The Garreau book sounds very interesting--I found it interesting, as noted above, that Florida was involved in the Hayes/Tilden affair, and have thought, more than once in this election that the Civil War never ended--

Here in liberal Maryland, the Bush/Cheney yard signs were always near-billboard sized affairs, mounted on elaborate frames in front yards, with the same defiance that one associates with the flying of the Confederate flag--and with much the same effect--

On the day after election day, my stomach was tied in knots, and went for a drive, ending up walking around the Battlefield at Monocacy Creek, reading the plaque marking General Lee's Headquarters (I shared the experience with some somber Virginians with a B/C sticker on their bumper--we did not talk) and it--it struck me that the issues are still the same, the boundaries are still the same, and the level of anger is still the same--and I remembered how Americans couldn't believe that Serbs still were upset about a battle lost in the fourteenth century--but our national dispute was a century old when the civil war was fought--no sign of a truce yet--