For those who have been checking the blog regularly, I apologize for not posting the last several days. I was felled by the flu early last week. I even had to back out of a speaking engagement last Wednesday because my voice simply gave out.Until I get back into the swing of things, here is some good reading material that I've run across the last few days that should hopefully pique your interest.
Down With Fancy Book Learnin'Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist"... [T]here remains this astonishing and yet ever present fact: all the major cities of America, the great cultural centers and the places with the most concentrated populations and the most extraordinary restaurants and the highest percentage of college graduates and the most progressive laws and the truest sense of the arts and food and sex and music and dance and money and technology and lubricant and drugs and porn and love and fashion and spirituality, well, it seems they all voted blue."Am I Blue?I apologize for everything I believe in. May I go now?By Michael Kinsley in the Washington Post"The election campaign made it official. These are the Disunited States. There is 'Red' America: conservative, Republican, religious. And there is 'Blue' America: liberal, Democratic, secular. Everybody's message from the election results is that Red America won, and Blue America must change or die. ... There's just one little request I have. If it's not too much trouble, of course. Call me profoundly misguided if you want. Call me immoral if you must. But could you please stop calling me arrogant and elitist?"How Bush Won the ElectionKevin Drum, Washington Monthly"So what really made the difference in this election? Most of the attention has been on "moral values" and terrorism, and I was curious to see what the exit poll results showed. So I decided to take a look at the 2004 exit polls and compare them to the 2000 exit polls. ... Overall, despite the hype, the data seems to indicate that conservative moral value voters didn't have any more impact this year than any other year. In fact, if anything, maybe slightly less."
Enjoy!