening five years from now, what do you want to be doing?
Well, first of all, still riding for sure. Maybe doing a little better in the contests. Contests are still pretty important, that's one thing I want to do. Just, ya know, making a good name for myself…
AW: Street cred…
Street cred, for sure… Also want to get new tricks, too. Pretty much a positive outlook on it all.
AW: What would you say is your greatest personal accomplishment in wakeskating so far?
Greatest accomplishment would have to be my cover for Alliance. First of all, I didn't even know I was getting it. Getting a cover is crazy, ya know, 'cause there are so many other good riders out there and a lot of them might not even get a cover. So I mean, I consider myself pretty lucky for that. Thankful for sure.
AW: How do you want to be remembered in wakeskating?
I want to be known as a stylish rider with good flowing tricks. Good style of course. I want to be a good ambassador of the sport.


text:
'Desperate Housewives' Shawn Pyfrom Pens Open Letter: 'I Am An Alcoholic & A Drug Addict'
In the wake of Philip Seymour Hoffman's death by apparent drug overdose, actor Shawn Pyfrom, best known for playing Andrew Van de Kamp, the gay son of Marcia Cross's character on Desperate Housewives has posted an open letter admitting to his own battle with drug addiction.
In it, the 27-year-old actor and artist pleads with others to "Hold on to your life."
Here's a short excerpt Pyfrom's Tumblr blog:
i just read the news about mr. philip seymour hoffman, and against the advise of others; i had to write this open letter. i can't stay quiet anymore about this…
i am an alcoholic and a drug addict.
and yesterday i celebrated five months of sobriety. i'm relatively new to being sober, considering the scope of time that i've been an addict. but within that scope, this is also the longest i've been sober; since i began using. i'm not sure what to approach first, with regard to this letter — my head is still spinning from the news. i even question whether or not i should publish this, as i type out these words. but if these words can encourage someone to hold on to their life… to keep from ever using, or to find the strength to stop; then it's more important that these words are shared. i've considered what's at stake, for myself, by sharing this - but i find myself without regard for that. i won't allow my selfish needs to get in the way of potentially reaching another human being's life.
Head over to Tumblr to read Shawn's full blog post, which we feel is quite honest and brave.
What more can i say about my marriage problems which has been existing for the last past 2year looking for solution every blessed day for my marriage rescue until one day on the website i saw a testimony share by someone on how a great man rescue her marriage and i also contacted same email i saw there and guess what today my marriage has been finally settle by this great man spell after casting a reunion spell for me with the details and the amount he required to purchase the items to cast the spell and the reason while am sharing this is because the spell really work for me and i believe it will work for you too if you try him just as i did when i was dieing slowly within me contact him on firstname.lastname@example.com or call him on +2347060552255
This article inspired me. I am now 2 days sober (with money to buy alcohol) and having not done so. Other than that I have been drunk every night for at least the past 7 years. The only other times I went to bed sober were when I had absolutely no money to buy it, and nothing to sell to get some.
This is the hardest thing that I have ever done, compared to this, my quitting smoking 25+ years ago was nothing. I had patches then. There is no patch for Alcholism, a disease that I have. Meetings on past attempts and not finding a comfortable sponsor that I could trust meant that I just went back to what I know. What I knew is that being drunk stopped my mind from thinking about anything and everything and that I could fall asleep.
I will admit that it's hard to fall asleep so I got some Melatonin that is good for sleep and that although it takes a while to fall asleep now, waking up clear headed is a better feeling. Thank you Shawn for your letter to me. Yes, I believe it was for me, because it hit me hard and made me really think about it.
Again, thank you Shawn. Big hugs from Robin.
Greetings to you that is reading this testimony. My name is Queency, I have been rejected by my husband after three years of marriage, he left me and the kids, One day when i was reading through the web, i saw a post on how Dr.Zabaza have help a woman to get back her husband and i sent a mail to Dr.Zabaza for help to his email address and he told that I will have my husband back within 48 hours, I believed him and today i am glad to let you all know that this spell caster have the power to bring lovers back, because i am now happy with my husband. Dr.Zabaza email is firstname.lastname@example.com or all +2348182620374
Mr. Shawn thank you for your honesty. You never know who needs to hear our stories, just know it touched someone. I have learned to thank God for waking me up each morning cuz not everyone did today, then I ask myself am I going to be held hostage by my ego, or an I going to be a host to Gods Grace and mercy? By asking those two questions closes the loophole of justification we are so good at. The guys sponsor do the same. I or we never have to drink or shoot dope again if we surrender every part of our lives daily, help someone else, attend the rooms on a regular basis, go thru some suggestions and traditions (12 of them) with a person who's done the same thing and be honest to yourself and others. Coming from a molestation, abuse background in church and at home I never thought I would talk about God. I now freely talk about God who continues to show up and show out! After 40 years of wreckage, I had my last drink and IV drug use on September 28, 2006. I'm a blessed man with no desire to be "that guy" any more. Thank God we don't look like what we've been thru! Good Luck to you Shawn, keep it pushin and stay in the middle.
Louie Smith, Alcoholic/Drug Addict in Dallas, Texas
Congrats Shawn, I am glad you published your letter, and congrats for 5 months clean. I am in recovery and I recently celebrated 7 years and I used for well over 25 years. I got clean at 40 and I could never have imagined the life I have today. Your open letter will help so many people and your compassion for others is awesome. I felt compelled to write an open letter today on my facebook page. Check it out if you get a chance. Rock on Brother!!
On Feb. 6, 2014 I will complete my one yr. of sobriety. I could not had done it without the help of AA. I tried on my own to quit, only to end up drunk and wasted again and again. Anytime I here of someone dyeing because of alcohol or drugs.. I understand what they were going through, but I also wish they would had made it through the doors of a 12 step program. I am grateful for AA and my sponsor and the blue book. . I will pray for you and for all those still suffering. i remember the first meeting I went to. Somebody said "you can get lock up, covered up, or sobered up." I think about that all the time when I think about having a drink. the 1st. Step. does not say.. you have to admit that you are an alcoholic or and addict. The first step says. We addmitted we were powerless over alcohol-that our ives have become unmanagable. One day at a time.
I applaud Shawn for sharing his story! A week from today, I will be seven years sober. When you overcome your addiction, your life gets so much better. You always have to fight the urge to relapse, but over time, it becomes more of "want to fight" rather than "have to fight". Shawn, I hope you have many happy years ahead of you.
Thank you for your powerful witness to the disease so many of us share. Only by coming out of the shadows are we given the great gift of helping others, and your writing will do just that. Perhaps it will save a life tonight, tomorrow, or at some point in the future. Perhaps it will save your own. We in the recovery community are grateful for you honesty, integrity and strength. Know you and all of us are in my prayers. Every blessing.
Thank you for such courage....the loneliness only leads to darkness..a darkness that words can not describe. Right now somewhere in the world a mother sits at her son or daughter's bedside as they die as a result of an overdose. I have no words to make it better....I am tired of witnessing such a scene...the .all I can wish is peace and love to the families left behind...and if you are using....stop and consider the effects of what you do. There is always someone who loves you.
I too have suffered the battle with addiction and although many in AA feel strongly we must remain anonymous, I have always felt that rigorous honestly was a better path for me. I did embarrasing things when actively using but I am not embarrased to admit what I have been through and am working to fix. My hope too is that someone in pain who battle with addiction will hear the words and join us in sobriety.
On January 24th I celebrated 3 years of being clean and sober and my life continues to improve and through the program, I am treating the issues that drove me to drugs and alcohol to escape the feelings I have had all my life.
I commend you on your five months and for having the strength to share.
Bill C
Positive Strokes for Your Willingness to help others & in turn, Yourself! Keep Up The Good Work One Day At A Time. Saying "Please" every Morning ... & "Thank You" each Night ... is a Powerful Tool ... as Is Reaching Out, Giving a Call, Talking to Others With Experience Whenever, Wherever You need to find Them. Repeating The Serenity Prayer, Watching My "H.A.L.T." & Keeping Coming Back, It Works, If I Work It have also been a help ... Along with some Regular Reading. I also was very young when I began this whole New Journey of Living & Last Friday Celebrated 33 years Living In Sobriety Happily, Healthfully, Positively, Constructively, Sanely & Humbly with the Constant Help of A Loving Power Greater Than Myself. Peace & Best Wishes!
