Word: sunbelters
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Waving a Cohiba cigar in his expansive office overlooking downtown Montgomery, Ala., David Bronner talks enthusiastically about his investments: in an airline just reorganized after bankruptcy, a chain of luxury golf resorts and a group of television stations. Is he a gunslinging Sunbelt entrepreneur in the mold of Ted Turner? A hedge-fund manager? A contrarian private-equity investor? Not even close. Bronner, 58, is, in his own words, "a government bureaucrat"--the chief executive of Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA), the pension fund for 290,000 state workers and retirees. An unabashed cheerleader for Alabama who is comfortable...
...months ago, any threat to Bush's re-election seemed unthinkable. But this summer, as Florida's well-publicized child-welfare tragedies mounted, kids' issues took front stage for voters who once considered their state a retirement community. Reflecting a Sunbelt trend, Florida's youth-population growth outpaced that of the elderly in the 1990s for the first time in the state's history--and its dysfunctional, overcrowded schools look woefully unprepared for that shift. Bush has pushed education reform, assigning A+ to F grades for schools statewide in an effort to raise test scores. Still, Florida ranks 40th...
...Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays, Valentine's Day, Easter (he?d already written "Easter Parade"), Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The framing song was "Happy Holiday," which has since been appropriated as an all-purpose year-end carol. At first, few liked Berlin's tune about sunbelt nostalgia for a snowbelt youth (the verse places the singer in "Beverly Hills, L.A."). A journalist friend told the composer that "White Christmas" wouldn?t be a hit because it was "too schmaltzy," and Berlin himself thought the movie's big hit would be the Valentine ballad "Be Careful...
...separations from friends. In midlife, the competing claims of work and child rearing can force friendship onto the back burner. Then there's divorce, which divides spouses not only from each other but often from the friends they once held in common. When we retire, the migration to the Sunbelt takes a toll both on those who leave and those who remain behind. Finally, as we age, our social networks can be further eroded by disabilities--our own and those of our friends-- and, saddest of all, by death...
...Meanwhile, even Schiff, who has become an important adviser to her father's campaign, seemed to have walked off the job at GoreNet, leaving her dad gallivanting through the Sunbelt, wooing retirees and trying desperately to feel their pain...