Originally Posted by Linus

I don't know for sure but I suspect the drop in gas prices has less to do with a slowdown here than reduced demand in China.

(snip)

As to feeling isolated I can't remember being continually happy since I was ten or eleven years old; that's the nature of childhood. Being an adult is different, more rigorous.

But I'm happier now than I was in my twenties. I understand how the world works better; you can shape it and make it work for you.

My English professor - a nice old Silent lady - used to say that you're alone in the most important moments: the birth of a child, dying.

Another good post from Linus.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

.. Suburbs and Cities

First of all, there's no such thing as "The Suburbs". There are bedroom communities, edge cities, boomburbs (a dumb name, I know, but I didn't coin it), levittowns (which I'm using here as a generic name for mass-produced postwar planned communities), old money suburbs, and many other suburban arrangements. It's simplistic to make sweeping statements about "The Suburbs" because they're going to evolve in very different ways. A levittown may become a ghetto as its aging housing stock is converted into tenements for immigrants, a bedroom community for young professionals may transform into an upscale micropolis, and an expanding boomburb may merge with a nearby city.

Well, maybe that boomburb won't merge with a city, but with a Metropolitan Statistical Area instead. Or a Micropolitan Statistical Area. See, according to the census bureau, there aren't really any cities anymore. Cities are now understood to be anchors for complex arrangements of interdependent communities, and those arrangements are going to evolve in very different ways based on a lot of factors.

People don't move to generic "cities" or generic "suburbs" anyway, they move to places, and they usually have reasons for doing so. A lot of Millennials are moving to the boomburb of Cary, which is a suburb of Raleigh in North Carolina's Triangle. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to move to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. A lot of Millennials are moving to Brooklyn to rough it in the urban brownfields of Williamsburg. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to rough it in the urban brownfields of Flint, Michigan. My suggestion would be to get past the "city" and "suburb" stuff and start paying attention to places instead.

This needed to be said at some point, and I'm glad you decided on 'now'.

I live in what could be called an exurb, but one that is congealing into a cluster of communities in close proximity to one another. We don't know what the final product will be, but it won't be a city or a town or a suburb. The current financial mess has slowed the process dramatically, and that may be for the best. A lot of assumptions based on suburban models were be challenged by the 'urban village' concept, and the possiblity was emerging that the end product would be a kluge.

I don't either model fits all that well, but some weird blend just might. If it isn't a blend, it may be a new model. In any case, we apparently have plenty of time to get it right.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Good post, Mr. Reed!


Television

In fact, far from being terrified, television executives are excited about female Millennials in particular, because they're avid viewers who are extremely loyal to the programs that they watch and they're more likely than other groups to get their peers to tune in.

...
Suburbs and Cities

Cities are now understood to be anchors for complex arrangements of interdependent communities, and those arrangements are going to evolve in very different ways based on a lot of factors.

Two very interesting points. My 2 millie girls are wired in to a handful of TV shows, and they do identify with and remain loyal to them. All I ever though about it was the marketers getting their fingers in as early and deeply as possible.

As to the suburbs point - this is excellent. As suburbs have simply been how we have done cities for the last 60 years, an awful lot of variation falls under that title. And that variation will drive varieties of outcomes as well depending on the factor operating on the larger economy.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Good post, Mr. Reed!

I'm not particularly interested in the new Great Depression stuff, but I am interested in some of the trends that you seem to be seeing.

Television

The claim that television audiences are aging is something of a myth. What's happening is that people are looking at a decline in youth viewership for the Big 3 networks while ignoring the spectacular growth and profitability of television aimed at Millennials. The median ages for networks like MTV, Disney, The N, Nickelodeon, ABC Family and a number of other youth-oriented networks are solidly Millennial, and some of them are growing steadily even as the number of options increases.

In fact, far from being terrified, television executives are excited about female Millennials in particular, because they're avid viewers who are extremely loyal to the programs that they watch and they're more likely than other groups to get their peers to tune in.

What we may see in the coming years, "Great Depression 2.0" or not, is an increasingly divergent market, with Millennial males drawn toward video games and Millennial females drawn toward cable television. Interestingly enough, a similar split took place among the GIs, with GI males drawn toward the pulps and comics and GI females drawn toward radio soap operas.

