Wow, I really, really needed something to be optimistic about today. Congratulations to Mayor-elect Parker.

Well, the urban vs. non-urban distinction is certainly true. BUT I live in Atlanta, and while everybody in Georgia thinks Atlanta is a Big Gay Liberal Mecca, and while it is liberal in relation to the rest of Georgia, it’s not terribly liberal when it comes down to it. So I’m just saying that when people label Georgia as conservative, I don’t feel compelled to protest and say, “Yeah but Atlanta…”

As far as the red/blue lines go, of course, it’s true that Atlanta goes blue, but as you well know that’s not really the same as being liberal. Voting Democrat doesn’t make this city any more livable.

I’d like to point out that the area along the U.S. border is not really urban anywhere except El Paso, yet all but 3 districts that touch it are blue, along with the most southern tip along the coast.  So the map shows that urban areas and areas of heavy Mexican descendant population tranded blue for the election it represents.

Anyway, congrats to Annise Parker and congrats to Houston for making people’s heads spin.

Echoed.

They hope the word “believe” puts their bigotry into the Religion Zone, therefore above criticism.  Well, I say fuck that.  If you’re going to be a bigot, fucking own it.

Agreed. It doesn’t even really make sense saying you “don’t believe in it.” This isn’t like Santa Claus. People are gay. Deal with it.

I’ve never replied before, but this is spot on.

The urban vs. non-urban thing though neglects the Hispanic border areas (which look very blue on that map, and I’d imagine outside El Paso and the Gulf cities that they’re rural).

I also think that Texas has looked more conservative than it is at the Presidential level because in 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004 there were all Texans on the ticket, and they were Republicans.

Anyway, Texas an Georgia are the only big states the Republicans have left in the Electoral College. If they lose them in 2012, they’re screwed forever.

That map reminds me of this:

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/427-the-politics-of-the-stød/

Modern day voting patterns often contain relics of ancient political or cultural disputes.  The causus belli for the US-Mexican War was a boundary dispute over (roughly) that mass of blue counties along the south east border of the state.

I was pretty sure that Parker was going to win as soon as I saw that flyer that Pam posted with the scary, scary picture of two conservatively dressed, middle-aged lesbians (Parker and her partner) who look like grade school teachers.  I’m guessing most people looked at that and thought, “Wait, I’m supposed to be terrified of them?  Is this a joke?”

Rea—

On the national level, this seems to be the cause of the “solid south” phenomenon where the former CSA, with only a few exceptions, goes for either one party or the other since the Civil War. When they don’t, it’s still only the periphery of the Confederacy that breaks rank (like in 2008 with VA, NC, FL).

It would be nice to see that map with the boundaries of the gerrymandered congressional districts shown instead of counties.

While the urban/rural divide is certainly a big part of the partisan divide, I think there is a way in which red states and blue states tend to be really different - how the suburbs vote.  Throughout the country, rural areas and exurbs tend to be Republican, and larger cities tend to be Democratic.  But, in bluer areas, the major suburbs tend to be Democratic, and are increasingly so - look at Fairfax County, Virginia, for instance, which used to be moderately Republican, and has now become a Democratic bastion in the state.  Or the Philadelphia suburbs, which made the same move about a decade earlier.  There are some exceptions (Orange County, California, for instance, remains largely Republican).  But, basically, in solidly blue states, the major suburbs have become Democratic.  In solidly red states, they’ve remained heavily Republican.  Swing states like Florida and Ohio are a mix.

jlk7e—

Yeah, Fairfax County used to be very much a red county, funny how quickly the Republican Party has gone down the toilet up there. They only have one Republican in either House of the General Assembly in the entire County, and he only represents a tiny southern fraction (most of his base is in Prince William County).

I think the key to that is Republicans used to actually win ethnic groups like Asians and East Indians, which there are a lot of in Fairfax County, but their swing over into natatvism sent them running to the Democratic Party.That and it’s a highly educated area, and the Republicans have a whole industry of anti-intellectualism now.

Ben Alpers, was Frank Keating that bad for a Republican? I’m just asking because I heard Dick Cheney hates him, so…

Point taken, other Ben.

Oh, here’s another exception, kind of the mirror opposite of Oklahoma to the rural/urban divide: Upper New England generally, and Vermont in particular. Extremely, extremely rural but uber-liberal. Only one county in all of New England went for McCain.

So I guess whenever someone says “I believe in you” they must just be stating the obvious.