I applaud your efforts to overcome your addictions in order to reclaim your life. It makes me so angry when gifted people with all the wherewithal throw away their lives and their God given talents. Such a tragic waste.
i hope you find peace and strength in your difficult fight and I wish you success and happiness.
First, we need to support Shawn cus he needs this now.
Winnipeg feels this too Philip Seymour Hoffman's death mourned in Winnipeg - and having lost a few in the local movie industry recently, this adds to our awareness of life's fragility and the importance of mental health and personal efforts to overcome demons. Shawn is trying to overcome his - hugs.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Ok ladies. I am in agony! I am in desperate need of some advice. My son is 5 months old and I have an oversupply problem. It wasn't a big problem until he began sleeping through the night (11-12 hours). I do a combination of pumping and nursing. I have been trying to not pump when he sleeps but the last three nights I have been in so much pain I could cry. I am so desperate that I'm considering stopping BFing because I am in so much pain. I want to continue but I am at my wits end. I tried block feeding and I ran into the same problem. I can't go that long at night. The last two days Nolan switched to a 4ish hour schedule between feedings. I am trying to only pump exactly what he eats from my breasts. I am pumping both sides. I am not coming close to draining them and I am always really tender even right after. It almost feels like it is getting worse. i am paranoid about getting mastitis since i frequently get plugged ducts. I read that block feeding should start with empty breasts and I have also read the opposite. How long will it take for my body to catch on that I don't need all this milk? I have been using the lowest pump setting.
Please help!
Thanks so much.


text:
The debate about whether or not evolution is 'real' or not is one with which atheists and theists alike will be familiar. I recently received a very well written and nicely produced pamphlet attacking 'scientific myths', including evolution: pointing out that there is no complete consensus on how evolution works, and that there are gaps in the evidence. Within discussions of the validity of religion, such debates are, however, something of a red herring – evolution has no relevance to considerations of the veracity of religion.
Yet by engaging atheists in debates about evolution, and evidence and arguments for and against, theists are distracting from this simple fact. More seriously, there is a danger that this debate sets up an implication of an 'either/or' situation, which is clearly not the case. Humans always want certainties – that is why they invent religions and argue strenuously about evolution – but the argument over the certainty of where life comes from should not distract from the certainty that really matters: there is no god.
I give credence to the theory of evolution, because it is afforded widespread scientific/academic credence, there appears to be plenty of evidence and it seems to me to make sense. However, that position could arguably also have applied to various ('scientific') beliefs in, say, early Christian times that are no longer taken seriously, therefore:
Can I personally say with absolute certainty (that certainty with which I can say that there is no god) that evolution, as we currently understand it, is a fact of nature? No. Does that have any bearing on the simple fact that there is no god (or does it indeed have any relevance to discussions of this matter)? No.
Perhaps we will eventually be able to produce an account of evolution in all its features and workings that is completely accurate and incontrovertible. Perhaps we will have to alter or expand our current understanding substantially to achieve this. Perhaps a more differentiated alternative will be developed. Perhaps we will never know entirely and exactly how we arrived at our present state as a species. Do these possibilities have any bearing on religion? No.
There will almost certainly always be things that we can't explain, and humans evidently feel the need to formulate answers to questions that preoccupy them, to the best of their (often feeble) abilities.
I'm not arguing against scientific endeavour (on the contrary - I'm an academic), just keep in mind that you don't have to 'prove' evolution to disprove god. Put simply: there is no need for a definite alternative to disprove god – it's not an either/or situation: however the universe began, and however life developed, god does not exist.
Views: 882
Crafting a label that sounds elitist isn't the way to make the public accept us. I'm well aware that the label 'Bright' replaces the label 'Atheist'.
I like being an atheist. It says what I don't believe in. I hate the label 'Bright'. It's an evasion, which I find vaguely dishonest.
Doesn't matter if they are elitist or arrogant. That's the impression given by the name they've chosen. This is an image issue.
We already have positive labels: skeptic, rationalist, secular humanist, and others. Trying to slap a positive label on what is an opposition position puts us in the camp with the Pro-Lifers, which I always refuse to call by their chosen label. Plus, 'Bright' just sounds silly.
I think what can be argued is that although I see your point, it really only makes sense in the confines of a debate or discussion on the question 'does god exist'. In the real world, learning the theory of evolution is far more important than answering the question 'does god exist'. I think that the reason there are so many non-believers in the scientific community isn't necessarily because they came into their fields as atheists or non-believers, it's that the science they learned shrunk god until it disappeared. (god of the gaps). In the same way, teaching our kids as much correct science as possible, will lead to this end, and creationists know this.
We will never be able to disprove god, we just to convince more people to not believe in it.
Evolution is not irrelevant. Did not man evove from a primordial goo to the sentient creature he is today.
Dare I say that without evolution there would be no progress since the dawn of time. The invention of the wheel is a direct evolutionairy product of the 'drag stick'. The computer is a direct result of the abacus, in evolutionairy terms. The airplane is an evolutionairy product of Wilbur and Orville Wrights experimwnts with the bicycle. And the list goes on and on ad infinitum. Evolution is an inevitable and parallel history of man.
© 2019 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: The Nexus Group. Powered by


text:
- Home
- News
- Sports
- Opinion
- Obituaries
- Features
- Special Sections
- Classifieds
- Public Notices
Occupational course of study students at Brunswick County Academy are on their way to sweet success.
For the nine students on the occupational course of study track, diploma requirements extend far beyond the classroom. About 900 hours of work experience must be completed in addition to regular coursework.
A student-based business is a requirement for the students, where they learn skills and strategies that will prepare them for "the real world," Karen Babson, BCA school base chairperson, said.
"The goal of the business
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the The Brunswick Beacon, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
|ZIP Code:


text:
Wholesale Service Solution
We currently have experience in apparel, marine/aviation parts, automobile parts, motorcycle parts, heavy truck/bus parts, and Service Parts.
If you don't fit into that list, give us a try because our systems can work for just about anything!
Complete Online Order Process
Searchable Databases:
Superseded Part Numbers/Cross-Referenced Part Numbers
Ability to Import Existing Stock Orders/Quick Order Forms
Customer Email Confirmations
Real-Time Order Processing
Quantity-On-Hand Available
Bill of Materials Look-Up by VIN #
Integrated Drop Ship Catalogs
We charge a one-time setup fee and flat monthly hosting fee based on the size of your catalog.
For more information on Parts123 Wholesale Services,
please call us at 800-203-9966.