You forgot the CW. "Gossip Girl" and "America's Next Top Model" are huge among the tween and teen set. Also, there is the new "90210", "Stylista", "One Tree Hill", and others.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

You forgot the CW. "Gossip Girl" and "America's Next Top Model" are huge among the tween and teen set. Also, there is the new "90210", "Stylista", "One Tree Hill", and others.

Ugh. So much for the theory that progress in a 4T is inevitable. ™

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Ugh. So much for the theory that progress in a 4T is inevitable. ™

And the summer before last (2007), you spent a few hours with one of those Millies who goes for those shows.

By the way, she's going to be one of those mobs of girls lining up to see the new movie Twilight tomorrow evening.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

You forgot the CW. "Gossip Girl" and "America's Next Top Model" are huge among the tween and teen set. Also, there is the new "90210", "Stylista", "One Tree Hill", and others.

You're right, I did! I mean, I literally forgot. I thought of Gossip Girl specifically when I was composing my post. I even looked up whether the right way to write the name of the network was "The CW" or just "CW".

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

Ugh. So much for the theory that progress in a 4T is inevitable. ™

Pft. C'mon... They're young girls! They like young girly things! I mean, not everybody's into tribbles and lightsabers, y'know.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Suburbs and Cities

First of all, there's no such thing as "The Suburbs". There are bedroom communities, edge cities, boomburbs (a dumb name, I know, but I didn't coin it), levittowns (which I'm using here as a generic name for mass-produced postwar planned communities), old money suburbs, and many other suburban arrangements. It's simplistic to make sweeping statements about "The Suburbs" because they're going to evolve in very different ways. A levittown may become a ghetto as its aging housing stock is converted into tenements for immigrants, a bedroom community for young professionals may transform into an upscale micropolis, and an expanding boomburb may merge with a nearby city.

Well, maybe that boomburb won't merge with a city, but with a Metropolitan Statistical Area instead. Or a Micropolitan Statistical Area. See, according to the census bureau, there aren't really any cities anymore. Cities are now understood to be anchors for complex arrangements of interdependent communities, and those arrangements are going to evolve in very different ways based on a lot of factors.

People don't move to generic "cities" or generic "suburbs" anyway, they move to places, and they usually have reasons for doing so. A lot of Millennials are moving to the boomburb of Cary, which is a suburb of Raleigh in North Carolina's Triangle. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to move to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. A lot of Millennials are moving to Brooklyn to rough it in the urban brownfields of Williamsburg. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to rough it in the urban brownfields of Flint, Michigan. My suggestion would be to get past the "city" and "suburb" stuff and start paying attention to places instead.

Agreed. I live in the heart of a West Coast city, but my urban neighborhood looks an awful lot like the Midwestern suburb in which I grew up: single family homes from 1900-1960; large city parks; sidewalks and a grid pattern; leafy streets with mature trees and landscaping; schools built in the 1920s and 1930s; little commercial strips with independent businesses; good public transportation and proximity to downtown. In fact, in the 1920s, my neighborhood was considered a "street car suburb." And if things go as planned, the street cars may come back!

Originally Posted by Neisha '67

Agreed. I live in the heart of a West Coast city, but my urban neighborhood looks an awful lot like the Midwestern suburb in which I grew up: single family homes from 1900-1960; large city parks; sidewalks and a grid pattern; leafy streets with mature trees and landscaping; schools built in the 1920s and 1930s; little commercial strips with independent businesses; good public transportation and proximity to downtown. In fact, in the 1920s, my neighborhood was considered a "street car suburb." And if things go as planned, the street cars may come back!

That sounds like the neighborhood in San Francisco that actually was on the L-Taraval streetcar line.

Just read the reviews at Amazon.com.

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

Just read the reviews at Amazon.com.

For what?

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

For what?

Evidence that we are in a 4T.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Good post, Mr. Reed!

I'm not particularly interested in the new Great Depression stuff, but I am interested in some of the trends that you seem to be seeing.

Television

The claim that television audiences are aging is something of a myth. What's happening is that people are looking at a decline in youth viewership for the Big 3 networks while ignoring the spectacular growth and profitability of television aimed at Millennials. The median ages for networks like MTV, Disney, The N, Nickelodeon, ABC Family and a number of other youth-oriented networks are solidly Millennial, and some of them are growing steadily even as the number of options increases.

In fact, far from being terrified, television executives are excited about female Millennials in particular, because they're avid viewers who are extremely loyal to the programs that they watch and they're more likely than other groups to get their peers to tune in.

