Demographics

Battle For the 'Burbs

Ron Tang — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:34:00 -0400

* This article is adapted from Reihan Salam's and Ross Douthat's Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream.

It was only four years ago that conservatives -- and a great many liberals -- were convinced that the Democratic party was doomed to become a purely regional institution: "a national party no more," to borrow the title of Georgia Democrat-turned-Bush supporter Zell Miller's 2003 memoir. Pundits brandished county-by-county maps showing blue enclaves drowning in a sea of red; they talked up the growth of GOP-leaning regions and constituencies and the daunting demographic… more

Gay Marriage: The Key to Happiness?

Ron Tang — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 06:21:00 -0400

Who knew? The legalization of gay marriage might make Californians happier. At least that's what a new study based on surveys of 350,000 people in nearly 100 countries suggests.

No, the authors aren't gay activists, nor do they seem to be peddling any particular political agenda. But in their search to discover which countries are happier than others and why, these scholars -- led by University of Michigan political scientist Ronald Inglehart -- have stumbled on one pretty fundamental conclusion about what people want out of life: freedom.

Yes, that's right, more or less the same thing you were celebrating Friday by… more

W. Ralph Eubanks

Operations — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 08:03:00 -0400

FellowW. Ralph Eubanks is the author of Ever Is a Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past (Basic Books), which Washington Post book critic Jonathan Yardley named as one of the best nonfiction books of 2003. He has contributed articles to The Washington Post's Outlook and Style sections, the Chicago Tribune, Preservation, and National Public Radio. Since 1995, he has been director of publishing at the Library of Congress and is currently on a leave of absence. A graduate of the University of Mississippi (B.A.) and the University of Michigan (M.A., English Language and Literature), he is a recipient of a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim… more

Phillip Longman in the Boston Globe | 'A World Without Children'

Communications — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 11:55:00 -0400

New America in the News:
...In Japan, where the fall in fertility rates began early, the working-age population has been a diminishing share of the nation for 20 years. Yet for much of that period, unemployment has been up, not down.

"Similarly, in the United States, the number of people between the ages of 15 and 24 has been declining in relative terms since 1990," demographer Phillip Longman observed in the Harvard Business Review. "But the smaller supply has not made younger workers more valuable; their unemployment rate has increased relative to that of their older counterparts."

Far from boosting the economy, an aging population depresses it. As workers are taxed more heavily to support surging numbers of elders, they respond by working less, which leads to stagnation, which reduces economic opportunity still further. "Imagine that all your taxes went for nothing but Social Security and Medicare," says Longman in "Demographic Winter," a new documentary about the coming population decline, "and you still didn't have health care as a young person."... LINK

The New Woodstock Generation

Ron Tang — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:35:00 -0400

In late May, New York magazine noted a highly unusual advertisement that appeared on Craigslist. A young Brooklyn couple had decided to sell virtually everything they owned, from electronics to furniture to designer shoes, for $8,500. As it turns out, the couple was planning on taking their two young children and setting out for the open road. Two weeks earlier, the New York Times profiled several other couples who had made a similar choice -- to surrender their accumulated possessions and, with toddlers in tow, to leave a dreary, consumption-driven urban existence behind for something nobler and more environmentally sound.… more

The New 'I Do'

Ron Tang — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 05:15:00 -0400

Hold the champagne.

Or at least the California sparkling wine.

This week should be a joyous one for those of us who believe in the right to marry the person you love. A month after the California Supreme Court overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage, gay couples will be able to walk into county offices here and secure the same marriage license to which heterosexual couples such as my wife and I are entitled.

Partners are hastily arranging nuptials, and the wedding-industrial complex of caterers and consultants is anticipating a summer windfall. In San Francisco, Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who are… more

No Gay Weddings In Kern County

Ron Tang — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:14:00 -0400

A few years ago, I heard writer Gerald Haslam explain his struggle to describe the difference between the Kern County burg of Bakersfield and the Bay Area city of Mill Valley, both of which are settings for his novel, "Straight White Male."

"Then it suddenly occurred to me," he said. "There was nobody in Bakersfield who cared whether Tibet was free."

Haslam's remarks came rushing back to me last week with the news that the Kern County clerk will stop performing all civil marriages before June 17, the first day same-sex couples in California can legally apply for licenses.

The clerk, Ann Barnett,… more

Cheney Talks Trash

Ron Tang — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:09:00 -0400

Things are getting complicated. In the same week that a black man clinched the Democratic nomination for president, the current white, Republican vice president was forced to apologize for making a crack that played on the myth that poor white folks like having sex with their cousins.

It probably wouldn't have been a big deal had Dick Cheney not singled out West Virginia, the bluest of the red states. He was talking about having Cheneys on both sides of his family and, he said, "we don't even live in West Virginia." As director John Waters said in 1994, talking trash about… more

Thirty Years After Prop 13, California Voters Supported Tax Increases In Tuesday’s Election

Ron Tang — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 11:27:00 -0400

Voting just three days before the 30th anniversary of the passage of Proposition 13, the landmark Jarvis-Gann initiative that cut property taxes and triggered a tax revolt across the country, voters in the primary election approved dozens of tax increases in local communities around the state.

By my count from semi-official election results available the day after the election, they passed 26 of 32 proposals to issue school and community college bonds; each of these measures, which raise local property taxes to repay the bonds, required a super-majority (55 percent) vote for passage. They approved 13 of 24 proposals to create… more

McCain Is In For a Terrible Shock If He Wins

Ron Tang — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:59:00 -0400

Britain’s Conservatives might be plotting a triumphant return to power but America’s Republicans are in a state of utter collapse. And it’s not just because the tide is turning after two terms of George W. Bush. For better or for worse, the Cameron Conservatives have adapted to a more culturally liberal, urban, diverse society. They have reconciled themselves to the welfare state in a way that Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher never did. Republicans, in contrast, are labouring under the illusion that America remains the yeoman democracy of yesteryear, full of plucky individualists. Slowly but surely, American politics is catching… more