Racial Politics and Miss America

Racial Politics and Miss America

FOR many people, the most interesting thing about this month’s winner of the Miss America Pageant, Mallory Hagan, is that she lives in Brooklyn. It seemed so incongruous: a beauty queen from the epicenter of all things ironic and progressive. Newspapers have...
Gay Marriage in South?

Gay Marriage in South?

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) – Same-sex couples stood at government counters in two North Carolina cities on Monday to ask for marriage licenses they knew they would be denied, part of a push across the U.S. South this month to demand equality even...
North-South Split in House

North-South Split in House

To understand the depth of the Republican dilemma that continues to brew in Washington, you only needed to listen to two voices last week. One belonged to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The primal scream he aimed at his fellow Republicans in the 112th Congress, who...
The Fading of the Old South

The Fading of the Old South

Politically speaking, we live by caricature. Particularly in the age of satellite TV news and Internet fulmination, the temptation is to melodrama. So I wasn’t terribly surprised to read a recent article in the online magazine Salon arguing that “even though it’s a...