text:
Jobless Claims Fall for First Time in a Month
The number of people applying for first-time jobless benefits fell to 346,000, the first drop in four weeks. Michael Casey explains the importance to the markets. Photo: AP Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the the ... I use this one on jobless claims the Americans when the unemployment line and were expected her to go straight to Michael Casey is getting joining us I'm Kelsey Havre thanks for joining us here on the news of this morning ... Michael thanks for being here I'm ... not a trend last week the numbers might not and it looks like a safer than a little bit ... of relief unit has lost its way to the gym for three and five thousand which was the ... cotton only to meet its general three fifty three cc number that we've been saying for some time ... of course unit and around the time this ... very point jobs report that followed the following five it's a ... lot of concern about that but market and decreases between Hamas fighters jobs report was an anomaly on on ... to the fact that we've now drop back in the three forty six thousand of which is good news because ... I mean is is ... helping the news ... bullish perspective it's a ... you know what last Friday all all all around much time has really weigh ... that much richer and ... maybe it but my isn't that prevents people are really to hang on to some of the data coming out to really see him for getting a grip on the resistance that if it is Allison Port Melbourne this as a way so what to what the ... defense reading this is a bigger bite on now on when the Fed chief Ben Atkinson in the minutes the most recent meeting ... so ... when they should or shouldn't be ... a ... payback on on the bonbon from the night to support ... the euro fell asleep in the right and that the yen and down numbers as well Yelp blossoming into it's it's like to do I'm sick visited the Lucky NAB's these important ground target numbers ... I'm in a tastebuds with this one she was teeny and women with very close to one hundred mark with the need for three days non stop paying for Chinese went on to some extent ... we we got the keys with five nine nine eight three we just unable to break through it is a feeling that a lot of people out ... of protecting their positions to let that put options in to take positions around these big numbers and such ... you don't want to trigger those options mean epic comeback in stock from ... selling the Yin to get up and to those who ... would want that happens find ... the and checked in at the dainty a rising tide of the general consensus is that we will at some point breakthrough that number ... that deal will be some sort of impact when that happens ... I'm ... this is all because of the Bank of Japan's aggressive new types of policies which seemed weakening the yen ... and this is happening in sync with the Dow ... another very strong that it's time to free them now this week ... I aam pushing up within the ranks of the fifty thousand options to acquire mock driven up the folly forty coming to an end to its number of their strong run and I inhale my seen a God that I'm you ... know a couple hundred points away from that to not quite as buses here in the yen but it is here ... on Osram numbered to to to get excited about that love is an alum said about my doctor wanted us to take the fifth pitcher PCS is one of them ... Deutsche Telekom is as the views would not it has been ... attempting to use ... it to buy this company has its roots to it's it's um team of all units ... a lot of resistance from shareholders is that was to Mr. stingy deal I'm in a couple of big buys includes a prophecy buys is this is done a good deal ... to to shareholders ... so new digital content that can sweeten the deal last night ... I'm most importantly reducing the interest cost ... did did did did did that and that the new company with half the day which means the equity value what it what the ship other than to type in a deal ... will rise ... cheers up a little hard to distill some doubts with ounces enough to win over those proxies to ... oppose the deal the state ... um seconds of Yum Brands ... mugs and the trade name to it that I'm ... a hot time in trying to motivate the steak N M says that the ... Fed had ... been weak weak earnings to a week with revenue in China ... I was the last quarter ... I've been just as important a runner just in March is that most people in the very recently that had a big scale costs and intense see outlets IVV GM foods to ... pick the good news that the Yum Brands' China is a huge pot of full color very important ... and anything this of ... snacks of of good food doesn't Finnriver however to SLC the one Series Sires the epidemic this anything like that and there's people I know you're looking at that some retailers the ... floor as well as his view of the month up to the same store sales today so that we get we get that that the monthly reports from various retailers ... on how things are looking on ... still the stall comparison basis ... I'm ... Costco's were out they will ... opt ... for posting This Elsa but that's the really bad and I was sure of what we what it was written to five point two percent rise ... gap ... also out those filled what people want to say that stock down from eight to ten month month and reviewed ... I'm so this is doing this and really nemesis is often the cuts in its appeal one also had the results out and people optically happy with ... the outlook for the giving revenues all-out mop to clean right numbers of the retailers hit the spot a few more to come so this is that ... I like to thank you so much thank you to save


text:
Yesterday Kirby and I had a mini garden party on her patio, complete with New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, four kinds of cheeses, olives and fig compote. I wore the green skinnies (because why not)? But I also love this color scheme for an outdoor spring rendezvous in the garden. What would you ladies wear?
1 / 2 / 3 / 4


text: Cheer on your beloved Bucks all season long with the latest Milwaukee Bucks gear and merchandise from NBAStore.com! As the official online store of the NBA, you can count on us for a huge collection of new Milwaukee Bucks apparel and gear for men, women, kids and any Bucks fan out there. Whether you're searching for Milwaukee Bucks jerseys, t-shirts, Bucks hats, or Bucks playoffs gear, we have it all for you here at the NBA Store. Shop for your favorite Bucks player gear or jerseys from all the most popular players, like Jabari Parker and Giannis Antetokounmpo, or feel like you're a part of the team by personalizing your own custom Bucks apparel. Also, be sure to get your hands on the latest Bucks merchandise to round out your collection, including Bucks collectibles, memorabilia, accessories, gifts, and other exclusive merchandise. Order your favorite Bucks gear today and visit the official NBA Store regularly for great discounts, free shipping offers on top Milwaukee Bucks apparel and the newest arrivals of gear and merchandise for all Bucks fans


text:
|Aimee Teegarden, Nicllas Braun and Jonathan Keltz in MuchMusic, Toronto, Canada
|Aimee Teegarden (born in 1989)
Aimee Teegraden is serious in her work and about her success as a filmstar. She, upon her appearance on MuchMusic's New.Music.Live in Toronto, Canada, with Nicllas Braun and Jonathan Keltz, talked about "Prom".their new film.
'Prom' features a group of teenagers gearing up for the big dance -- only this time, that doesn't mean a choreographed musical number. This new movie is produced by Disney. The main stars are Aimee Teegarden in the role of Nova Prescott, Jonathan Keltz as Brandon, Nicolas Braun as Lloyd and new comer but promising Thomas McDonell as Jesse Richter, an archtypical "bad boy".
In this Disney's high school dramedy 'Prom,' director Joe Nussbaum follows several intersecting stories replete with all the twisting emotions that the high schoolers face along the way. 'Friday Night Lights' hottie Aimee Teegarden stars as Nova, the class president and prom committee chair, as she attempts to ensure the night goes off without a hitch. But as the elaborate prom-posals mount, Nova's still waiting for Brandon (Jonathan Keltz), her perfect guy -- or so she thinks -- to ask her to the dance. And then there's Lloyd (Nicholas Braun), who goes all out trying to find a date, despite having barely talked to any of the girls he asks.
|Aimee and McDonell in Prom
Thomas McDonell who ( he said ) began pursuing acting as "an experiment" and who will next appear in Tim Burton's "Dark Shadows," plays an archetypal bad boy straight out of a John Hughes flick — sensitive, rebellious, and enticingly misunderstood. In the film, though an outsider, he gets somewhat forced to form a friendship/relationship with 'Friday Night Lights' star Aimee Teegarden's character, Nova Prescott. Unlike the theaters the story certainly hit the box and Aimee will be hottie again like Friday Night Lights"


text:
She has asked me to purchase these cookies before, but, being a diabetic, I cannot eat them. I have explained that to her, but she thinks I should buy them anyway and give them away. I agreed to do that last year.
She is selling again this year, and I once again reminded her that I cannot eat them. She has now turned to other relatives for their support. I find that they are buying them, and some relatives have given them to me for Christmas or other occasions when they came to see me. I got the impression that they didn't want them either, so they were "re-gifting."
I hate to be such a Scrooge, but I am faced with a giant guilt trip if I don't buy these cookies. I'm beginning to get angry at even the sight of a cookie box.
Ah, yes. This is what Miss Manners calls Virtuous Rudeness, as practiced and taught by many otherwise worthy organizations and individuals.
Your granddaughter's goal hardly seems noble when it requires pressuring and embarrassing her relatives, even to the extent of ignoring her grandmother's health concerns. But she is 8 years old, and has been led to believe that this is what it means to be concerned about the welfare of others. By having gone along with this, you, too, have reinforced the idea that this technique is legitimate.
Presumably, the activity is intended to teach philanthropy, which is indeed a noble goal, and, incidentally, to teach salesmanship. You would be doing your granddaughter a favor to teach her that the proper way to promote charity is to engage people's sympathies in the cause that will benefit. It might also be valuable for her to learn that pressuring people to buy things they don't want is ultimately bad for business.
This will not be easy. The child has been garnering praise for doing the opposite, and may be aware that many adults do so as well. But it would be a noble goal to set.Fame in the family
DEAR MISS MANNERS: One of my children is a very accomplished, high-profile woman. Since she went to high school in our community, her name is well-known here.
Many times, when I am introduced to strangers and they realize that I am her mother, they will say to me, "Please let me know when she is in town. I would really like to meet her."
How do I say politely, "Why do you think she would like to meet you?"
Of course, I don't say that, but I sure would like to. Can you suggest a pleasant way to get this message across?
Not that message. You would be doing your daughter no favor to be rude to her fans.
Rather, Miss Manners suggests that you thank them for their interest and say, with a sort of motherly helplessness, "Really, when she comes here, she wants to hibernate. Sometimes she makes a exception and sees a childhood friend, but that's about it."
© Universal Uclick 4/8


text:
Welcome to the CRG Discussion Forum!Forum registration problems: Make sure you enter your email correctly and you check your spam box first. *Then* email KurtS2@gmail for help.Classified ads are not allowed on the forum.
Long time ago (1970 something) had a customer car with thumping & vibration for first couple minutes, but only when it was cold. Always stopped before he got it to the station, about 2 -3 miles. Turned out there was water inside the tire that froze at night, but melted as the tire heated up during use. Don't expect that has anything to do with your issue, but you reminded me of it. Was a pain to figure out, but obvious when resolved.
Dumb question, but does it have bigger tires? I ran into this with my '68 with negative-offset wheels. The tires would rub and "knock" in certain conditions. Just a thought.


