Notes from Howard's Sabbatical from Working. The name comes from a 1998 lunch conversation. Someone asked if everything man knew was on the web. I answered "no" and off the top of my head said "Fidel Castro's favorite color". About every 6-12 months I've searched for this. It doesn't show up in the first 50 Google results (this blog is finally first for that search), AskJeeves says it's: red.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Happy Gerrymander Day
Mass Moments writes “Gerrymander” Born in Massachusetts " ...in 1812, a political monster — the 'Gerrymander' — was born in the Massachusetts State House. Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill that created oddly-shaped voting districts in several parts of the state. The lines of these districts gave Gerry's party an advantage in the upcoming election. An artist added a head, wings, and claws to the strange shape that was the governor's new home district and declared it looked like a salamander. A quick-witted friend decided a better name was 'Gerry-mander.' Within a month, the image appeared as a cartoon in the local papers and gerrymander, later gerrymander [with a soft 'g'], entered the language. The term has referred ever since to any deliberate redrawing of voting districts to influence the outcome of an election."
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