Who decided Republican states would be “red” and Democrat states would be “blue”? Is this just the result of the colors that network news shows chose to use on national maps in the 2000 election night coverage? And how did they all decide on the same colors? I do seem to recall forty-nine states being colored blue for Ronald Reagan in 1984, so it wasn’t always that way. On the other hand, I suppose states that have a majority of people that would vote Democrat for President have a right to be blue.
Why is it that you have to search for the Sunday comics? Am I the only one who remembers a time when the comics were an actual section of the newspaper that was folded just like every other section? It was usually the innermost section, which would serve as a wrapper of sorts for all of the sales circulars that were included in the Sunday paper. No more. Now it is hidden amongst the circulars like some sort of buried treasure to be used as bait to lure us in among the advertisements.
Why do people who don’t wear boots wear bootleg jeans? Sometimes with flip-flops no less. Aren’t flip-flops kind of the opposite of boots, or about as close as you can get from boots without going barefoot?
While we’re talking flip-flops, why does everyone seem to think it’s okay to wear them absolutely everywhere? I do mean everywhere — like that visit to the White House last year by the national champion girl’s lacrosse team from Northwestern University. There they were on the lawn of the White House, getting their photo-op with the President, with half of them wearing flip-flops. Don’t these people have parents? What happened to that inner voice people used to come equipped with that made them want to try a little harder before going out in public?
While it is true, and is being duly noted in survey after survey, Americans are getting fatter, when did it become fashionable to accentuate it? Specifically, why do some people tend to wear clothes that highlight every jellyroll and love handle? Other than their purely utilitarian purposes, clothes are normally used to help make the wearer look good, or at least better. So what gives?
What about the steady downward progression of unspoken societal dress codes that lead people to go about their everyday public business dressed like they just finished cutting the grass? On the other hand, it does tend to make those who actually dress presentable more likely to stand out from the crowd.
Article comments
1 - Bliffle
The red vs. blue switch occured because journalists decided the old associations were too pejorative, i.e., "those red liberals" and "those blueveined conservatives". So they purposely swapped them and made it just more confusing.
2 - Baronius
I'll second what Bliffle just said. (I don't think I've ever done that before.) You'll also notice that all roadside signs for candidates are (1) red, white, and blue, or (2) white and blue. The candidate who prints first gets to make the choice. No candidate uses red and white.
Two exceptions: every once in a while a candidate will have black and yellow signs (it's a recent thing), and every O'Malley and Conner uses green and white.