text:
Revised GMSF Consultation now Open
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Is anyone really actually bothered about any of this stuff?
I've certainly heard that the sorting office is going to be replaced by a waitrose. As for Wyevale, well I understand that Tesco own Wyevale and are adding supermarkets to some of them
A lady told me tonight, that she had heard that we were going to have three supermarkets nearby. Is this a widely known fact or just a rumour that in addition to Asda at the college, we are going to have a Waitrose at the site of the sorting office and a Tesco at the Wyevale garden centre?


text:
Planning for BlackBerry® 10 Jam and BlackBerry World™ is in full swing here at RIM®. We've seen some questions around the conferences from our developer community, with the number question being, "Which conference should I attend – BlackBerry 10 Jam or BlackBerry World?" (BlackBerry World and BlackBerry 10 Jam run concurrently.)
BlackBerry World (May 1-3) is the ideal conference for learning about the BlackBerry® Solution and connecting with enterprises, wireless carriers, ISVs and industry watchers. BlackBerry World brings together the biggest gathering of the BlackBerry ecosystem to hear the latest on BlackBerry. For developers, there will be dedicated sessions on enterprise app development that focus on the strengths of the BlackBerry platform for building enterprise applications, as well as how businesses can benefit from applications.
BlackBerry 10 Jam (May 1-3) is an opportunity for developers to be the first to get information on the BlackBerry 10 platform. There will be hands-on labs, panels, discussions and time with platform experts. The sessions and labs will be tailored for developers at various levels of expertise. There will not be a track dedicated to enterprise development at BlackBerry 10 Jam.
If you are an enterprise developer specifically looking for more information on building successful enterprise applications, as well as connecting to enterprises with BlackBerry implementations, BlackBerry World might be a better fit. If you are looking for more information on BlackBerry 10 tools and the opportunities of building for BlackBerry 10, then BlackBerry 10 Jam is the show for you.
Some other questions we've received are "Can I attend BlackBerry 10 Jam sessions if I've already registered for BlackBerry World?" and "Will the shows overlap?"
Both conferences have full agendas, so attendees would have to choose one or the other. For those asking "Does my BlackBerry 10 Jam pass give me access to BlackBerry World?" – the short answer is no. That said, BlackBerry 10 Jam attendees will have access to the Solutions Showcase at BlackBerry World. The welcome reception on April 30, the general session keynote on May 1st and the BlackBerry World party on the night of May 1st will be open to attendees of both conferences.
You will need to choose which conference you wish to attend in the registration process. Both are priced differently and buying a BlackBerry World pass will not provide access to BlackBerry 10 Jam.
Have more questions? Please let me know and I'll do my best to answer them.


text:
It's Time Now To Allow Politicians To Do Their Jobs
Anthropologist E.E. Evans-Prichard studied the Nuer, a pastoral people living in the Upper Nile region of Africa, herders who moved with their animals to the tune of the region's rivers. In flood times, Nuer tribes retreated to higher ground, and when the waters receded, the Nuer clans moved to the grassy valleys.
Nuer tribes were constantly crossing paths, and so they could easily fall into conflict over lost animals and scarce forage. Professor Evans-Prichard wrote in the 1940s about the intricate ways the Nuer encouraged cooperation and resolved conflicts.
The Nuer put special faith in a group of arbiters known as "men of the earth." Men of the earth had no formal powers. They couldn't arrest people or make arbitrary decisions. But the Nuer granted these people a kind of local authority to settle disputes. If a fight broke out, a man of the earth could stop the conflict by running between the combatants and hoeing a line in the dirt. If a tribal member was killed in a fight, a man of the earth arbitrated compensation to be paid by the winner to the dead man's family.
The "man of the earth" was a deal-maker, a negotiator, a compromiser. He was the person given the job of representing all the conflicting interests of the tribes.
A man of the earth was a politician.
John McCain and Barack Obama began this campaign running as men of the earth—post partisans who promised to race between the red and the blue, hoeing a line in the turf that would bring the bickering to an end. That's not how these races ended, of course, not just because McCain or Obama changed but because the country didn't.
Over the last 30 years, most communities have grown either more Democratic or more Republican. Through an incremental process of migration and self-selection, people have clustered in like-minded neighborhoods, clubs, and churches.
Migration had consequences. Legislative districts grew more lopsided, and they elected more-partisan representatives. Politicians no longer mediated competing interests in their districts. They represented increasingly one-sided constituencies that grew more extreme in their ideological isolation.
The meaning of politics changed. Voters didn't want men of the earth. They wanted partisans.
Republicans, perhaps, first realized how the country was changing and catered to the division that Americans were creating. By 2008, however, it didn't matter who started it. This was the way we lived. A Guardian reporter in deep-blue Brooklyn found a checkout clerk who wondered, as a "social experiment," what would happen if he donned a McCain button. A nearby shopper admitted she was still concerned about what might transpire on Election Day. "I'm worried about all the ignorant people—I don't mean that pejoratively, I mean uninformed people—who are out there and who will swing it away from Obama," Tamara said.
At McCain rallies, Obama is a "socialist," and a member of the Texas State Board of Education wrote that the Democrat "truly sympathizes" with terrorists and intends to declare martial law if elected. At one East Coast public university, a dean of undergraduate studies sent an e-mail to faculty reporting that there had been "an increase in complaints by students who believe a chilly climate exists for conservative view points. ..." Americans appear ready to end a culture of racism with this election—symbolically, at least—but prejudices based on what others think and where they live run wild.
The earth was what the Nuer had in common. If locusts swarmed or a drought persisted, every tribe suffered. When the grass was thick, they all prospered. They were called "men of the earth," anthropologist Max Gluckman wrote, because "the earth, undivided as the basis of society, (symbolized) not individual prosperity, fertility, and good fortune, but the general prosperity, fertility, and good fortune on which individual life depends."
What do Americans have in common today? Not much. Oh, we share a lot with our neighbors, with the people at our church. Too much, in fact. But we don't know fellow citizens just a few counties over. It takes a "social experiment" in some parts to imagine how it would be to live as a member of a different political party.
The danger the next president faces comes from his single-minded friends as much as his political opponents. Politicians need room to do their jobs. They need the authority to make deals with the other side. This isn't a power that's won on Election Day. It can come only from a people who come to realize that their well-being depends as much on the "ignorant people ... out there" as their like-minded and righteous neighbors.
No, We Didn't: America Hasn't Changed as Much as Tuesday's Results Would Indicate
One week after a historic presidential campaign that ended with the election of a man who billed himself as a post-partisan candidate of a unified America, this country is more divided than it was four or eight years ago. Or, less abstractly, while some danced in the streets over Barack Obama's victory, others bought guns . Here are some preliminary results from Tuesday's election:
• Communities are just as partisan now as they were in 2004.
Most counties in the United States have grown either more Republican or more Democratic since the 1970s . In 1976, 26.8 percent of the nation's voters lived in a county where either Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter won by more than 20 percentage points. The number of people living in these "landslide counties" increased to 38 percent in 1992, to 45.3 percent in 2000, to 48.3 percent in 2004.
On Tuesday, 48.1 percent of the vote came from counties where either Obama or McCain won by 20 percentage points or more.
Partisanship is now more Democratic. Four years ago, 83 million people lived in Republican-landslide counties. Now it's closer to 53 million. In 2004, 64 million people lived in Democratic-landslide counties. In 2008, 94 million people lived in Obama-landslide counties.
That means that blue counties got bluer while red counties paled a tinge. The number of people living in counties that are overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic is unchanged from 2004.
• States are more divided.
Emory University political scientist Alan Abramowitz tracks the growing differences among states. He finds the same divisions in the country as four years ago, "only deeper."
In 1976, the average winning margin in the 50 states and Washington, D.C., was 10 percentage points. In 2000, it was 15 points. In 2004 it was 16 points. In 2008 the average winning margin for the 50 states and D.C. was 17.4 percentage points.
There are more landslide states (where a candidate won by 10 points or more). In 1976, there were 19 blowout states plus the District of Columbia. In 2004, there were 29 blowout states plus D.C.
In 2008, there were 36 landslide states plus D.C.
And there were fewer states where the election was relatively competitive, less than five percentage points. In 1976, 20 states were competitive. By 2004, there were only 11 competitive states. This time out, only seven states had margins of less than five points. (They were Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Montana, Ohio, and Virginia.)
