Shelly Blake-Plock

Ignore authority and go teach.

That's what we should be telling teachers.

There ain't a social studies teacher in the USA who shouldn't be taking every opportunity to teach every angle of this situation; you couldn't have asked for a better lesson in American culture and politics.

After crossing America on a road trip this summer (my first in a decade or so) and staying for a time in Texas (which if I believe the news pundits is the state most completely unlike me, yet which I loved boundlessly), I'd say that the concept of the 'Two Americas' is a farce.

There are not two Americas. There are thousands of Americas.

There's a different America at each truckstop, on each crossroad, and in every diner.

Rather than look at our internal geopolitics as a matter of red and blue states, we should be looking at it in terms of those connected and those not connected and to whom those connected are connected to and for what reasons those not connected are not connected.

More than ever -- as if the NFL season wouldn't remind you -- we are a nation of tribes and tribes within tribes. This is our greatest strength and greatest weakness.