As a resident of Houston, the funny thing is that Locke is a bit more liberal than Parker on just about any issue.  Especially transit and land use, but even having the city provide domestic partnership benefits for its employees, which Parker is against.  Yet conservatives backed Locke because Parker is a scary lesbian.

Don’t be silly, stormhit.  That’s clearly shorthand for “I believe that what you’ve just said is true”, and parallel constructions for Amanda’s example of “I don’t believe in homosexuality” clearly don’t work.

Reminds me of a conversation my dad had with my younger brother:
“Do you want mustard on your hot dog?”
“No! It doesn’t exist!”
“...What?”
“I don’t *believe* in it.”

Of course, he was seven years old at the time.

I second the congratulations and best wishes to Ms. Parker.

The misuse of “I believe in” is a pet peeve of mine, too.  Like, “I don’t believe in foreign cars” instead of “I don’t believe in buying foreign cars.”  I was annoyed at John Lennon for his “God” song, saying he didn’t believe in various things like Hitler, Elvis, Zimmerman or Beatles.  All those people existed. Yeah, his point was to shun myths larger than the real thing, to believe in oneself, not the God-like or Satan-like mythology we invest in icons.  Of course, the Zimmerman reference was doubly annoying because his point seemed to be that he would believe in Zimmerman but not Dylan.

I’m just saying that when people label Georgia as conservative, I don’t feel compelled to protest and say, “Yeah but Atlanta…”

Seconded. 

I’ve lived in New York, Worcester (near Boston), LA, San Francisco, New Orleans, Austin, and Dallas.  I can tell you that liberals in New Orleans, Dallas, and Austin (yes, even Austin - sorry to break the bad news) are staid moderates to center-right when compared to liberals in New York, Boston (and Worcester), and San Francisco.  This is probably in best evidence when you compare transit systems, acceptance of LGBT people, and programs to assist low income residents.

The Democrats that win elections even in urban Texas and Louisiana would not make it as Democrats in New York, New England, or North Coastal California.  (Well, maybe a Democrat in urban Texas would make it as a Democrat in Fitchburg or Southbridge Massachusetts.  But still ...)

I was annoyed at John Lennon for his “God” song, saying he didn’t believe in various things like Hitler, Elvis, Zimmerman or Beatles.

I’m pretty sure that Lennon was sarcastically mocking exactly the horrible “believe in” usage that Amanda rightly excoriates. As I hear the song, he is viciously mocking the absurd notion that “believing in” or “not believing in” something has any effect whatsoever on the existence of that thing.

Richard, at least the Democratic Party is smart enough to give some leeway for regional differences, rather than doing what the wingnuts would do and send someone form Boston down to Texas to primary an Austin Dem because they’re not pure enough.

Not to say I don’t believe (yeah yeah I know) in having primaries. But only where the Democrat is too rightward for the district/state, where we could do much better. Ex. primary Joe Lieberman or Gilebrand, yes, but doing the same to Ben Nelson in Nebraska probably isn’t a good ideal

I didn’t know that Hawaii was out in the Gulf of Mexico! That must make vacationing very convenient.

Amanda-

The third ward is the heart of the African American community in Houston.  As such, there are idiosyncratic elements to the local grammar and syntax.  I realize that you are a skilled, college educated writer, but you and I both know what she meant when she said that she didn’t “believe in homosexuality.”  Your nitpicking comes off as elitist at best and racist at worst.

It would be nice to see that map with the boundaries of the gerrymandered congressional districts shown instead of counties.

Sure, in a post about something else.  But in a post showing the gulf between the urban centers and the suburbs/white-dominated rural areas, showing the actual counties is more useful

Seth, there is absolutely no reason to think that this use of “believe” is specific to one culture or region.  I’ve heard people of all races, ages, classes, etc. use this as a way to elide responsibility for their own moral judgments of others.  The VAST majority of people I’ve heard use this verb in this way are white, middle class people who want to both be intolerant and not own it.

Ms Tisby was using the verb believe in not in reference to the existence of homosexuality, but in choosing it, as if on Tuesday one could decide one wanted to become homosexual and on Wednesday decided to switch to heterosexual. She was saying in shorthand that she didn’t believe in wanting to be or become homosexual,as if it were a choice like a career. As if.

As for the red/blue dichotomy, it is worth noting that Obama won the urban areas by 10.5 million votes, while his national margin was 9.5 million. He split the suburbs and lost rural/exurban areas by 1 million votes.

