In these days of overwhelmingly serious issues, every once in a
while we need a break from them. That’s why some people
exercise, or read, or send text messages like, “I’m texting
now.” People need diversions. So I have a gift for you, a
question to ponder that is just something interesting that
caught my attention. Why are there so many more liberal
bartenders than conservative ones?  Sociologists Neil Gross and
Ethan Fossey came up with some research recently that was
reported in The New York Times. They investigated stereotypes
like “university professors are liberal and bankers are
conservative.” They found that liberal and conservative
stereotypes are self-perpetuating. Young people hear all their
lives that journalism is a liberal field and running a
corporation is something conservatives do. So it’s not
surprising that liberal young people might want to be
journalists and conservative kids might be drawn to business.
Even when the researchers dealt with the labels that people gave
themselves, many ste