The Country Is Still Purple

     Despite remarkably polarized rhetoric (and the usual conflicting characterizations of the President, who no one seems to remember is just the guy we hire to shake hands with kings, deal with high-level personnel and keep the various branches of the Armed Forces from excessive spatting), the country is still purple.

     Your neighbors are who they are and they're likely going to keep on being who they are, just as you will.  And those revealing purple maps?  That was originally invented as an exercise for a freshman programming course.  It's not rocket science: we live in a remarkably assorted nation and elections for political office are just one day.  How you get along with your neighbors for the other 364 matters quite a lot -- the guy next door doesn't run the economy any more than you, but he's a lot better situated to lend you a hand (and you to him) than anyone in Congress or your state legislature.