And #2—Obama came as close in Georgia as any Democrat has since Carter!

I will say I had a moment where I wanted to criticize the Chronicle for cynically using a Third Ward resident to express disapproval of homosexuality, when of course the well-financed opposition to Parker was driven by middle class white homobigots.  And then I dropped it, because I didn’t want to write a long post.  I guess I probably should have included that.  The Chronicle was letting the bad guys off the hook with that one.

Has anyone checked to see if Tom Delay’s head has asploded?

So, maps of presidential results by congressional district. The first ones are the most complicted but also give the most information. The CQ and NYT map results as traditional binaries:

http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/healey/US_election/figs/TX.png

http://www.csc.ncsu.edu/faculty/healey/US_election/#US

http://innovation.cq.com/atlas/district_08

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/house/map.html

And even though he doesn’t break it down by CD, you have to include Mark Newman’s famous freaky “purple” cloropleth/cartogram maps:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2008/

Robert Vanderbei did a similar “purple” map:

http://www.princeton.edu/~rvdb/JAVA/election2008/

I think the use of the word “believe” here actually gets at something much deeper about the difference in the way we understand homosexuality and the way the speaker (mis)understands it.  The reason “believe” in that context makes no sense to a progressive-thinking audience is that homosexuality is simply a fact to us: as you write, Amanda, it’s like our toenails.  On the other hand, the speaker understands homosexuality as an ideology, probably because the whole system of identities and behaviors that make up homosexuality are so very foreign to her own worldview.  And of course, you have to think something as giant and amorphous as homosexuality is ideological before you believe you can defeat it - otherwise trying to defeat homosexuality would be (and is) like trying to defeat your toenails.  That (mis)understanding probably also accounts for hard-to-comprehend beliefs like the “gay agenda” and that gays will take down civilization.  For those of us to whom gayness is a simple fact of life, how anyone could think that is unexplainable, but for someone who sees gayness as a system of beliefs, it becomes easier to grasp.

I think using the word “believe” might say more about how these people view homosexuality itself than how they view their own intolerance.  That does nothing to excuse their intolerance, but maybe a bit to enlighten it.

Seth, that is utter and total BS, and borderline race-baiting.  You’re pretending that “believe in”  is only used colloquially in African American neighborhoods.  Conservatives nation-wide go to the “believe in” reasoning constantly.

I’ve lived in Houston my whole life, and there are some differences in dialect and grammar, but don’t pretend that English in the Third Ward is considerably different than English in Sugar Land, or San Antonio even.

When I lived in Las Cruces, NM it was, at first, a little confusing to me to see that El Paso, TX was more liberal than Las Cruces, a college town. But Las Cruces, which is in Dona Ana County, did go for Obama in 08, which is cool. I’m not sure if that’s a move to being more democratic or proof that New Mexicans generally dislike Arizonians (?) almost as much as they dislike Texans.
The rural/urban divide doesn’t quite prove true in NM, which has always been a little confusing. I guess you’d need to look at other population demographics; age, gender, race, education level and proximity to military bases.

monkeyshines, stop just making shit up. it’s sad. texas is what’s keeping us uncivilized? so are:

Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Indiana
Illinois
Kansas
Kentucky
  Louisiana
Maryland
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Carolina
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon   Pennsylvania
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Washington
Wyoming

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/states-and-without-death-penalty

While the urban/rural divide is certainly a big part of the partisan divide, I think there is a way in which red states and blue states tend to be really different - how the suburbs vote.  Throughout the country, rural areas and exurbs tend to be Republican, and larger cities tend to be Democratic.  But, in bluer areas, the major suburbs tend to be Democratic, and are increasingly so - look at Fairfax County, Virginia, for instance, which used to be moderately Republican, and has now become a Democratic bastion in the state.  Or the Philadelphia suburbs, which made the same move about a decade earlier.  There are some exceptions (Orange County, California, for instance, remains largely Republican).  But, basically, in solidly blue states, the major suburbs have become Democratic.  In solidly red states, they’ve remained heavily Republican.  Swing states like Florida and Ohio are a mix.

Missouri suburbs are purple.

Rural Missouri, which represents about a third of the state’s population, is ALWAYS deeply red, though somehow or other, MO-04, which is in central Missouri (almost perfectly between STL and KC), has had a Democrat as Congressman for over 30 years - Ike Skelton.

