Map of the Day - April 5th

This is my proposed redistricting map for Arkansas. I did this to illustrate that you can basically do anything you want with redistricting as long as the districts have equal population and don't dilute minority voting rights (not much of a concern in Arkansas). I started this map with two ideas: give each district an equal length of state border and have them all meet in the middle of the state. This map would be a big change for many cities, but gives each district a share of urban and rural areas.

(Bentonville, Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Hot Springs together in a district. Rogers, Springdale, Russellville and Conway in another. Jonesboro, West Memphis, North Little Rock, and Pine Bluff in another. Little Rock, Saline County, Texarkana in the last one)

There has been much hullabaloo about the congressional redistricting that is happening in Arkansas this spring. The main controversy is about moving Fayetteville out of the 3rd CD and into the 4th CD. "Fayetteville to the Fourth" one of the plans has been called. I oppose moving Fayetteville to the 4th CD if there is another way of creating equal population districts that are more compact. This opinion is not very popular with many Democratic party leaders, officials, elites, and activists. Some have said that moving Fayetteville is best because it gives Democrats more opportunities to win Congressional seats....I support compact districts over partisan success. Some have accused a few Fayetteville Democrats of this plan because those elected officials want to run for Congress in a district that is much more likely to elect a Democrat....again, I support compact districts over the success of any individual politician.

There have been many maps from many people. I hope someone creates a website to archive all the possible maps created by legislators and by citizens during this session. I think far too many people during this session simply said "the 3rd has to lose voters" then accepted whatever was put in front of them. There are plenty more than one way to skin that cat. High schoolers with access to the internet can create all kinds of maps that are equal population that satisfy legal challenges. UPDATE: The most recent map to pass the AR Senate!

Make your own redistricting map with this online tool. It maps and counts the voters in districts that you create yourself!

http://gardow.com/davebradlee/redistricting/launchapp.html

Map of the Day - March 6th

Sure...it looks like just a map of "Western" Europe. But there is something super groovy about it. Take a closer look at the title block.

Perhaps it is too small to notice. This map is from 1950. It's a classic from NatGeo. I saw it on the wall of a new friend's living room. I knew it was old from first glance, but then I saw something that excited me even more. This map has the Allied occupation zones of post-WWII Germany delineated. This map reminds me of three ideas of geography...or history...or whatever. The third is my favorite of the three.

1) The victors write the history books. Notice that this map cuts off right at Berlin on the east side of the map? The definition of "Western" Europe was written by the non-communist Allies....and it doesn't include East Germany...oh ya, except for Berlin....only because the non-communist Allies all controlled territory in Berlin.

2) History repeats itself. Those occupation zones really make it evident that maps tell stories...and they are biased. This map says that who "occupies" a pseudo-sovereign nation is important. Check out the occupation zones in Iraq in 2003.

3) The transmission of information through people keeps happening...accurately or not. THe zone of occupation for the United States was in the south of Germany. That area includes Bavaria and Baden-Wurttemburg, and High German language. You may not recognize any of that...but I bet you will recognize a few other things. Lederhosen...strudel...snowy mountains...yodeling...nutcrackers...cuckoo clocks...the Black Forest. Those are all "German" things that really are centered in the south of Germany...not ALL of Germany. Whether you learned it in basic grade school texts or from movies like Heidi or The Sound of Music or National Lampoon's European Vacation, you probably learned a biased image of German culture.

Why does understanding regional differences and history matter? Let's start with Germany. It could be as simple as what you will imbibe if you go to Germany. Germany=beer, right? It is true that all of Germany has high beer consumption, but the south has far higher wine consumption than the north. You may go over thinking beer but come home with a suitcase full of wine. Remembering past divisions is important to understanding the political environment as well. Former communist East Germany is the home of the current German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Chancellor Merkel grew up in a country that was far less developed than the rest of Germany and still to this day struggles. It's like the American South after Jim Crow allowed respectable companies to enter from other parts of the United States. Surely hailing from the "backwoods" colors one's perspective on national politics.

Now back to Iraq since I mentioned it previously. Iraq is not as simple as one outlined box of sandy beige on a (mislabeled) Fox News map. Northern Iraq is far different from central Iraq and Baghdad. The Kurds aren't even Arabs...and heck, they aren't even just in Iraq. There are more Kurds in Turkey than Iraq and probably more in Iran than Iraq as well. Knowing that the Iraqis in Kirkuk have more cultural similarities to their brethren over the borders in Turkey and Iran than to their compatriots in Baghdad is an important thing. It certainly has mattered in the occupation of Iraq. It wouldn't be a perfect comparison, but imagine this: Mexican-Americans whose families have lived for 150 years in south Texas may share more cultural values with Mexicans across the border than they do with Lithuanian-Americans in Chicago.

Map of the Day - September 12th

Why would this shock Americans? Basically Americans have been lied to through maps. It's difficult to display the surface of the globe (sphere-ish) on a two dimensional surface. In fact, the way they do it is by basically shining light through a 3D representation of Earth and recording what gets projected onto some other surface be it a flat sheet, curved, etc. The projections all differ according to how they are set up. And they all distort...they distort at least one of six to varying degrees....bearing, distance, direction, area, shape, and scale. You have to pick which inaccurate portrayal of the Earth you want. America picked one that showed our land mass prominently and that is what we are used to. One problem....is distorts badly as you near the poles, so equatorial Africa looks relatively smaller than it actually is. Think the really stretched out looking Canada. Doesn't exist in reality. Compare what you are used to, the Mercator Projection, to a globe. You aren't crazy....something is askew!

I think it's important to take things into perspective. Africa may not have the population of Asia or the wealth of Europe, but it's a huge place. Some say the future of the world lies in Africa. It is being decimated by HIV/AIDS and still suffers from diseases like malaria and tuberculosis. China is buying land rights to huge chunks of agricultural lands. Global climate change may hit Africa hard. We may see huge internal migration that causes strife, civil war, and, yes, even genocide. The world owes Africa.....we have stripped wealth from it for centuries.