America’s Mood Map: An Interactive Guide to the United States of Attitude

For a country that features the word United so prominently in its name, the U.S. is a pretty fractious place. We splinter along fault lines of income, education, religion, race, hyphenated origin, age and politics. Then too there’s temperament. We’re coarse or courtly, traditionalist or rebel, amped up or laid-back. And it’s no secret that a lot of that seems to be determined by — or at least associated with — where we live.

Now a multinational team of researchers led by psychologist and American expat Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in the U.K. has sought to draw the regional lines more clearly, literally mapping the American mood, with state-by-state ratings of personality and temperament.

Read more from TIME.

BTW, I'm "from Pennsylvania," which isn't that far from my hometown of Binghamton, NY.

TIME magazine and the Census race questions

Why the U.S. Census Misreads Hispanic and Arab Americans

The gist of the argument: "The Hispanic-origins and race sections should be combined into one, less confusing section that asks folks what ethnic and/or racial group they belong to: white, black, Native American, Asian, Pacific Islander or Hispanic. It should (as it already does for some groups on the form) provide space for designating subgroups - like Arabs, for example."

as though race and ethnicity were ever simple in America.

Why the 2010 Census Stirs Up Partisan Politics

From Time magazine --
Sunday, Feb. 15, 2009
By Amy Sullivan

When Republican Senator Judd Gregg announced on Thursday that he no longer wished to be the Commerce Secretary nominee, he said that the decision was based in part on serious disagreements with the Obama White House over the 2010 census. That night on Fox News, Sean Hannity called Obama's plans for the census process "the biggest White House power grab ever," as his guest Karl Rove voiced agreement. The same day, House Republicans declared that the White House had "an unprecedented plan" for the census that "will taint results and open doors to massive waste of taxpayer funds."

It may sound surprising to those who don't consider the decennial headcount a red-hot political matter, but the census has become the controversial subject of an ongoing power struggle between Democrats and Republicans. And since the 2010 census will be the first in 30 years to be taken under a Democratic administration, the stakes are particularly high this time around.

Read more HERE.