St. Louis and Kansas City proper are both extremely blue - the City of St. Louis went 83% for Obama last year.

The suburbs are much more fickle… St. Louis County went Obama, but by a much closer margin than the city.  It also went for Bush in both 2004 and 2008.  The exurbs outside of St. Louis went decidedly to John McCain.  I believe the trends were similar in Kansas City.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that suburbs = rural in terms of their voting trends nationwide.  If that were actually true, John McCain would probably be president right now.  Suburban areas may not be the most densely populated parts of the country, but there are more suburbanites in America than urbanites.  Look at every major city in America - in virtually every case, there are more people living around the city than in the city itself.  The City of Chicago has roughly 3 Million people.  The Chicago MSA, including the suburbs, has around 9 Million people.  2 out of every 3 people who live in the Chicagoland area actually live in the Chicago suburbs, not the city itself.

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of suburbs and have lived in urban areas most of my life, and definitely prefer living in the city over living in the suburbs.  Just pointing out that it’s more accurate to say that rural = red, urban = blue, and suburban = purple.  In some states, the suburbs will trend more red than blue, and in others, the opposite is true.  As a whole nationwide, they’re really split.  The only consistent trend is that the inner suburbs tend to lean more blue, and outer suburbs (exurbs) tend to lean more red.

I’m not terribly surprised about Texas, since I have lots of friends who have lived there or currently live there. (Most are in Austin, unsurprisingly, but considering that I have friends in Dallas and Garland as well, I’m not too amazed at the potential Texas.)

Also, I lived in California. Both Sandy Eggo (which is a military town with all that implies) and San Francisco. Any Californian will tell you (and we have Prop 8, sadly, to back this up) that California isn’t as liberal as it appears. (Funnily enough my conservative relatives seem to have the view that Hollywood is the fount of non-conservative values in Cali, and I’d argue that Hollywood is WAAAY more conservative than some people give it credit for.) Even lovable ol’ San Francisco is a mix of politics, since it was founded on some very old-fashioned exploitation and ruthless financial concerns, and those old powers make themselves felt to this very day.

And Utah where I was raised? Well, PARTS of Utah are very Mormon, to be sure. Where I grew up, frex. But Salt Lake City itself—longtime bastion of liberalism inside Utah, and perhaps only 50% Mormon, if that. SLC has had Democrat mayors for as long as I can recall, and just this year voted in the first openly gay councilman.

Nope, the world tends towards diversity in the long haul. No single monopoly in ideology or politics can hold forever. (Unless you want to do something like set up the Vatican and declare that it has only one true occupant, and even there, I imagine there’s glacial incrementation of outside views.)

As a resident of Houston, the funny thing is that Locke is a bit more liberal than Parker on just about any issue. 

I’ve noticed how much the press has slid over the fact that it was a race between Democrats—-basically that reactionary politics weren’t much of a factor.  The conservative freak-out is interesting, not because it shows that they put homophobia before all other issues personally, but it seems that they think that can go further with it.

Bouj-

Amanda was ripping on an African American for allegedly misusing the word “believe.”

I take the Shakespearean position that language is a malleable and living thing.  Africa American Vernacular English is just as “correct” as Chicago broadcast English as far as I’m concerned.  Heck, some AAVE stuff has made it into white culture.

Waiter:  Do you need anything?
Me:  No. I’m good.

This drives the grammar gestapo nuts because “I’m good” is a moral statement, not a status of the current situation.  “No, everything is fine” is the “proper” way to respond. 

If you’ve ever been to a traditional black baptist church, “not believing” in homosexuality typically means that the pastor doesn’t “believe that homosexuality is God’s plan.”  He’s not actually denying the existence of homosexuality.

Amanda was ripping on an African American for allegedly misusing the word “believe.”

This is about the fourth of fifth post in which Amanda has made this same, or similar, point. It fits into a larger argument about the privileged space religion gets in our culture. If you can’t be bothered to do any additional research, heck, it’s you that looks foolish.

Like I said in the post, Seth, I usually do, too.  But the widespread use of “believe” in this context isn’t a harmless vernacular shift, but is something that is being promulgated primarily by the religious right for the reasons of confusing people on issues like homosexuality and evolution—-putting incorrect or intolerant opinions into the realm of “belief” to make them immune from criticism by borrowing religion’s shield. 