"There may be only one United States of America, as Sen. Obama says," Abramowitz said, "but the divide between the red states and the blue states is deeper than at any time in the past 60 years."
• The division between rural America and urban America grew wider.
In 1976, there was little difference in the voting patterns of Americans living in rural and urban counties. By 2004, George Bush won 59 percent of the vote in the nation's rural counties while John Kerry took 40 percent.
Obama did better than Kerry, winning 42.8 percent of the rural vote overall, and he did much better than that in the battleground states. In Indiana, for example, Kerry won only 31.9 percent of the rural vote. Obama won 43 percent of the rural vote and, with it, the state.
Meanwhile, Obama's vote in the cities jumped dramatically over what the Democrat polled in '04. John Kerry took 51.6 percent of the urban vote. Barack Obama won 57 percent of the vote in the core metropolitan counties.
In a sense, 2008 was the inverse of 2004. Four years ago, George W. Bush tuned up the vote in rural and exurban counties and battled to stay close in urban America. In this election, Obama pumped out votes in urban precincts and then did a bit better than Kerry or Al Gore did in rural and exurban counties.
As a result, the gap between the urban and rural vote increased from '04 to '08.
Republican and Democratic counties were entirely different kinds of places. The average population of an Obama landslide county was 278,601. The average McCain landslide county had 37,475 people.
• Modern political campaigns continue to be designed to increase political divisions.
Obama's rural campaign consisted of finding the "urban" vote in small towns. For instance, Obama held a rally in Harrisonburg, Va., in the last week of the campaign. It was an unlikely place to find a Democrat. Harrisonburg had voted for every Republican presidential candidate since before the end of World War II. The last Democrat to visit that neck of the Shenandoah Valley was Stephen Douglas in 1860.
Obama targeted Harrisonburg because it was home to two universities, James Madison and Eastern Mennonite, and Mary Baldwin College was tucked into nearby Staunton (which also hadn't voted Democratic in more than 60 years). These were likely Obama voters, and so the campaign went after them. The James Madison precinct recorded the most votes ever -and Obama won Harrisonburg and Staunton.
The counties surrounding these two college towns, however, voted for McCain by a 7-to-3 margin.
Obama plucked these college towns from all over rural America. The only county Obama won in southeast Ohio was Athens, home of Ohio University. In western (Appalachian) North Carolina, Obama won Watauga County, home of Appalachian State University. There was one speck of blue in the Idaho panhandle: Latah County, where students attend the University of Idaho.
Political campaigns these days aren't designed to change minds. Candidates target voters who are already likely to support them-and then the campaigns feed these voters more of what they want to hear. That's a strategy that is all about polarization, and it works.
• People kept sorting.
From 2003 to 2007, people leaving counties that voted Democratic in 2004 likely moved to other Democratic counties, according to statistician Robert Cushing's parsing of federal migration data. The trend tended to increase the number of Democrats in counties that already voted for Democratic presidential candidates.
Republicans didn't cluster as strongly over that four-year stretch. In fact, Republican counties in Democratic states got a majority of their new residents from people who were moving from counties that voted for John Kerry. That could be a reason the Republican vote softened in some areas in '08.
This is the Big Sort , the self-selection of people into increasingly like-minded communities at microscopic levels of society.
• Young people clustered, and where they gathered, the vote was Democratic.
People of first-time voting age (18 to 21) increased their numbers in Obama-landslide counties four times faster than in McCain-landslide counties. According to Cushing's calculations, there were 10.5 million 18-to-21-year-old voters in counties Obama won. In McCain counties, there were 6.4 million of these young voters.
The Sort Continues
The vote last week was transformative in a sense. In many ways, however, the election produced no change at all. The country is split in much the same way it was divided four and eight years ago. People continue to sort by age and by way of life. As a result, our communities (and states) are growing more like-minded.
Oh, and there is the continuing and stark racial division in both the geography and how Americans live. In Republican-landslide counties, blacks and Hispanics are distinct minorities. Where McCain won by 20 percentage points or more, there were five Anglos of voting age for every black or Hispanic, Cushing found. In Obama-landslide counties, there are 1.3 whites for every black or Hispanic. Obama counties and McCain counties are very different places.
Liberals and Democrats seem to think the country's divisions have disappeared just because their man won. And it is easy to ignore people on the other side when they aren't your neighbors. But that doesn't mean the country is less polarized-because it isn't.
(Editor's note: This is the final post for Slate 's Big Sort blog. You can read more from Bill Bishop at his Web site covering rural America, the Daily Yonder , and you can read more about the Big Sort itself in his book of the same name.)
Still Undecided? Ask Your Neighbor.
Undecideds don't vote on issues. If they were interested in issues—or even in the personalities of candidates—they wouldn't be undecideds. "They are not radical, not liberal, not conservative, not reactionary," C. Wright Mills wrote in 1953, "they are inactionary; they are out of it." Mills was writing about the torpor of Eisenhower-era Americans, but this is also a good description of undecideds a day before the 2008 election.
How do you get "inactionaries" to vote? Mostly, undecideds split evenly . Or, Pew Research Center's Andy Kohut tells us , half of the undecideds don't vote at all.
In the era of the big sort, the strategy for turning out so-called base voters and undecideds is the same. Politics is no longer about convincing individual voters with long lists of proposals and policy papers. Campaigns move communities of people—neighborhoods, congregations, home-schoolers, hunters—to the polls. And as these "peoples" steam to the vote, they pull along the undecideds in their wake.
"Voting research trends have ... shown that independents are very susceptible to social influence, often turning to others in their local environment for advice on political matters," University of Maryland political scientist James Gimpel wrote at the Christian Science Monitor Web site Patchwork Nation . That makes sense. After all, if you don't know much about HD television, you turn to the neighborhood expert who can guide you through the "dynamic contrast ratios" of a purchase.
"As a result, independents' decision making can be predicted from knowing the viewpoints of those who live close to them," Gimpel continued. "Independents living in neighborhoods and households full of Democrats will be inclined to vote Democratic, and those interacting with Republicans will most often support the Republican. There are, of course, exceptions, but this pattern holds up in highly competitive elections."
A candidate doesn't win independents by moving to the ideological center. A campaign energizes partisans, and they will tow the undecided voters living nearby.
"In this sense, 'base' and 'independent' strategies complement one another and are not mutually exclusive," Gimpel wrote. "When independents begin to pay attention to the campaign, they'll typically turn to the partisans they live among for guidance. By playing to the base, a campaign is also likely to reach independent voters situated in the midst of that base."
Excited people increase turnout. Close races increase turnout. In this sense, both campaigns benefit from the sense that the polls are tightening.
Leaving a Red State Behind Might Turn It Blue
Over the past four years, more than 23 million Americans have moved from one state to another. Statistician Bob Cushing (co-author of The Big Sort ) has been busy at the computer the last few weeks trying to understand how all those Mayflower trucks and U-Haul trailers might affect state results Tuesday.
We don't know who moved. We don't know their opinions or their party preferences. We do know, however, whether these movers came from a county that voted Democratic or Republican in 2004.* Most counties are overwhelmingly Republican or Democratic. So Bob counted the people moving into and out of the Republican and Democratic counties of swing states. What he found are some interesting changes in state populations over the last four years.
For instance, Republican counties in Ohio lost 101,000 people while Democratic counties gained just over 6,000—a net change of 107,000 people in the Democrats' favor. (Bush's total margin in '04 was only 118,000 votes.)
Nevada was a red state in 2004. But according to Cushing's calculations, the net gain in Democratic counties topped 251,000 people. Meanwhile, Republican counties in Nevada lost 86,511 people.
New Hampshire, blue in '04, is still a tossup, perhaps because Republican counties there grew by 56,000 since 2004 while Democratic counties showed a net outflow of 40,000. Maybe that helps explain why John McCain zoomed to Peterborough on Sunday.
Virginia is trending Democratic partly because the Democratic counties in Virginia are growing faster than the Republican counties—a net increase of 32,000 people since the last election.
Some states showed little change at all. Indiana, for instance. Florida and Arizona showed huge increases in the population of Republican counties.
People move. When they do, they bring their politics with them. Over the last four years, there's been enough internal migration to change the vote in a half-dozen states. Those are the places both campaigns are visiting during these last few hours.
(*The Internal Revenue Service releases a file every year showing the number or returns and dependents who moved from one county to another during the previous years. This is a good count of how many families and people left one county and moved to another.)