What we may see in the coming years, "Great Depression 2.0" or not, is an increasingly divergent market, with Millennial males drawn toward video games and Millennial females drawn toward cable television. Interestingly enough, a similar split took place among the GIs, with GI males drawn toward the pulps and comics and GI females drawn toward radio soap operas.

But television viewing habits of male Millennials are a concern, and have been for much of this decade. Males are more drawn to gaming, it seems. But there is not much programming aimed at Millennial males. They haven't figured us out yet. They seem to understand the females much better, IMO. The science fiction channel should be big, but the problem is that the quality of their shows and movies are worse than mediocre. Adult Swim is still rather popular and aimed at Millennial males, as is Spike TV.

I was never into Power Rangers (just a little bit too old when it debuted), but I was into action and epics. They would need to come out with an equivalent. Even much of the sci-fi shows out are not aimed particularly towards our tastes. This summer, film did well with Superhero Summer, but that has yet to translate into television.

Suburbs and Cities

First of all, there's no such thing as "The Suburbs". There are bedroom communities, edge cities, boomburbs (a dumb name, I know, but I didn't coin it), levittowns (which I'm using here as a generic name for mass-produced postwar planned communities), old money suburbs, and many other suburban arrangements. It's simplistic to make sweeping statements about "The Suburbs" because they're going to evolve in very different ways. A levittown may become a ghetto as its aging housing stock is converted into tenements for immigrants, a bedroom community for young professionals may transform into an upscale micropolis, and an expanding boomburb may merge with a nearby city.

Well, maybe that boomburb won't merge with a city, but with a Metropolitan Statistical Area instead. Or a Micropolitan Statistical Area. See, according to the census bureau, there aren't really any cities anymore. Cities are now understood to be anchors for complex arrangements of interdependent communities, and those arrangements are going to evolve in very different ways based on a lot of factors.

People don't move to generic "cities" or generic "suburbs" anyway, they move to places, and they usually have reasons for doing so. A lot of Millennials are moving to the boomburb of Cary, which is a suburb of Raleigh in North Carolina's Triangle. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to move to a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. A lot of Millennials are moving to Brooklyn to rough it in the urban brownfields of Williamsburg. That doesn't mean that they'd be just as likely to rough it in the urban brownfields of Flint, Michigan. My suggestion would be to get past the "city" and "suburb" stuff and start paying attention to places instead.

I enjoy this post too. My thinking is that suburb and city dichotomy is mainly a social division that has more ramifications in the post WWII saeculum than the prior ones, or the coming one. My opinion is that the suburbs will, in the next saeculum, be gobbled up by the parent cities. This may even happen in St. Louis, which has some of the most extreme suburb/city dichotomies in the nation. The suburb/urban division will ease, and for various reasons, it will not make sense to refer to city boundaries (until the boundaries include the former suburbs), but rather MSAs. So instead of 350,000 in St. Louis, 900,000 in Detroit, 3 million in Chicago, 4 million in LA, and 11 million in Tokyo, the city data by 2040 will show (for 2010) 3 million, 5 million, 10 million, 16 million, and 40 million respectively.

Originally Posted by Mr. Reed

Evidence that we are in a 4T.

We're posting past each other. Which reviews in Amazon should one review for evidence that We B 4T?

The transition crises

Originally Posted by Some guy who won a Nobel prize in economics

Everyone’s talking about a new New Deal, for obvious reasons. In 2008, as in 1932, a long era of Republican political dominance came to an end in the face of an economic and financial crisis that, in voters’ minds, both discredited the G.O.P.’s free-market ideology and undermined its claims of competence. And for those on the progressive side of the political spectrum, these are hopeful times.

There is, however, another and more disturbing parallel between 2008 and 1932 — namely, the emergence of a power vacuum at the height of the crisis. The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now.

Let's just be thankful that the dust bowl hasen't reappeared on schedule...so far.

Jack is Back

Just a minor little sign of a mood shift. The TV show "24" after habitually showing the US government as loaded with incompetents and traitors, forcing Jack Bauer to act above the law and without morality, there seems to be a change in course. A new idealistic president has been elected. Jack is given a chance to save some children.

Just a TV show that has gotten a bit tired and needs a change of pace? Or are the producers moving with their audience?