This isn’t a Shakespearean thing or a linguistic thing, but a basic rejection of deliberately convincing people to use deliberately evasive, incorrect language that doesn’t do what language is supposed to do (clarify), but instead to muddy.  And I see it all the time.  “I don’t believe in abortion” is a popular one—-it’s a way of being all self-righteous without committing to an actual policy stance, like “I don’t believe abortion should be legal,” or “I believe women who get abortions should do time.” 

If they had not decided to race-bait with this article and asked one of the white people behind the anti-Parker campaign the exact same question, they would have gotten the exact same answer with the same wording.

However, I do think your point makes me realize I should have addressed the race-baiting coverage of the campaign.  I’m just trying on a new tactic of not trying to write exhaustive blog posts, especially on the weekends.

In New England, Seth’s example would be more basic and confusing to those not native.

Waitperson hands over menu, returns after a moment: “All set?”
Customer: “No, give me a moment.” or “Yes, I’ll have….”

Waitperson returns with order: “All set?”
Customer: “Yes, thanks.” or “No, could we please have….”

Waitperson comes by several times and the exchange repeats.
Waitperson brings the check when the answer is “No, (or yes, this veries), may/can we have the check?”

If the customer pays in cash, the waitperson once again asks “All set?”
To which the correct reply is either “Yes, all set/the rest is for you/etc” or “No, would you bring the change, please?”

“All set” has multiple meaningss.  This doesn’t seem to be effected by race, just length of habitation in the area and level of formality for the restaurant.

“I can tell you that liberals in New Orleans, Dallas, and Austin (yes, even Austin - sorry to break the bad news) are staid moderates to center-right when compared to liberals in New York, Boston (and Worcester), and San Francisco.”

Absolutely.  It’s amusing when people from Austin think that it’s such a liberal place.  They really have no idea that what passes for amazingly-liberal in Austin is only so in relation to the rest of Texas, and the social norms that are considered daringly liberal there are just yawn, middle of the road normal in most Northern urban areas.  I am so glad Amanda is moving to NYC; I think she’ll begin to see how frighteningly conservative and out of touch most of Texas is, this recent election notwithstanding.

I wonder if the current use of “I believe/don’t believe in x” stemmed partly from the way “I hold/don’t hold with” started sounding odd to people who didn’t want to summon up imagery of boundaries and gripping onto something to the exclusion of all else, but who basically wanted to say the same thing.  I don’t know if “hold with” is still in use in much of the English-speaking world, but it doesn’t seem to conjure up the same problems.  Nobody reads “I don’t hold with trying to bake shortbread without butter” as saying you deny that there are people who probably do try, just that it’s not something you’d ever have going on within your own kitchen, and you’d rather those people didn’t try to convince you.  Exactly the same intent, from what I can tell.

Hate to disagree regarding the word “believe,” but at least according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the supposedly objectionable uses are actually the primary ones…

I disagree, Seth. “I don’t believe in homosexuality” sounds just as dumb when compared against the first definition you provided as with the third.

The speaker doesn’t have faith in homosexuality? Well, gee – I don’t have faith in red hair! (Another speaker doesn’t “believe” in evolution? Well I don’t believe in gravity!)

The second definition comes closest to explaining common misuse of the term “believe,” but even it doesn’t excuse the non-sequintur of someone responding to a lesbian mayoral candidate by claiming he doesn’t “believe” in homosexuality – as if his feelings on the virtue of her personal practices have anything to do with whether she’s qualified to run a city. 

What he’s really saying – and what he would say if he had any backbone – is that he thinks Parker’s homosexuality should disqualify her from public office because he doesn’t agree with the practice.

Amanda’s right:

People are using the word “believe” instead of the more accurate words “approve” or even “accept”, because they want cover for their bigotry.  They hope the word “believe” puts their bigotry into the Religion Zone, therefore above criticism.  Well, I say fuck that.  If you’re going to be a bigot, fucking own it.

I think it’s really easy to fall into the red state/blue state trap simply because of the way our electoral system is set up.  In nearly all states, all electoral votes go to the winner, so in Texas, for example, the blue parts simply don’t count in the presidential election.  (And let’s be honest: that’s the only election that many people even care about at all).  I think there are two states that split electoral votes in a representative way, and the rest just have winner-take-all.  When we do it that way, it’s really easy to forget about the minority in each state.  It’s just one more reason that our electoral college system is messed up.

I think there are two states that split electoral votes in a representative way, and the rest just have winner-take-all.

Sort of… you’re thinking of Nebraska and Maine.