How Running a Campaign Is Like Building a Megachurch
The model for the modern political campaign is the evangelical megachurch.
This isn't a partisan observation. Both George Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama adopted the basic organizing techniques that many ministers have been using since the 1970s to grow their churches to stupendous size. And why not? They work.
The megachurch was built on an idea born in India by an American missionary. Donald McGavran spent half a century overseas, and he used much of that time to discover the way churches could convert large numbers of people to Christianity. McGavran observed that converts didn't come to the church one by one. They came in groups. And those groups were socially coherent—castes, villages, or families. The key to church growth wasn't in bringing individuals to Christianity but in converting groups, peoples. And these groups would come if they were appealed to as a "homogenous unit."
"The individual does not think of himself as a self-sufficient unit, but as a part of the group," McGavran wrote in this 1955 book,
. People don't want to come to a church where they hear a different language or eat strange foods. "Men like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers," McGavran wrote. McGavran said ministers needed to understand the culture of their constituents and recommended that they use the insights of anthropology to tailor their appeals to homogenous groups.
The church establishment largely ignored McGavran. The missionary arrived in the United States at a time when the pews were crammed with parishioners. The mainline churches needed architects and builders in the 1950s, not some bearded missionary who had spent the last several decades in India. But church membership began to decline quite suddenly in the mid-1960s, and by the '70s a new generation of young ministers was looking for a way to stimulate church membership, to fulfill the Great Commission's call to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:16-20). They discovered Donald McGavran and began to use his ideas to create churches in the "homogenous units" (i.e., suburbs) being created on the edges of cities.
One of those young ministers was Rick Warren, who stumbled across an article on McGavran in an old Christian magazine. "As I sat there and read the article on Donald McGavran," Warren wrote in
, "I had no idea that it would dramatically impact the direction of my ministry."
Rick Warren's story is now megachurch legend. He founded his Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., and he used McGavran's techniques to attract members. Warren did his market research, even creating an anthropological composite of the target Saddleback member. He's "Saddleback Sam," a Docker-clad, cell-phone-carrying white guy who doesn't like organized religion and doesn't like neckties. That was the prototype for Warren's "homogenous unit," and so he built a church where Sam wouldn't have to cross many "barriers" to join. Sam wouldn't have to dress up for church, and he could look into the sanctuary and see more Sams, a "homogenous unit" of churchgoers. Warren stocked up on flowered shirts.
Ministers building these churches realized friends and neighbors were the best recruiters of new members. Like attracted like, which was an organizing tradition among evangelists. When supplicants answering the Rev. Billy Graham's altar call streamed to the foot of the stage, each would be met by one of the evangelist's helpers. The pairings weren't random. Graham insisted that young women meet young women. Older men greeted older men. Graham understood that the best way to cement the conversion was to show new believers a reflection of themselves within the church.
And the most effective recruiting tool was for friends to "witness" to friends their personal stories of salvation (Acts 1:8).
The marketing techniques all turned inward—friends talking to friends about their experiences in a church built for "people like us," which was the title of a popular book on church growth. The church wasn't designed to transform but to mirror a way of life. And the techniques worked.
It took until 2004 for what was common knowledge among megachurch chaplains to become the latest gimmick for selling a president. The Bush campaign in 2002 had experimented with different techniques to increase voter turnout, from door-to-door canvassers to the noxious (and utterly ineffective) robo-calls. Their tests found that personal contact with a voter was good but that an appeal coming from a friend or neighbor worked best. If it was clear to voters that the canvasser came from the same social hive, Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd told me, turnout jumped.
The Republican campaign in '04 recruited neighbors to contact neighbors, and it enlisted respected community members to serve as Bush "navigators," local surrogates for the president. The Bush organizers I talked with in Oregon and Minnesota instructed their all-volunteer canvassers to "witness" their support for the president. "We weren't there to convince anybody," one Oregon organizer told me. "We were there to give testimony of why we were for George Bush. And that's very religious."
The strategy was to reflect voters' beliefs and ways of life back on to themselves, so that the 2004 campaign wasn't as much about the re-election of a president and his policies as it was an affirmation of a local way of life.
The Democrats learned their lesson—they used paid workers who obviously were "not from around here" to do their canvassing in '04—and so this year the Obama campaign recruited an "army of persuasion" based on the Bush neighbor-to-neighbor model.
, the Obama campaign has hunters talking to hunters, women talking to women. At training sessions, "Obama Organizing Fellows"
to develop short, personal narratives that will explain to their neighbors how they came to support the Democrat—to witness.
Neighbors witnessing to neighbors is a marketing technique suited to Americans, who are increasingly sequestering themselves in communities, churches, and clubs with those who share similar ways of life and politics. The churches created over the last three decades have become some of the most politically segregated institutions in the country, a result of an organizing strategy built on the intentional molding of a "homogenous unit."
These tactics aren't designed to "sell" people something new or different but to show that the product (a church, a new concoction of PowerBar, a candidate) embodies the community's beliefs and lifestyle. "The message you've got to send, more than any other message, is that Barack Obama is just like us," Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill told the Obama fellows,
. Exactly.
Politicians have been packaging image from the beginning: McKinley sitting on the front porch, Truman speaking from the back of a train, Madison Avenue selling a new Nixon. In the end, however, the message was the same: "Vote for me." Campaigns today are doing something different. They attempt to manage behavior by creating a social environment that encourages people to vote for themselves. The most important message a campaign has to convey is one of flattery, that the candidate is "just like us."
Self-government, however, is the opposite of self-love. Democracy is about meeting and coming to terms with people who look, talk, believe, and think differently from us. Government might work better if that democratic exercise began for voters during the campaign rather than the day after inauguration.
America's Partisan Reading List
Before last week, every time Valdis Krebs mapped the reading habits of those buying political books through Amazon.com, he found a few volumes read by both the left and the right .
Krebs used data from Amazon to discover the patterns among readers of the top-selling political books. He would find the other books that readers of, say, Liberal Fascism , would buy from Amazon. As he accumulated data, Krebs found that most books were connected to others. People who bought Liberal Fascism also bought The Obama Nation .
The pattern was always the same. There was one group of readers who bought conservative books and another that supported liberal authors. The maps Krebs made of Americans' book-buying patterns pictured two swarms: liberals on one side and conservatives on the other.
There were always one or two books in the middle-books both sides read, connector books between readers who otherwise had little in common. In Krebs' first map in 2003, the connector book was What Went Wrong , Bernard Lewis' book on the Islamic world. The books in the middle would change with the times, but there was always something both sides were reading in common .
Until last week.
Krebs did another run on his Amazon book project, and the swarms flew onto the page, left and right, but the connectors were gone. The two sides read nothing in common. Readers came to the week before the election isolated, separated by walls made out of books.
Krebs' map is worth a few minutes of study. You can see there are fewer books on the red side. That doesn't mean conservatives are buying fewer books, just that they are concentrating their purchases among fewer titles. And look at the book on the bottom left of the red web- Rules for Radicals , Saul Alinsky's book on community organizing. (Conservatives are studying their opponent.) There's a separate cluster of readers of Obama books, people who aren't connected to any of the Bush-bashing books clustered nearby. There are no books about McCain that seem to interest either the left or the right.
Given a choice, people will go to places where their beliefs are reinforced. In a recent study of Yahoo Finance discussion boards, three University of Texas business professors found that stock-pickers cluster. Those who think Apple is going up talk to each other on one thread. Those who think GE will fall even more find their way to the same little spot on the Web. Technology doesn't help people find new ways of thinking or seeing the world -- even when it might be in their financial interest. We still hunker down with those who hold our opinions.
(See " Melting-Pot or Homophily? : An Empirical Investigation of User Interactions in Virtual Investment-Related Communities," by Hsuan-Wei Michelle Chen, Bin Gu, and Prabhudev Konana.)
Morningside Analytics has developed its Political Video Barometer to discover the YouTubes being linked to by liberal and conservative bloggers. Who'd a-thunk the Batman vs. Penguin debate would be a liberal clip (linked to by 82 liberal bloggers but only 14 conservatives)? The 2001 Obama radio interview , in which the candidate talked about the "redistribution of wealth," was linked to by 262 conservative columnists but only 20 liberals.
When the YouTube videos are charted , they swarm, too: liberal YouTubes in one group and conservative videos in another.