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Let's just be thankful that the dust bowl hasen't reappeared on schedule...so far.

Well, we've a small echo of it, perhaps. There are some who say the same weather cycles that produce more than usual numbers of Atlantic hurricanes can produce droughts in the US. I've seen it said that the surge in hurricanes we saw a few years back is associated with the drought we saw in the south. That same pattern, shifted a bit west, allegedly produced the dust bowl.

But this is a semi-exotic theory. After encountering a couple of times, I've tried to Goggle to find a link to it, but haven't been able to.

Anyway, to my knowledge, the long term Hurricane cycles aren't tied to the S&H cycles.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

I saw some commercials advertizing layaway while watching "Dancing With the Stars" the other day. Here is an article from Wall Street Journal about it. I actually remember layaways still hanging around in the 70s.


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I remember my mom using the layaway at Walmart back in the early 90's and I always wondered what happened to it. Nice to see it's comming back!

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Good post, Mr. Reed!

I'm not particularly interested in the new Great Depression stuff, but I am interested in some of the trends that you seem to be seeing.

Television

Interesting. I'n not much of a TV viewer, but the shows I do watch (like House, MD and Heroes), I watch religiously.

Originally Posted by Neisha '67

Agreed. I live in the heart of a West Coast city, but my urban neighborhood looks an awful lot like the Midwestern suburb in which I grew up: single family homes from 1900-1960; large city parks; sidewalks and a grid pattern; leafy streets with mature trees and landscaping; schools built in the 1920s and 1930s; little commercial strips with independent businesses; good public transportation and proximity to downtown. In fact, in the 1920s, my neighborhood was considered a "street car suburb." And if things go as planned, the street cars may come back!

That sounds a lot like the old downtown residential area of Moorhead, MN I live in. I just adore all the gorgeous elm trees lining the streets, they arch over the street giving a feel of a green cathedral.

Here is a nice one.

The New Liberal Order

Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008
By Peter Beinart

The death and rebirth of American liberalism both began with flags in Grant Park. On Aug. 28, 1968, 10,000 people gathered there to protest the Democratic Convention taking place a few blocks away, which was about to nominate Lyndon Johnson's Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, thus implicitly ratifying the hated Vietnam War. Chicago mayor Richard Daley had warned the protesters not to disrupt his city and denied them permits to assemble, but they came anyway. All afternoon, the protesters chanted and the police hovered, until about 3:30, when someone climbed a flagpole and began lowering the American flag.

Police went to arrest the offender and were pelted with eggs, chunks of concrete and balloons filled with paint and urine. The police responded by charging into the crowd, clubbing bystanders and yelling "Kill! Kill!" in what one report later termed a "police riot." Across the country, Americans watching on television gave their verdict: Serves the damn hippies right. Democrats, who had won seven of the previous nine presidential elections, went on to lose seven of the next 10.

Forty years later, happy liberals mobbed Grant Park, invited by another mayor named Richard Daley, to celebrate Barack Obama's election. This time the flags flew proudly at full mast, and the police were there to protect the crowd, not threaten it. Once again, Americans watched on television, and this time they didn't seethe. They wept. (See pictures of Obama's Grant Park celebration.)

The distance between those two Grant Park scenes says a lot about how American liberalism fell, and why in the Obama era it could become — once again — America's ruling creed. The coalition that carried Obama to victory is every bit as sturdy as America's last two dominant political coalitions: the ones that elected Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. And the Obama majority is sturdy for one overriding reason: liberalism, which average Americans once associated with upheaval, now promises stability instead.

The Search for Order

In America, political majorities live or die at the intersection of two public yearnings: for freedom and for order. A century ago, in the Progressive Era, modern American liberalism was born, in historian Robert Wiebe's words, as a "search for order." America's giant industrial monopolies, the progressives believed, were turning capitalism into a jungle, a wild and lawless place where only the strong and savage survived. By the time Roosevelt took office during the Great Depression, the entire ecosystem appeared to be in a death spiral, with Americans crying out for government to take control. F.D.R. did — juicing the economy with unprecedented amounts of government cash, creating new protections for the unemployed and the elderly, and imposing rules for how industry was to behave. Conservatives wailed that economic freedom was under assault, but most ordinary Americans thanked God that Washington was securing their bank deposits, helping labor unions boost their wages, giving them a pension when they retired and pumping money into the economy to make sure it never fell into depression again. They didn't feel unfree; they felt secure. For three and a half decades, from the mid-1930s through the '60s, government imposed order on the market. The jungle of American capitalism became a well-tended garden, a safe and pleasant place for ordinary folks to stroll. Americans responded by voting for F.D.R.-style liberalism — which even most Republican politicians came to accept — in election after election. (Read a TIME cover story on F.D.R.)

