Color coding.

I was involved in a conversation recently about the whole "red state/blue state" comparison. People from blue states make sweeping generalizations about people from red states, and vice versa, and the whole thing is based on such a small sliver of political information as to be useless.

Imagine this: a man is arrested for murdering his family. He is a brutal sociopath with no remorse. In the course of the investigation it is mentioned in the media that the last thing he did before committing these atrocious murders was sit down to his daily morning cup of coffee. The same day, it is announced that an extremely wealthy philanthropist has decided to hand over all his wealth to a charity organization for AIDS orphans. Billions of dollars are going to be made available to these children; it will positively affect the rest of their lives. In the midst of the story, the philanthropist mentions that the idea came to him over his morning cup of tea, which he has every day. Do we jump to the conclusion that all coffee drinkers are murderous, raving lunatics and all tea drinkers are saintly, generous humanitarians?

It appears that the American media would answer "yes." Based on one political characteristic of a state - which presidential candidate was supported by a majority of voters - newspapers, TV networks, political bloggers, columnists and others have grouped the entire population into two categories. You're a red stater or a blue stater. Forget the fact that you could come from a state that supported Bush for president, but that also has Democratic majorities in both houses of its state legislature. Or a state that supported Kerry for president but has had a Republican governor for fifteen years. And forget the fact that participation of eligible voters ranges from approximately 49% to 77% across the states (http://elections.gmu.edu/Voter_Turnout_2004.htm).

This oversimplification of the political dialogue in the United States is one reason people give up voting in the first place. I know it sets me on a ranting rampage, but that could just be the coffee talking.

In a completely unrelated note, a friend of mine used a term at lunch the other day that was new to me, and I wanted to share it (he may have coined it himself; I googled it and didn't come up with anything in the context he used it in): business roadie. This is a person who sets up audio/visual equipment and/or catering materials for business functions and meetings. I don't have anything to say about this (other than the fact that I've done some of this kind of work as an administrative assistant), I just thought it was a useful and interesting turn-of-phrase and I wanted to pass it on.