Nebraska has 5 electoral votes - each congressional district is winner takes all for the district (3 total EVs), and the overall state winner gets the other 2 EVs representing the state’s U.S. Senate seats.  Maine is exactly th same except with only 4 electoral votes instead of 5, which means that overall statewide winning candidate is guaranteed at least 3 EVs in that state.

So, the most any candidate can realistically hope to peel off in either of those two states is one EV, which Barack Obama did in Nebraska last year.  And of course, Obama won NE-02, which contains the state’s biggest and bluest-leaning city, Omaha.  I don’t know if any other presidential election has ever split the electoral votes in either of those two states.  McCain won the other 4 EVs in Nebraska, and Obama won all 4 EVs in Maine.

The system in NE and ME would have a much bigger impact on elections if it were implemented in California, Texas, New York, or Florida, the four biggest states in the country.  As it stands right now, it’s a great idea, but it really has virtually no impact on the electoral college system as a whole… certainly not enough to swing an election.

Truthfully, I’m for the abolition of the whole damn electoral college, but it’ll probably never happen in my lifetime.  The outcome of the 2000 election - in which Al Gore won the national popular vote even if you actually believe Bush legitimately won Florida, something absolutely nobody disputes, not even Bush himself - should be enough for anyone to never again want someone who didn’t win the overall majority of votes to become president.

So you think Clinton shouldn’t have taken office the first time, DTG? He only had a plurality.

DTG:
Agreed, the electoral college should go.

I’m not convinced about 2004, either.  There’s a good case to be made that though Bush won the popular vote (quite handily) he actually lost Ohio (thank you, real voter fraud) and should have been thus Gored and lost the presidency to a man who got fewer votes than he did.  (Rolling Stone did quite a good article on that fraud, an article which was, needless to say, entirely ignored by the rest of the media.)

I’m not for Congressional District representation in the EC, but proportional representation. Congressional District EV could be gerrymandered, but proportional rep. can not.

A rough example would be, win 60% of the popular vote in a state? You win 60% of it’s electoral votes (rounded up). I think Presidential candidates, under a federal system in a big diverse country like ours, should give their attention and consideration to as many regions/states as possible, truly compete for various demographics and regions.

Under the current EC system, they only compete for a few “swing” states. Under a popular vote, they would only compete in the largest cities. NYC, LA, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and Philly would take the place of Ohio, Florida, Colorado, and Pennsylvania. I want to see as much as the country competed for, not just a few areas.

Proportional EV representation would be the best balance, I think.

So you think Clinton shouldn’t have taken office the first time, DTG? He only had a plurality.

OK, didn’t think about that.

Yes, I think anyone who wins a plurality of the popular vote should become president.  Perhaps add a stipulation that the plurality must equal more than 40% of the total popular vote.

That stipulation just means more harassment to third-parties.  And I’d like to encourage them.

I wish we could do away with the state-by-state Senate, or at least half of it.  Because right now the representation is horribly skewed.  We certainly need slightly more representation for rural areas than urban… But the way it breaks down right now is just horrid.  There are more federal politicians representing a half dozen states each, than I have in my city council - which has more people than those states.

Quick point here.  I see the argument raging above, but it looks like you’ve all missed the problem with the phrase “believe in.”  It is an inherently ambiguous phrase that means both to think that something is true and to think that something exists.  I try not to use this specific construction when explaining atheism to the religious because it can easily confuse them. 

If you say that you don’t believe in god, that can be heard both as that you don’t believe that god exists and as that you choose to reject (religious) truths/doctrines about god. It has been my experience that christians will take this statement as evidence that you believe god exists but are rejecting god because you are angry, or because you don’t want to live by gods word, or because of satan or something along those lines. 

Different topic:  In three years of living there, I concluded that Austin was the normal eye of the Texas storm.  It’s different from everything in its immediate vicinity, but pretty normal by most standards.  The fun point on Amanda’s map is Fort Worth.  It’s all nice and red.  A friend of mine described Fort Worth as a “well run police state.” 

Texas is still Texas even if they elect a gay mayor now and then.

Re: Austin-bashing.  I love NYC, wouldn’t have left Austin for anywhere else.

But you know, Austin wouldn’t have elected fucking Rudy Giuliani. 

So much for the “Austin’s secretly conservative, and you’re just about to find out!” cackling, I guess.