And that's the way we live, in more ways than are imaginable. Full-size pickup drivers support John McCain at the same rate as white evangelicals (66 percent), according to a survey by Kelley Blue Book. Seven out of 10 Mini Cooper owners back Barack Obama.
We read apart, live apart, watch apart, blog apart, and drive apart; we are one country that lacks any shared experiences or, it seems, common purpose.
The Stuff in Your Bedroom Signals How You Vote
When Sam Gosling studied the differences between liberal and conservative college students, he and his colleagues went snooping for cleaning supplies. In the dorm rooms of conservatives, they found more cans of Ajax and ironing boards.
In an unpublished paper titled "The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives," Gosling, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, and three other colleagues* looked for the underlying personality traits that defined left and right. Gosling is the author of Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You . He's a specialist in analyzing what the things people have around them say about their personalities and beliefs. When it comes to politics, your stuff does define you.
Gosling's theory is that "ideological differences between left and right are partially rooted in basic personality dispositions." In particular, Gosling and his co-authors hypothesized that liberals and conservatives differed in two major "personality dimensions." Liberals are more likely to be open to experiences. Conservatives would score higher on measures of conscientiousness. Liberals would be more motivated by curiosity, creativity, and diversity of experiences. Conservatives would value following the rules, self-control, and order.
The psychologists conducted three tests, and they all produced evidence that liberals did show more openness to experience and conservatives did tend to be attracted to normality. The social scientists took polls and observed subjects in these tests, but the snooping came when investigators looked for physical clues in dorm rooms and offices.
Conservatives' bedrooms tended to have more calendars and postage stamps. They had more flags and sports posters. Conservatives' bedrooms were neater and better lit—they had more laundry baskets, ironing boards, cleaning supplies, and sewing thread.
Liberals' bedrooms had a greater variety of books (especially books about travel, feminism, and music). They had more CDs and a greater variety of music (folk, world, classical). Liberal bedrooms had more art supplies, cultural memorabilia, and maps of other countries.
These same traits carried over to the work life. Conservatives' offices "tended to be more conventional, less stylish, and less comfortable compared with liberal offices." Liberals' offices were more colorful and contained more CDs and "a greater variety of books."
In summarizing their findings, the four authors concluded, "Liberals did appear to be more open, tolerant, creative, curious, expressive, enthusiastic, and drawn to novelty and diversity, in comparison with conservatives, who appeared to be more conventional, orderly, organized, neat, clean, withdrawn, reserved, rigid, and relatively intolerant." Ideological differences were indeed more than skin deep.
And these personality differences varied geographically across the nation. In an earlier paper , Gosling found that those open to experience were more likely to live in California, Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maryland, and Colorado.
Conscientious states included Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida.
Notice a pattern? Like that all but two of the "openness" states in 2004 voted for John Kerry and all but one of the conscientious states sided with George Bush?
Statistician Bob Cushing found these same differences at the metropolitan level using an entirely different set of data. In a study of how people were sorting by city, Cushing compared personality traits in high-tech cities and low-tech cities. High-tech cities were determined by their tech output and patents per capita. There were 21 cities that placed above the national average in both categories, metro areas such as Boise, Austin, Atlanta, Seattle, Denver, Los Angeles, Boston, and Portland.
People living in high-tech cities were more interested in other places and cultures. They were more likely to "try anything once." They were more likely to be optimistic and to engage in individualistic activities. High-tech cities grew increasingly Democratic in presidential elections from 1980 to 2004 as they collected more people who described themselves as "liberal." (See our book, The Big Sort , for details.)
The 130 cities with the lowest levels of tech output and patent production grew increasingly Republican. Cushing found that people living in these places were more supportive of traditional authority, more family-oriented, more likely to engage in social activities with other people and more likely to attend church. People who described themselves as conservative were more likely to move there.
The differences—political, ideological, and cultural—were growing between low-tech and high-tech metros.
The election next week may well be a landslide. That doesn't mean the basic divisions in the country have gone away. "Political orientation appears to pervade almost every aspect of our public and private lives, possibly now more than in recent decades," Gosling and his co-authors write. "Not only does it describe how we think about and what we value in terms of government and society as a whole, but it also appears to leave its mark on how we behave toward others, travel, decorate our walls, clean our bodies and our homes, and on how we choose to spend our free time."
The Republican Party is likely to end next Tuesday in a shambles. That's when the countdown begins for the time when these basic American differences will re-emerge in our politics.
*"The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives: Personality Profiles, Interaction Styles, and the Things They Leave Behind" was co-authored by Gosling, Dana R. Carney at Columbia University, John T. Jost of New York University, and Jeff Potter of Atof Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.
Which Side Is Trying To Steal the Election? The Other One.
My wife coined the term
to describe a conspiracy that had not yet occurred. It's a future conspiracy imagined into reality.
Well, the prespiracies have started. Republicans are convinced ACORN has hijacked the election by registering legions of Democratic voters (all named Mickey Mouse).
Not wanting to be out-prespiracied, People for the American Way bought a full page in the New York Times with a 125-point, single-word headline: "Fraud." The liberal-leaning group warned that Republicans were attempting to "suppress the vote" with efforts "which are well under way."
Predictions of another Rove-inspired election coup resonate among Democrats. My Democratic neighborhood's Internet newsgroup was buzzing last week with stories about jimmied-with Diebold voting machines, easily hacked vote-counting programs, and tales about how the last two presidential contests had been swiped.
(How liberal is my 'hood? Well, interspersed with last week's election banter was a long-running conversation about how a neighbor should "live-trap" rats that had invaded her house so that they could be relocated. Rats, like cats, we learned, have an ability to find their way back home, so the rodent-friendly neighbor's initial question concerned the distance one needed to transport the vermin before it was safe to give them their rightful freedom.)
Both sides are front-loading conspiracies a week before the vote, apparently in order to make sure next week's election will lack legitimacy for at least half the country. (Maybe 40 percent, given John McCain's current standing.) Nobody wants to end Election Day with the simple admission "We lost."
I'm from Kentucky, so I know about buying votes. It happens. The mayor of Pineville, Ky., was indicted this fall for trading money and drugs for votes. (Pills have replaced a traditional half pint.) The mayor's son has already pleeded guilty. Votes were going for $10 to $20 a pop. A few years ago, across the mountain in Virginia, votes were going for sacks of pork rinds .
But before everyone goes totally over the edge about theft of the presidency, now might be a good time to revisit '04, an election many Ds still believe was pirated. The evidence of this theft comes from the exits polls, which were quite different from the final results. The exits showed Kerry winning by three percentage points. He didn't, of course—he lost by 2.5 percent in official returns—and the discrepancy between what became seen as the scientific certainty of exit polls and the messiness of a full vote count set off a thousand stories about stolen ballots.
The botched exit poll was a mystery, and so Edison/Mitofsky, the outfit that conducted the Election Day survey, set off to discover where things went astray. What they found was a country that has more to fear from division, distrust, and partisanship than election fraud.
The primary reason the exit polls in 2004 were screwy was that Republicans didn't want to talk to exit poll workers. Bush supporters especially refused to talk to younger exit poll workers with graduate degrees, according to the final report from Edison/Mitofsky. (No, the poll-takers didn't wear their degrees on their chests, like Boy Scout merit badges. In our culture, apparently, you can pick out the well-educated on sight.) More Kerry voters talked to poll-takers, and so the results skewed Democratic. The official report didn't speculate on why Republicans skirted the exit pollers, except to say that "in this election voters were less likely to complete questionnaires from younger interviewers."
Republicans may have also been put off by the network-news insignia carried on the poll-takers' clipboards. That's not too far fetched. The Pew Research Center found that Republicans had grown more distrustful of all media over the last decade. Republicans were less willing than Democrats to talk to exit poll workers from "television networks," according to one Fox News poll.
(This story doesn't end so easily. Here is a response to the Edison/Mitofsky report. Meanwhile, Mark Hertsgaard in Mother Jones was not convinced the election was stolen.)
The likely answer to the 2004 election hubbub is that the breakdown in the exit poll wasn't mechanical or criminal. It was cultural. The exit poll was fouled up because some people refused to talk to those they believed had a different political persuasion. And they thought they could tell their political opponents just by looking.
The failures of voting machines are a continuing headache. We all wonder why cash machines spit out greenbacks almost flawlessly but electronic ballot boxes seem to work no better than Crackerjack toys. But constructing a ballot machine that accurately counts votes is a problem with a fix.
