"Buy Blue Buy Blue Buy Blue Buy Blue"

Blue voters now urged to buy blue

By Jennifer Skalka
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 14, 2004

For despondent Democrats there's a new treatment, if not a cure, for their lingering Election Day blues. Think retail therapy.

A Web site called Choose the Blue is offering shopping advice this holiday season, providing information about which companies' employees give to Democrats and which prefer Republicans.

Costco workers gave more to Democrats, for example, while Wal-Mart's preferred Republicans, according to campaign finance records. Donna Karan's people lean left. Fruit of the Loom's give to the right.

For Ann and Bill Duvall, the site's creators, Nov. 3 brought great disappointment--and a call to action.

"We woke up that morning just really devastated and depressed, and in some ways I'm grateful that we came up with this idea because that's where we've been able to put our energy," Ann Duvall, 56, said.

So Choose the Blue is self-help meets activism meets consumerism. Its goal is to shift vast amounts of wealth to people who support the Democrats' cause.

Using information from the Federal Election Commission Web site and the Center for Responsive Politics site, www.opensecrets.org, the Duvalls give their fellow Democrats a gift that could keep on giving.

"If each American who voted for John Kerry spends $100 in 2005 on a blue company instead of a red company, we can move $5 billion away from Republican companies and add $5 billion to the income of companies who donate to Democrats," they say on the site.

In the few weeks since the Duvalls launched the site, it has gained growing notice in the blogosphere. Blogs with names like Angryfinger point to it for inspiration. The Duvalls have heard that their effort was mentioned on Air America, the liberal radio station.

Within days of the election, the Duvalls asked 10 of their friends to review their Web site and tell them what worked and what didn't. Whether the friends spread the word or bloggers stumbled upon the unpublicized Choose the Blue site is unclear. But shortly thereafter the Duvalls, who split their time between Silicon Valley and Idaho, started getting e-mails from strangers thanking them for their work.

At its peak, the site received more than 300,000 hits in one day, said Ann Duvall, a mother of three and grandmother of four. Typically between 100,000 and 200,000 sets of eyes peruse it daily.

"This is not a boycott," said Bill Duvall, a software creator who was involved in the transmission of the first e-mail message 35 years ago. "... It's just that we believe it's possible to direct some of your spending so we can begin to at least even the playing field."

Choose the Blue breaks down its information into categories such as automotive, consumer electronics, retail shopping and fashion, and sports. The site's tallies also include gifts from companies to political action committees. The figures for the companies and their employees show the total percentages and dollar amounts given to Republican and Democratic candidates or causes.

Choose the Blue is joined in cyberland by Buy Blue, a site with a similar mission. Its mantra is: "In today's America there's a more powerful act than voting blue, and that's buying blue." It also urges people to have a "blue Christmas" and says: "Find out which businesses have been naughty and which have been nice. Shop accordingly!"

Though experts applaud the initiative taken by creators of these sites, they aren't sure their strategy is sound. After all, Republicans too can take advantage of the information they're providing.

"The question that remains then is which side does a better job of spreading the word to those who are most likely to act on it," said Eszter Hargittai, an assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University and a faculty fellow in the Institute for Policy Research.

Richard Feinberg of Purdue University said most people don't make their shopping decisions based on personal ideology. They look for the best bargains or the most convenient stores.

"The handful of people that it might influence are already boycotting or not spending money on businesses that they think go against their political grain," said Feinberg, director of the school's Center for Customer Driven Quality. "It's not going to change a neutral person."

Although innovative and purposeful, Choose the Blue illustrates something perhaps unintended about some of the people who voted for Sens. Kerry and John Edwards. As exhausting and frustrating as the loss was for them, they're not done fighting.

Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a Washington, D.C., non-profit, said Choose the Blue is ultimately a sign of that discontent. Gans said the Democrats' future success, however, would not depend on the power of smaller movements. He said the party must re-evaluate its purpose, and with temperatures still high after a close election, raising money won't be its main challenge.

"I think the important thing is for the Democrats to define who they are and to develop a grass-roots organization that isn't dependent on other groups," Gans said.

Still, the power and reach of the blogosphere--the vast universe of Web logs viewed by countless people--is evident in the growing popularity of the Duvalls' site. Already, the couple has been threatened with legal action by one company, which the Duvalls declined to name, that was unhappy with its mention on the site.

Bill Duvall, 59, said the blogosphere promotes the very essence of democracy by giving people a voice who wouldn't normally have one. It provided him and his wife--who are now semiretired--with a prime outlet for their post-election political expression.

Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

"3am or 4am or 5am"

Lately, the strangest thing has been happening with my alarm clock. Okay, it's not really an alarm clock per se. It's actually an old cell phone with an alarm clock capability. I know, how truely pathetic, or certainly odd, that I use an old cell phone as my alarm clock instead of just getting a "real" alarm clock. Well, I have issues (Ha!). I looked for a long time for a real alarm clock I could live with. You see, I hate those digital ones because the light from the LED displays keeps me awake. And, almost anything that isn't digital tends to tick. That ticking drives me crazy, no rest. I eventually found this beautiful crystal clock in a thrift store for a meager amount of cash and bought it before I realized it wasn't an alarm clock at all. For awhile, I was using the alarm clock in my microwave but since that is all the way in the kitchen, I feared not really hearing it. Although, the truth is, I almost always wake up before the alarm clock goes off. Of course, that doesn't mean I want to get up. Also, my "actual" cell phone actualy doesn't have an alarm feature. Life is way too complicated, or I just make it so. So, the strange thing that's been happening lately (no, it isn't everything I've already mentioned) is that the alarm has been going off at 6am, which is when it's set for, but not the "real" 6am. See, quite a few times lately I've been woken by the alarm and the cell phone clock reads 6am while the alarm is sounding but, then, I hit STOP and the clock reads 3am or 4am or 5am. Is that not odd? How could the cell phone's regular clock be correct but the alarm clock be off? Yes, I suppose I should get a "real" alarm clock and be done with it. Maybe I should get one of those fold-up travel clocks that are LED but the screen isn't lighted. Of course, ideally, it would be better if I didn't have to go somewhere else to work. You know, work at home and get up at my leisure. Ah dreams! Oh shit, my boss is giving me the evil eye. Back to "real" work.

"Sources Who've Said It Better Than I"

Last evening, I was out with my friend Charlotte and I was talking about my recent postings on this site regarding homosexuality and the Bible. I was telling her how I often take on subjects both here and in school (grad school) that on the outset are very interesting but once I begin doing the work, turn out to be extremely time consuming. Unfortunately, time is something I have in short supply these days. So, I've decided to give you some resources that I have found in my research who pretty much have this issue covered. However, it's true that they do not cover it in the way I set out to do. Meaning, the issue is covered in taking apart the typical scriptures in the Bible that have been used (abusively) against the community in suppot of the Fundamentalist Christian's view that homosexuality is somehow ungodly. If you are truely interested in this subject and want to be able to talk about it effectively, then I would urge you to look at these sources. As you know, if you've been keeping up with my own exploration in this, I had proposed to look at it through Christ's own words and actions. This, as far as I know, has not been done previously. I think this is an area I'd like to look at more closely down the road but right now I'm way too swamped with thesis work and the daily grind.

Homosexuality and the Bible debunked:

1. The Truth(my title) by Miss Poppy Dixon
2. Meaning and Consequences from The Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry
3. What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality by Daniel A. Helminiak. Alamo Square Press ISBN#0-9624751-9-X