From #41

Anyway, I’m not a big fan of suburbs and have lived in urban areas most of my life, and definitely prefer living in the city over living in the suburbs.  Just pointing out that it’s more accurate to say that rural = red, urban = blue, and suburban = purple.  In some states, the suburbs will trend more red than blue, and in others, the opposite is true.  As a whole nationwide, they’re really split.  The only consistent trend is that the inner suburbs tend to lean more blue, and outer suburbs (exurbs) tend to lean more red.

DTG, I always find it interesting how in the Chicago metro area at least, some of the inner-ring suburbs are actually more racially diverse and integrated than the city itself, which has huge, almost mono-racial blocs covering most of it. Sometimes people go overboard with the suburb-bashing. They aren’t that much worse than the cities.

Inner ring suburbs aren’t the kind of suburbs people bash.

the AP article I linked goes out of its way to downplay the significance of this election, pointing out that there was low voter turnout (shocking in a run-off election in December! shocking like the fact that it gets cold in the winter!), as if higher turnout would have certainly changed things.

I believe it. The turnout was 16.5 percent, and Parker got 53 percent. I can easily believe half of that 16.5 consisted of the Montrose crowd. The non-gays in my life are scratching their heads all “we have a gay mayor now? No shit…” You couldn’t walk through a bar in Montrose without seeing Parker’s name scratched onto a bathroom wall, but anyone who wasn’t making a point of paying attention didn’t figure out what was going on until it was too late.

I thought Austin’s motto was “environmentalists and developers working together to screw over the minorities living on the wrong side of the freeway.” Our grand juries definitely have never found a police shooting of an unarmed black suspect unjustified, for instance.

As for Houston, it’s a very international/multicultural city, and its ample square mileage makes it so everybody can get their own unzoned slice of the pie.

Ben D. in #65

But what I find interesting is that isn’t not only the inner ring either. Some of the farther ones are pretty decent too. (Some are crap, though.) I have no idea what the Chicago-area exurbs are like.

I’m a NY state native and with NY’s fiscal (and sometimes social) conservatism and Texas’ transient (often liberal) urban populations, I always wondered why more attention wasn’t paid to these states by BOTH parties, particularly for national elections…

Obama did a much better job then anyone before him so I think the tide is turning but perceptions remain strong. As far as I’m concerned, these are BOTH swing states and have been for some time.

When I see democratic candidates on the national stage ignore Texas, it’s interesting to me.

It was much worse when I lived in NY but that was 13 years ago. There were NO national republican candidates paying ANY attention to NY’s more conservative voters. There are TONS of rural areas in NY. These places are NOT liberal. They love God, country and their guns much the same as those in the deep south.

I wonder when conservative candidates will learn this lesson with regard to NY? I hope they don’t, but I wonder when/if they will.

But you know, Austin wouldn’t have elected fucking Rudy Giuliani.

TWICE.

As progressive as NYC might be in many ways, they haven’t had a mayor from the more left-leaning party since 1993.  And even holding the position that the Democrats aren’t really a left-leaning party, it’s indisputable that they are more to the left than Republicans.

But what I find interesting is that isn’t not only the inner ring either. Some of the farther ones are pretty decent too. (Some are crap, though.) I have no idea what the Chicago-area exurbs are like.

I’m not super familiar with the political leanings of places like Naperville, for instance.

But using data from the last presidential election would be fairly misleading, as the winner of the election was a Chicago native, so naturally the Chicagoland vote was going to skew heavily in his favor.  Had his opponent been Rudy Giuliani, the race in New York state would have been at least close enough that Obama would have had to actually campaign there.  I think Obama probably still would have won NY, but it would have been by a much closer margin, simply because his opponent would have been a New Yorker.  The Chicagoland vote would have leaned Democratic overall no matter who the candidate was, to be sure, but I think having a native on the ticket made his victory margins in that area even larger than they would have been had he been from one of the coasts instead.

It was much worse when I lived in NY but that was 13 years ago. There were NO national republican candidates paying ANY attention to NY’s more conservative voters. There are TONS of rural areas in NY. These places are NOT liberal. They love God, country and their guns much the same as those in the deep south.

Congressman Peter King is about as wingnutty as they come, and he doesn’t even represent a totally rural part of New York… his district is in Long Island, just outside of NYC.

And many NYers were positively revisionist after 9/11. Instead of seeing right through all his crap, many, may people took me to task when I noted his constituents didn’t like him as mayor and many thought he was trying to run NYC like a Catholic school.

