Civic Pride

And no, I'm not making a pun about our 2002 Honda Civic. Apparently my neighborhood is one of the 10 best in the country, at least according to the American Planning Association. Of course, I didn't need an organization I've never heard of to tell me that.

A New Emelia Video

A mediocre example of her walking (seems like she can walk forever), but since it's the only video of her walking that we have so far, I guess it'll do. ;) Besides, the highlight isn't the walking, but the smile.

An Unreasonable Application of a Reasonable Idea

Raise your hand if you know how the electoral college works. If you do and live in the United States, you're part of a small minority. For those who don't, here's a very brief civics lesson.

The general idea is that citizens of each state vote for representatives (electors) to a body (the electoral college) that selects the president, and the number of representatives each state gets for the electoral college is weighted, based on the number of senators plus representatives to Congress. As for how the representatives for a particular state votes, that's usually on a winner-take-all basis. In other words, if a candidate has more votes than the runner up in a state, all the state's representatives to the Electoral College vote for the winner. While this process usually results in the popular vote getter for the whole country winning the election, it doesn't always. The 2000 election is a good example of that. Because of the winner-take-all approach, in theory someone can win the 11 most populous states by one vote each, get crushed in the remaining 39 states, and still get elected president.

And yet, there is no requirement that a state have all its electors vote for the statewide winner. In 1972, Maine decided to have two of its electors vote for the statewide winner, with the other electors decided based on Congressional district. With Maine presently having four electoral votes, it's possible that Maine can vote 3-1 in the electoral college. In 1992, Nebraska (presently with six electoral votes) adopted what's known as the "Maine Method," and those two states are the only ones that do not follow the winner-take-all approach for their electors. Going back to the 2000 election, if Florida had also done this (and assuming no other state did), then Gore would have been elected president.
[/civics lesson]

It seems so much more reasonable for the electoral votes to be assigned under the Maine Method that it seems a wonder that more states haven't adopted it. Actually, given the politics of getting laws changed, it's no wonder at all. If you've got a largely Democratic state, with its governor and state legislature majority Democrat, and most of its Congressional representatives the same, there's no incentive to change the state laws so that the Democrats lose electors to Republicans. And the same holds in reverse. Thus, generally speaking, about the only way to switch to this approach en masse would be at the federal level, where both Democrats and Republicans have something to both win and lose. I'm not sure, however, that even if there was the impetus, whether the change could be done by statute. If it had to be done by constitutional amendment, it would be much harder, given that it would need to go through all those state legislatures that aren't changing things right now.

The wrinkle to all this is that some Republicans in California are proposing an amendment to the California constitution that would adopt the Maine Method in California. The amendment, which can pass by a simple majority of voters, would bypass the legislature. California has by far the most electors in the country, and in recent years has voted Democrat in the presidential elections, by significant margins. But not all of California is Democrat. In the current Congress, 19 of its 53 seats in Congress are held by Republicans. Under the Maine Method, if only 15 of those districts voted Republican in a presidential election, California would shift from 55-0 to 40-15, i.e., from +55 for the Democrats to +25, a difference of 30. It's far more likely that Republicans would carry even more districts (according to the link above, Bush took 22 districts in 2004, so the "Maine Method" would have moved Kerry's net in the state from 55-0 to 33-22, a difference of 44, and made the count in Ohio irrelevant). As you can imagine, that would make a huge difference in the 538-seat electoral college, given Bush defeated Gore by only five electoral votes in 2000.

The Republican entities promoting the amendment contend that this change would cause candidates to pay more attention to California, but political scientists say it would have the opposite effect. That's because gerrymandering has created so many safe districts in the state that there won't be but a handful of districts in play. They say it would be far better for candidates to focus on states like Florida, with its 27 electoral votes all going to the winner, and a fairly even split of the electorate. But then again, no matter the assertions being made, as the numbers I pointed out above demonstrate, there's little doubt that the point of this amendment is to neutralize a key source of electoral votes for Democrats.

Will California enact the Maine Method? As I noted, in the abstract it seems like a very reasonable idea. The question is whether voters will be able to look past the abstract and recognize the partisan purpose of the proposition. Perhaps some will say that it's the right thing to do on behalf of California, even if other states don't do the same. Regardless, if it passes, it will have major repercussions for presidential elections for years to come.

Look Who's Walking

In the first 11 days after Emelia took her first steps, she didn't do much walking. A step here, and a few steps there, but that was about it. Generally speaking, she still preferred to grab a finger or a hand, just for reassurance. Here are a couple of photos from Monday morning.





You can see plenty of confidence, but there's also the hand that she insists on holding.

Yesterday she finally started walking. Many steps all in a row, and not necessarily ending with a fall onto her tush. By this evening, she was taking more steps than crawling. As her success grew, she even started demanding "star treatment."

Okay, maybe not, but I think the photo's a keeper.

No Photos But...

You know who took her first steps this evening, one day shy of turning 10 months. All you experienced parents can chuckle to yourselves at my thinking that things aren't really going to change much, given how much mobility she already had.

Cool Music Site

A friend sent me a music site in passing, and I've been checking it out for the past couple of days. Seeqpod is basically a music search engine that allows you to hunt down artists or tunes you like and which are already on the web. It's still in beta, but I'm loving some of the features, such as making your own playlist in no time at all (and being able to embed it into your blog). Here's one I just whipped up for a mellow Sunday, and which I'm playing right now (warning -- I'll probably tinker with this playlist over the next couple of hours, so what's here when I published this post might not be what'll be here later on):



Have fun making your own.