By the beginning of the 1960s, though, liberalism was becoming a victim of its own success. The post–World War II economic boom flooded America's colleges with the children of a rising middle class, and it was those children, who had never experienced life on an economic knife-edge, who began to question the status quo, the tidy, orderly society F.D.R. had built. For blacks in the South, they noted, order meant racial apartheid. For many women, it meant confinement to the home. For everyone, it meant stifling conformity, a society suffocated by rules about how people should dress, pray, imbibe and love. In 1962, Students for a Democratic Society spoke for what would become a new, baby-boom generation "bred in at least modest comfort," which wanted less order and more freedom. And it was this movement for racial, sexual and cultural liberation that bled into the movement against Vietnam and assembled in August 1968 in Grant Park.

Traditional liberalism died there because Americans — who had once associated it with order — came to associate it with disorder instead. For a vast swath of the white working class, racial freedom came to mean riots and crime; sexual freedom came to mean divorce; and cultural freedom came to mean disrespect for family, church and flag. Richard Nixon and later Reagan won the presidency by promising a new order: not economic but cultural, not the taming of the market but the taming of the street.

See scenes from voting day.

See the campaign in T shirts.

The Receding Right

Flash forward to the evening of Nov. 4, and you can see why liberalism has sprung back to life. Ideologically, the crowds who assembled to hear Obama on election night were linear descendants of those egg throwers four decades before. They too believe in racial equality, gay rights, feminism, civil liberties and people's right to follow their own star. But 40 years later, those ideas no longer seem disorderly. Crime is down and riots nonexistent; feminism is so mainstream that even Sarah Palin embraces the term; Chicago mayor Richard Daley, son of the man who told police to bash heads, marches in gay-rights parades. Culturally, liberalism isn't that scary anymore. Younger Americans — who voted overwhelmingly for Obama — largely embrace the legacy of the '60s, and yet they constitute one of the most obedient, least rebellious generations in memory. The culture war is ending because cultural freedom and cultural order — the two forces that faced off in Chicago in 1968 — have turned out to be reconcilable after all.

The disorder that panics Americans now is not cultural but economic. If liberalism collapsed in the 1960s because its bid for cultural freedom became associated with cultural disorder, conservatism has collapsed today because its bid for economic freedom has become associated with economic disorder. When Reagan took power in 1981, he vowed to restore the economic liberty that a half-century of F.D.R.-style government intrusion had stifled. American capitalism had become so thoroughly domesticated, he argued, that it lost its capacity for dynamic growth. For a time, a majority of Americans agreed. Taxes and regulations were cut and cut again, and for the most part, the economic pie grew. In the 1980s and '90s, the garden of American capitalism became a pretty energetic place. But it became a scarier place too. In the newly deregulated American economy, fewer people had job security or fixed-benefit pensions or reliable health care. Some got rich, but a lot went bankrupt, mostly because of health-care costs. As Yale University political scientist Jacob Hacker has noted, Americans today experience far-more-violent swings in household income than did their parents a generation ago. (See pictures of the 1958 recession.)

Starting in the 1990s, average Americans began deciding that the conservative economic agenda was a bit like the liberal cultural agenda of the 1960s: less liberating than frightening. When the Gingrich Republicans tried to slash Medicare, the public turned on them en masse. A decade later, when George W. Bush tried to partially privatize Social Security, Americans rebelled once again. In 2005 a Pew Research Center survey identified a new group of voters that it called "pro-government conservatives." They were culturally conservative and hawkish on foreign policy, and they overwhelmingly supported Bush in 2004. But by large majorities, they endorsed government regulation and government spending. They didn't want to unleash the free market; they wanted to rein it in.

Those voters were a time bomb in the Republican coalition, which detonated on Nov. 4. John McCain's promises to cut taxes, cut spending and get government out of the way left them cold. Among the almost half of voters who said they were "very worried" that the economic crisis would hurt their family, Obama beat McCain by 26 points. (See pictures of Obama's campaign.)

