Was it something we said?

It is time once again, friends, for those in charge of redistricting to attempt to excise my neck of woods from the greater Squarebanks area. 

For those of you from Outside, (and thanks Immmoral Minority for the traffic!), we here in the locale of the Goldstream Valley trend a bit more left than a lot of Greater Redneckia. 

You wouldn't know to look at us, with our typical Alaskana:  beards, pickups, carharrts, bunny boots, guns, sled dog yards, etc.  But they are matched, in a weird oddball blend, with Subarus and hybrids, tattoos, dreadlocks, nice older folks who lived out here when you could still hunt here a few decades ago, libertarians, grad students, Teamsters, hippies, bluegrass musicians, the new Goths, and a few Ural-driving peeps. Chicken were "in" here long before it became all the rage in Brooklyn.
 
It's the real Alaska you don't see on the teevee, usually, where the fundamental rule is "live and let live."  You can be a raging fundamentalist religious-type out here, again, it's do what you do but don't bother/harm anybody else... unless of course you buy the one local little store out here and then break state labor law and all common sense.

See, it's basically liberals with guns.  Ester is not much different, though, perhaps weirder, with a better bar.  The two CDPs (census designated places) tend to vote Democrat, though I'd hazard a guess that we are mostly all undeclared voters.  (Like most of Alaska. Look it up!)  Now that it is time for the redistricting board to redraw the lines, every plan proffered by the Redistricting Board has removed Goldstream and Ester and put us with the gigantic boundary of House District 38.

Nothing wrong with HD 38.  It encompasses an awful lot of my favorite part of Alaska.  But we don't belong in it.  The problem is, how to get each House District to something near (there is a certain amount of deviation allowed) to 17,755 inhabitants as urban areas (the roadbelt in particular) continues to grow. 

I can see their point (if by "their", we pay particular note to Jim Holm)... this is an excellent opportunity to rid themselves of some pesky non-Republicans. And gerrymandering has been abused by both politicians since the 1800s.

(to be continued, as I have a day job)  But next time:

The Kawasaki finger & Back in the Day