Why The Tea Party Is Like A Starfish, Not A Spider

What do Wikipedia and Craigslist have in common with the Tea Party movement? They succeed by being decentralized, says Rod Beckstrom, co-author of the management book The Starfish and the Spider.

Beckstrom says he was surprised to learn his 2006 book was a hit with Tea Partiers — but that it made sense.

The Starfish and the Spider "is really a guidebook for people, to help organize decentralized movements and organizations of any type," Beckstrom tells NPR's Steve Inskeep.

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Economy Threatens Ohio Democrat's Re-Election

The Stark County Fair in northeastern Ohio features poultry and pie, a headless lady and a midway. Fairgoers this year were also treated to a good bit of politicking, as freshman Democrat Rep. John Boccieri fights to hold onto the 16th district. His vote for the president's health care bill is one point of contention.

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Obama Comes to Wisconsin, Feingold Disappears

Patrick McIlheran, RCPBy Patrick McIlheran - September 5, 2010More Election NewsPresident Barack Obama's spending Labor Day afternoon in Milwaukee at an annual union festival. It's quite a party: Parade organizers were still looking for volunteers to help carry the giant protest puppets of the Earth Goddess and such. Pity, then, that Russ Feingold, the incumbent Democratic senator in a neck-and-neck race, can't hang out with the president.But Obama and puppetry just aren't the right atmospherics these days, are they?Feingold, three terms in office and now tied with a plastics manufacturer no...

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Army finishes initial review of McChrystal affair

The Army's inspector general has completed an initial review into the circumstances surrounding comments by former Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his staff that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, Army spokesman Col. Tom Collins told CNN.

The interview resulted in President Barack Obama firing the general, who was in charge of military operations in Afghanistan.

The Army's portion of the investigation is complete, Collins said, and the results have been forwarded to the inspector general for the Defense Department.

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They'd Trade Labor Day For Days Of Labor

On this Labor Day weekend, we might give some thought to what it's like to be without a job.

About 1 in every 10 Americans — 15 million, the population of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago combined — doesn’t have a job. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are 3 million more who have just stopped looking for jobs after a year because they can't find one.

Having no job does not mean having no work. Your children must still be fed, bathed and ferried to school, which is a lot of hard work. But you have less money for food, gas and the new shoes your children need for school.

It means that if you have a toothache, you might pretend it will go away, until it becomes a sharp pain. Then you have to see a dentist, but may not be able to buy a new winter coat.

It means, as Halloween and the holiday season approach, that many good parents tell their children they just can’t have some small toy or trinket that every other child seems to have. Or, more likely, the parent will go without something else — again.

I talked to a man in Ohio this week who said he hadn't bought a stitch of new clothing in more than a year; his shirts were beginning to fray. When he got his first job interview in months, he bought a new shirt, so he wouldn't look tattered and defeated. And when he didn’t get that job, he was ashamed that he’d bought a shirt, instead of food for his family.

Having no job means that things people talk about so much these days — iPads, Android phones, 3-D movies, new music or meeting friends over $4 coffee drinks — are just beyond reach. You worry about getting dull, having nothing to talk about and losing friends. You worry about life leaving you behind.

You may be sure that your family loves you, but worry that they'll star t feeling sorry for you, and wonder why you have to be the one person in 10 who doesn’t have a job. You may blame politicians, brokers and bankers, but in the middle of the night, you might turn your eyes to the sky and wonder what you did, didn't do or should have done.

Any one of us who is lucky enough to have a job today must worry about losing it. This Labor Day, we might salute the millions of Americans who don’t have jobs, but who in many ways work harder than ever.

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Indonesians Protest Fla. Church's Quran-Burning Day

About 3,000 Muslims marched Saturday through Indonesia's capital to the U.S. Embassy to protest plans by a Florida church to burn the Quran on Sept. 11.

Protesters from the hard-line Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir marched with banners and placards denouncing the burning set for Wednesday. Similar rallies were held in five other cities across Indonesia.

The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said it will burn the Islamic holy book to mark the ninth anniversary of the 2001 terror attacks. Local officials have denied a permit for a bonfire on the church's grounds. But the center — which made headlines last year by distributing T-shirts that said "Islam is of the Devil" — insists it will go ahead with the plan.

Religious leaders in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, have appealed to U.S authorities to stop the event.

With reporting from A ubrey Belford. Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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