The public mood on economics today is a lot like the public mood on culture 40 years ago: Americans want government to impose law and order — to keep their 401(k)s from going down, to keep their health-care premiums from going up, to keep their jobs from going overseas — and they don't much care whose heads Washington has to bash to do it.

Seizing the Moment

That is both Obama's great challenge and his great opportunity. If he can do what F.D.R. did — make American capitalism stabler and less savage — he will establish a Democratic majority that dominates U.S. politics for a generation. And despite the daunting problems he inherits, he's got an excellent chance. For one thing, taking aggressive action to stimulate the economy, regulate the financial industry and shore up the American welfare state won't divide his political coalition; it will divide the other side. On domestic economics, Democrats up and down the class ladder mostly agree. Even among Democratic Party economists, the divide that existed during the Clinton years between deficit hawks like Robert Rubin and free spenders like Robert Reich has largely evaporated, as everyone has embraced a bigger government role. Today it's Republicans who — though more unified on cultural issues — are split badly between upscale business types who want government out of the way and pro-government conservatives who want Washington's help. If Obama moves forcefully to restore economic order, the Wall Street Journal will squawk about creeping socialism, as it did in F.D.R.'s day, but many downscale Republicans will cheer. It's these working-class Reagan Democrats who could become tomorrow's Obama Republicans — a key component of a new liberal majority — if he alleviates their economic fears. (See pictures of former Presidents Clinton and Bush.)

Obama doesn't have to turn the economy around overnight. After all, Roosevelt hadn't ended the Depression by 1936. Obama just needs modest economic improvement by the time he starts running for re-election and an image as someone relentlessly focused on fixing America's economic woes. In allocating his time in his first months as President, he should remember what voters told exit pollsters they cared about most — 63% said the economy. (No other issue even exceeded 10%.)

In politics, crisis often brings opportunity. If Obama restores some measure of economic order, kick-starting U.S. capitalism and softening its hard edges, and if he develops the kind of personal rapport with ordinary Americans that F.D.R. and Reagan had — and he has the communication skills to do it — liberals will probably hold sway in Washington until Sasha and Malia have kids. As that happens, the arguments that have framed economic debate in recent times — for large upper-income tax cuts or the partial privatization of Social Security and Medicare — will fade into irrelevance. In an era of liberal hegemony, they will seem as archaic as defending the welfare system became when conservatives were on top.

See pictures of the world reacting to Obama's win.

See pictures of presidential First Dogs.

A New Consensus

There are fault lines in the Obama coalition, to be sure. In a two-party system, it's impossible to construct a majority without bringing together people who disagree on big things. But Obama's majority is at least as cohesive as Reagan's or F.D.R.'s. The cultural issues that have long divided Democrats — gay marriage, gun control, abortion — are receding in importance as a post-'60s generation grows to adulthood. Foreign policy doesn't divide Democrats as bitterly as it used to either because, in the wake of Iraq, once-hawkish working-class whites have grown more skeptical of military force. In 2004, 22% of voters told exit pollsters that "moral values" were their top priority, and 19% said terrorism. This year terrorism got 9%, and no social issues even made the list.

The biggest potential land mine in the Obama coalition isn't the culture war or foreign policy; it's nationalism. On a range of issues, from global warming to immigration to trade to torture, college-educated liberals want to integrate more deeply America's economy, society and values with the rest of the world's. They want to make it easier for people and goods to legally cross America's borders, and they want global rules that govern how much America can pollute the atmosphere and how it conducts the war on terrorism. They believe that ceding some sovereignty is essential to making America prosperous, decent and safe. When it comes to free trade, immigration and multilateralism, though, downscale Democrats are more skeptical. In the future, the old struggle between freedom and order may play itself out on a global scale, as liberal internationalists try to establish new rules for a more interconnected planet and working-class nationalists protest that foreign bureaucrats threaten America's freedom.

But that's in the future. If Obama begins restoring order to the economy, Democrats will reap the rewards for a long time. Forty years ago, liberalism looked like the problem in a nation spinning out of control. Today a new version of it may be the solution. It's a very different day in Grant Park.

Beinart is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations

See pictures of civil rights' ground zero.

See pictures of Obama backstage.

I guess the gun problem is getting solved on its own.