Environmentalism and Us

Kathy and I seem like we're on the cusp of something that seems like more than a phase, but because we're generally so bad at following through on our "grand plans," it may ultimately turn out to be only a phase. The thrust of our intention is trying to become significantly more environmentally conscious. Doing things like trying to reduce, or better yet, eliminate the number of plastic bags we use and generally reduce the number of disposable products (and even containers) we buy (definitely trying to avoid bottled water). And buy more local foods (particularly produce). And buy fewer "things," especially new stuff. And get rid of a goodly amount of our stuff.

Kathy's bought washcloths that we're trying to use instead of paper towels, and nylon bags instead of plastic ones. This past weekend we took those bags to Eastern Market (although the temporary building doesn't re-open until tomorrow, there are plenty of vendors lined up on weekends) and used them for the fruits and vegetables from West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Later, we used canvas bags when we did a grocery run.

I don't know how far we'll get (or whether I'll revert to being a relative Environmental Inactivist), but the fact that we pretty much independently reached similar conclusions bodes well for our willingness to pursue this path. We're not looking to be radical (yet), and we recognize that whatever we do is a fraction of what we could do. For instance, we still use plastic bags (I have to clean up after the dogs somehow), our house is woefully energy inefficient, and we're still using disposable diapers. At the same time, we figure that every little bit helps.

Learning of Nature

I don't expect to see anything interesting when I'm walking the dogs at 7:40am. Maybe I should, but years of nothing eventful taking place has surely jaded me. On the morning in question, I'm not talking about the lovely Monarch butterfly I saw hanging out on the Parkers' trellis, though Kathy and Emelia followed me out of the house, and Emelia was able to see the butterfly when we pointed it out to her.

What caught my attention was an odd sound high in a tree 20 feet away. It sounded like a cicada, but it seemed louder, somehow more insistent. Next thing I know two cicadas fell to the ground, and the clicking noise a cicada makes was altered by the brick on which they lay. I moved closer, and realized that it was only one cicada, still making that noise, and it was being attacked by, as Kathy put it, "a giant stingy thing." It looked like a wasp, but the coloring was unlike what I'd ever seen before. In another minute, the noise stopped, and the cicada was seemingly dead.

The giant stingy thing then began the task of carrying the cicada away. This wasn't an easy thing to do -- the cicada was quite a big bigger, but the GST persevered, dragging it for a while, flying for a foot or two, and carrying it into a bush. Eventually I had to go back to feed the dogs, but I was struck by this sight, something I'd never seen before.

Back home, sitting at the computer, Kathy googled around, and together we learned that what we saw was in fact a cicada killer wasp capturing its prey. Nice to know that being in the city hasn't deprived me of seeing a bit of nature every now and again.

Emelia at Nine Months

"I'm not a little monster. This is a little monster!"

Tuesday marked Emelia's nine-month "birthday," meaning that she's now spent more time outside the womb than in it. It's easy to forget there was a time when she wasn't a part of our lives, much less such an integral part of them.

Yesterday at her checkup, she received a round of immunizations that she seems to have handled without incident. As for her weight and height, she's 20 pounds 10 oz, and 28 inches long. Apparently that puts her between the 75^th and 90^th percentile for weight and between the 50^th and 75^th for height, compared with the 50^th percentile for both at the last checkup, so she's grown by leaps and bounds over the past three months.

She's got four teeth, two up and two down. She's still curious about everything, and generally happy. She laughs a bunch, and "talks" a fair amount -- Kathy and Avery (the nanny) say they think she's properly used Dada and Nana (how Avery is referred to), but I'm not sure. The only thing preventing her from walking on her own is balance, and she really wants to get that down. She often prefers that we take her two hands for balance while she walks rather than crawl, and moves quickly regardless of whether she walks or crawls. All it takes is a few seconds, and she's gone over to the stairs in order to climb them (we never did get gates, and now she goes up them with no trouble (with one of us behind her all the way, of course)). She's not much into being read to -- when she's up she wants to do stuff rather than sit there. So when we do read to her, it's often background noise for her while she does something else. Still, she's started opening the books she's chewing on and at least appears to be looking at the pictures.

I also think the childcare situation is working well. Kathy loves having those two days a week with Emelia. And as for the other three days, Emelia loves Avery, and we're happy with her as well. Also, by having Jonah (the other child in the nannyshare) in her life, Emelia is probably getting at least a bit of the experience of having a sibling.

"No More Photos, Please"

It's Hot, Damn Hot

Despite not being one who sweats much, I was more than damp by the time I reached my office before 9 am. Now, in the "coolness" of the night, excuse me if I just stand here, letting my body melt onto the steps outside my house, the redness of my sinews blending with the bricks upon which my syrupy insides accumulate. It's cold somewhere, and that thought provides me with a scintilla of comfort, the very idea that maybe I could escape this oppressiveness -- the heat index was well into the 100s today, and is supposed to stay that way for the next couple of days. That maybe it's hotter elsewhere is no consolation. Can you see my ankle bones sticking out of the drying heap, above the blue checked short-sleeved shirt that's become glued to the sidewalk? The plants need water, though it's probably too late for most of their dried-out husks, overheated and undernourished. Maybe when it cools down to 80 or so, Kathy will come outside and sweep up my remains -- I understand urns are a popular place to put them, and it seems more dignified than having a dog piss onto my crystallized grains and send them into the gutter and down the drain that's two houses down.