Hate him, always hated him and never understood why ANYONE EVER elected the moron.

Sorry, the “him” to whom I was referring is Giuliani…

I think one thing that has gotten lost in this discussion isn’t just that it’s Houston, Texas, but that it’s Houston, the 4th largest city in the United States.

Fourth largest, as in bigger than: Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Miami, Denver, Dallas, Seattle, or Phoenix… bigger than every other city in the United States not named Chicago, IL, Los Angeles, CA, or New York, NY.

That an openly gay woman could become mayor of the fourth largest city in the United States, in a country that is still stained by rampant homophobia, is something to be very inpired by.

Atheist—

Can a seven year old safely ride their bike from their parent’s house to get, say, an ice cream cone without having to bike 10 miles or cross ten lanes of dangerous traffic? Or get lost in some stupid cul-de-sac design? That’s kind of my metric for whether a suburb is crap or not.

IOW, do you need your car for EVERY SINGLE TRIP beyond your subdivision?

OK, I knew Texas was big, but I just discovered that one-third of all U.S. cities with populations above one million people (there are nine, total) are in Texas - Houston (4), San Antonio (7), and Dallas (8).  New York (1), Los Angeles (2), Chicago (3), Phoenix (5), Philadelphia (6), and San Diego (9) are the other six cities with populations > 1MM people.

I also didn’t realize that San Antonio was actually more populous than Dallas, though the DFW metro is much larger than the San Antonio metro… the DFW metro is also larger than the Houston metro, though the city of Dallas is only about half the size of the city of Houston.

They hope the word “believe” puts their bigotry into the Religion Zone, therefore above criticism.  Well, I say fuck that.  If you’re going to be a bigot, fucking own it.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Any religion/culture/custom that is inheritently negative, hateful, et al is not above criticism. For too long in America, religion has been OMG! respect everyones beliefs. Not if they are used to hold people down. (I hope that makes sense)

Remember, though, that the cities in Texas—especially Houston—are geographically much bigger than places like Philly and Chicago, so the figure is a little inflated. If you expanded Philly’s borders until they were the same geographic size as Houston’s it would be bigger.

“Much bigger” as in it would have many more people.

Not sure about the geographical assertion that Houston is bigger than Chicago. Chicago’s city proper (not Chicagoland, just the urban limits) is huge!

Not sure about the geographical assertion that Houston is bigger than Chicago. Chicago’s city proper (not Chicagoland, just the urban limits) is huge!

It’s not tiny, for sure, but it’s still less than half the size of Houston, geographically speaking.

Chicago is 234 sq. miles, and has a population density of 12,649 people/square mile.

Houston is 601 sq. miles, and has a population density of 3,828 people/square mile.

So while Chicago is only about 25% bigger than Houston in total population, it’s more than 300% more densely populated than Houston.

oops…thank you!

NYC by far blows everyone out of the water not just in total population, but also in population density - more than 27,000 per square mile.  It is roughly twice the size of Chicago in land area, however.  Keep in mind, while many people think only of Manhattan when they think of NYC, Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island are all part of the city proper.  Manhattan makes up 20% of NYC’s population, but only 7% of its land area.

Interestingly, as packed as most think NYC is… it doesn’t even make the top 50 among the world’s most densely populated cities.

Khardaha, India, is the world’s 50th most densely populated city, with nearly 44,000 people/square mile - that’s substantially more crowded than even NYC.  There are two small cities in New Jersey that are also more crowded than NYC - Union and Guttenberg.

Manhattan alone, however, does rank fairly high on the scale, with 71,000 people/square mile, but would still fall short of the top ten most densely populated cities in the world.  And if Manhattan were to break away from the other four NYC boroughs to form its own city, it would still be the fifth largest city in the United States in total population.

Simon Legree knew how to make heads spin.

Screw you people sayin’ our liberals down here couldn’t make it up north. I been voting for Parker forever. She always been runnin for something and usually won. She fought and worked hard to prove her competence and we never gave much a shit about the gay thing. And don’t give me crap about the rigged runoff system in Houston. If gay panic was so widespread, religious conservatives could easily tip the scale with a few thou militants. They mustered barely a thousand even with early voting in the remotest corners of redneck Aldine and Willowchase.

Our liberals are as good as yours are. Amanda will learn nothing in New York. Texans are not in need of education from the outside. We’ve reigned in the SBOE and will win our little culture war on our own. And once we do, watch out!