In lean times, SoCal residents trade guns for food

LOS ANGELES – A program to exchange guns for gifts brought in a record number of weapons this year as residents hit hard by the economy look under the bed and in closets to find items to trade for groceries.
The annual Gifts for Guns program ended Sunday in Compton, a working class city south of Los Angeles that has long struggled with gun and gang violence. In a program similar to ones in New York and San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department allows residents to anonymously relinquish firearms in return for $100 gift cards for Ralphs supermarkets, Target department stores or Best Buy electronics stores.
Turning in assault rifles yields double that amount.
In years past, Target and Best Buy were the cards of choice, with residents wanting presents for the holidays.
This year, most asked for the supermarket cards, said sheriff's Sgt. Byron Woods.
"People just don't have the money to buy the food these days," he said.
Authorities said Sunday that a record 965 firearms and two hand grenades were handed in during the two weekends the program was in operation. That's more than in any other year and easily eclipses last year's total of 387 guns collected over both weekends.
Compton's violent history has been chronicled in such gangsta rap albums as N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton." But Woods said most of the residents who turned in weapons were "family people."
"One guy said he had just got laid off from his job," Woods said. "He turned in five guns and said it would really help him to put food on the family's table."
Gun owners dropped their weapons off at a local grocery store parking lot. Deputies checked the weapons to see whether they had been used in crimes, then destroyed them.
The annual drive started in 2005 after a spike in killings, though the murder rate has since dropped.
One man brought in a Soviet-era semiautomatic carbine.
"If that got into the wrong hands of gangbangers, they could kill several people within minutes," Woods said. "Our biggest fear is a house getting burglarized and these guns getting taken."
The drive also has yielded antique weapons.
Gift cards for the guns exchange were paid mostly by Los Angeles County, but the three companies involved and the city of Compton, which contracts the county for police protection, also donated funds.

Originally Posted by 90s_Boy

I guess the gun problem is getting solved on its own.

In lean times, SoCal residents trade guns for food

That's consistent with record numbers of people applying for and receiving SNAP (the Program Formerly Known as Food Stamps) benefits.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/s...0&postcount=42

Sorry about that.

Canada has quietly been engulfed in a historic crisis.

U. S. ignores historic crisis raging here



Posted 2 days ago (December 6th, I believe)

James Blanchard, the onetime U. S. ambassador to Canada, once described his adopted land as "the invisible world next door."

American oblivion about its biggest trading partner was evident again this week as scant few Washington power brokers paid any attention to the historic political crisis raging north of the border.

The New York Times, CNN and The Associated Press were among the few news organizations that regularly reported on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's fight for his political life against a hastily convened coalition of opposition parties.

Only in the immediate wake of Thursday's historic decision to prorogue Parliament did the crisis get much attention from the international media, including The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor newspaper and the International Herald Tribune.

"I Googled the word 'Canada' in some U. S. papers and they hadn't even had stories containing the word Canada in three days, never mind stories about the political crisis," David Biette, the director of the Canada Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said Friday.

An official at the Canadian Embassy was equally mystified that few in Washington seemed to be aware that the Canadian government had been on the brink of being toppled.

"No one seems to have any idea," the official said earlier this week.
In the Washington Post mid-week, an item at the height of the crisis was buried in a collection of foreign news briefs. The paper has run AP copy on its website, but many U. S. newspapers and websites have contained no mention at all of the events.

The Times, on the other hand, gave the story prominent play throughout the week, and the AP has had daily dispatches from Ottawa.

Biette notes Americans are understandably consumed by their own historic events right now. Barack Obama, the first black man to be elected president in U. S. history, will be sworn in on Jan. 20, and officials in D. C. are busily preparing for the inauguration. Spectator stands are already being constructed outside the White House and along the inauguration parade route, security details are being worked out, and thousands of D. C. residents arranging to rent out their homes and apartments at top dollar when millions of visitors flood to town for the events.

Congressional leaders have been preoccupied this week with the plight of the Big Three automakers. The CEOs of all three companies returned to the capital this week to plead for a financial bailout after coming up with measures aimed at running their businesses more efficiently.

Closer to the Canada-U. S. border, some were paying closer attention to their neighbours to the north. Vermont Public Radio host Mitch Wertlieb had a segment on the drama on Friday, talking to a local political scientist about the chain of events.

"If you're one of those political junkies going through withdrawal now that the U. S. presidential contest is history, you can turn to Canada to get a fix of serious political drama," Wertlieb told his listeners.