It's tougher to mend a culture in which political opponents accept as a given that the other side will steal votes, a culture that is so divided that people refuse to talk to fellow citizens just because they look like they might be voting for the opposing party and where no election result is ever final.
An Election Story for Those Who Like To Watch
Enough already with the words. Think of this as The Big Sort scorecard for the election, several different ways of seeing how the geographic clustering of like-minded citizens plays out in presidential elections.
First, the sort itself . Here we compare the "landslide counties" in the 1976 and 2004 elections. (Landslide counties are those in which one candidate won by 20 percentage points or more, counting only Republican and Democratic votes.) Both '76 and '04 were close contests, but the distribution of the vote changed dramatically over those 28 years.
In 1976, 26.8 percent of voters lived in a landslide county. (Democratic landslide counties are in black; Republican landslides are gray.) In close elections, the percentage of voters living in landslide counties rose steadily. By 2004, 48.3 percent of voters lived in a county where the contest between George W. Bush and John Kerry wasn't close at all. About six of every 10 counties were won by landslide margins in '04.
In 1976, Democrats won the vote in rural America. Bill Clinton broke even in rural America in 1996, and then rural counties went solidly Republican. So did the exurbs. Cities—particularly cities that produced loads of technology and patents—swerved Democratic.
Basically, the more dense the population, the greater the Democratic vote.
One way to track the election is by this rural/exurban/urban breakdown in each state. Thanks to Tim Murphy and the Daily Yonder , we do that in the chart below for the 2004 election. You can see that rural and exurban votes were essential to President Bush's victory.
(For those who wonder about such things, "rural" here are what the OMB and the census classify as "non-metro." "Urban" counties are called "metro" by the feds. Geographer Tim Murphy created an "exurban" category from "metro" counties where 40 percent to 50 percent of the residents live in rural settings. On the bottom line, you can see that rural counties had 17.4 percent of the vote, exurban counties had 9.2 percent of the vote, and urban counties had 73.4 percent of the vote.)
Given The New Yorker 's recent interest in the political significance of ancestry, I wondered why we shouldn't go straight to the source. This map comes from our friends at the U.S. Census. It shows the ancestry group with the largest population in each county. (Ancestry is self-reported.) It's sort of fun to switch back and forth between the 2004 landslide map and the ancestry map. You can see that Democrats didn't do well where the dominant ancestry group was "American." Maybe these are the folks Gov. Sarah Palin had in mind .
Spank Your Kids? You Likely Vote Republican.
While the rest of political journalism continues to parse the electorate by ways of life described by the U.S. census—
Matt Bai gets up close and chummy
with "white guys" in the
over the weekend—we at The Big Sort will consider two measures that are much more telling:
Spanking and shacking.
Yes, if you really want to know how people will vote, forget "white working class" or "single, college-educated women" and find out the important stuff—like whether a potential voter thinks it's OK to give the kiddo a swat.
Mark Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler have done some remarkable (and fun) research into the relationship between child rearing and politics. They saw that the National Election Studies surveys in 1992, 2000, and 2002 presented voters with pairs of attributes. The surveys ask, for example, if voters thought it more admirable if a child was independent or showed respect for elders. Should a child be obedient or self-reliant? Curious or well-mannered? Considerate or well-behaved?
George Lakoff described American society as being divided between "two different forms of family-based morality," the "strict father" and the "nurturant parent." The two political scientists realized these questions essentially fell on either side of Lakoff's division—and given the nature of the survey, they could see if there was a political connection between parenting styles and party choice.
There was. Republicans favored respect, obedience, good manners, and being well-behaved. They were strict fathers. Democrats, meanwhile, were nurturant parents.
Hetherington and Weiler could see this split widen over time. (Thirty years ago, after all, nearly everyone was a strict father.) By the time of the latest survey, parenting styles were a better indicator of political affiliation than income.
The two academics also measured those who favored spanking as discipline for children. They found that the "correlation between traditional parenting practices—the 'spare the rod, spoil the child' approach—and voting for President Bush in 2004 is remarkably strong."
And those styles had a geography. Massachusetts has the lowest percentage of people who favor the switch and the lowest percentage of voters for Bush. Those in Vermont, Rhode Island, and New York were also unlikely to spank and were very likely to vote for John Kerry.
Meanwhile, the spanking states—Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Montana, Alabama, Kansas, Tennessee, and Indiana—are, for the most part, reliably Republican even in this year's Democratic-trending election.
OK, how about shacking?
Demographer Ron Lesthaeghe was mapping changes in family formation in the U.S. when he noticed that "blue" states were different from "red" ones. White women in Democratic Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, California, Maryland, Illinois, Minneapolis, New Hampshire, and Delaware were both marrying and starting families later in life, more like women in Nordic countries than those in Utah, Kansas, and Wyoming. In particular, Lesthaeghe found, the higher the rates of cohabitation before marriage—i.e., shacking—the higher the vote for Kerry.
The demographer said that he "could find no better way to predict the vote for Bush" in 2004 than how people were creating families. The more American families formed like the Dutch, the greater the vote for Democratic presidential candidates. ( Here is one of Lesthaeghe's papers.)
Lesthaeghe, Weiler, and Hetherington aren't saying propensity to spank or to shack cause people to vote one way or the other. Their point is that family formation and child-rearing attitudes are part of a worldview. Our politics today are divided by worldview, not by demographic type. And those divisions are real and deep, as this increasingly bitter campaign attests.
"Little wonder our politics today are polarized," Hetherington and Weiler concluded. "The values of Republicans and Democrats are very much at odds. We do not agree about the most fundamental of issues."
Nor do we live in the same places. Spankers to this side, please. Shackers over here.
Why the Workplace Is Essential to Democracy
"Jennifer" called into the NPR show
to describe a wonderful democratic experiment she and her husband were conducting at the business they own in North Carolina.
Their firm has about 100 workers, and she and her husband believe that "it's important for all of our employees to really be engaged and aware citizens." So Jennifer holds what she calls "lunch 'n' learns" throughout the year. Sometimes employees will lead discussions on issues over the noon hour. (Workers prepare presentations on, say, health care and then talk about the issue from several sides.) During elections, employees may bring in candidates, who are allowed to talk to employees who come to the sessions. No one is required to attend, but Jennifer said her workers like coming to the events.
"We find that when we have things fostered in a really disciplined but civil way, we get people feeling much better about talking about it," Jennifer said. "It doesn't become as heated, but people become educated and engaged."
Wonderful, right? Well, there was an employment attorney on the show who warned Jennifer to watch out. "If Jennifer was my client," said New Jersey lawyer Stacey Adams, "I would probably strongly advise her against doing what she's doing."
There are a "lot of potential problems, even if it's done during nonwork activities such as lunchtime," Adams continued. "I think that if one candidate endorses particular views which are deemed offensive to ... other employees, that could present a problem."
Welcome to America, where a lunchtime discussion of ideas among citizens who might have differing opinions "could present a problem."
Unfortunately, if people don't talk about politics at work, there are very few places left where they might have a face-to-face discussion with those who have a different opinion. Churches are now among the most politically segregated institutions in America. Neighborhoods have tipped either Republican or Democratic, and they have kept tipping as like-minded people have clustered. Even volunteer groups have grown more homogeneous.
Americans love to talk about politics. They just don't find many times when they talk about politics with those who have different political outlooks. (See Diana Mutz's fantastic book
for the details on our country's love of political conformity.) Educated people are particularly skilled at avoiding contrary opinions, according to Mutz, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She writes that Americans with less than a high-school diploma have the greatest diversity in political discussion mates. Those with the most narrow political lives are Americans who have suffered through graduate school.
Democracy is greased with tolerance and understanding, and those virtues are more abundant when people who disagree find themselves meeting regularly face-to-face. John Stuart Mill wrote in 1848, "It's hardly possible to overstate the value ... of placing human beings in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves, and with modes of thought and action unlike those with which they are familiar." It's hardly possible to overstate the rarity with which this kind of exchange happens in America.
There is one place in the social landscape where we are pushed into settings with a mixed political crowd. That's at work. "Of all the contexts with the potential for political interaction, the workplace currently has the greatest capacity for exposing people to political dialogue across lines of political difference,"
The workplace is one of the few settings where people of different political beliefs have to deal with each other, so workplaces are one of the last places where Americans are placed "in contact with other persons dissimilar to themselves." In North Carolina, Jennifer's lunch sessions are the kind of hard, day-to-day work of democratic life that most of us avoid.