What I’ve been up to.

Posted on March 25, 2008 
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Sorry for the lack of updates, but right now I’m at the part in the film where I’m just transcribing a whole mess of interviews straight to text.  We’re going to “edit on paper” the documentary - sort of like creating the script after the filming, but it tends to work.

I’ve also decided to focus a little bit on Texas’s democratic system, for comparison and relevance to an American audience.  Quite frankly, Texas is screwed up, electorally.

Every 10 years, after the census, the state legislatures in the U.S. determine the boundaries of the federal congressional districts in that state.  What happened was that in 2003, the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature, not due to revisit the boundary issue for another 7 years, redrew the district maps to give the Republican party a distinct advantage.  This resulted in a +4 seat pickup gain for the Republicans in Congress during the 2004 national elections.  The rationale they gave was that the existing boundaries disproportionately elected Democrats (so, instead of moving to a proportional system, they simply drew disproportional boundaries that favored -them.- )

This year, because no clear winner emerged in the Democratic primary for President, the March 4th Texas primary election was important.  (Usually, this doesn’t even matter.)  Now, do you think the number of delegates is determined proportionally in Texas?  No.

First, there is a primary, where people go and vote, and can early-vote for two weeks before the primary.  The results of the primary assign about 2/3rds of the delegates, but the number of delegates is determined by state Senate district, and takes into consideration how many voters in that District voted for a Democrat in the 2006 elections and the Gubenatorial elections.

Then, there’s a caucus - one night only - after the polls close the night of the election, where people go and vote again.  At our precinct it was very uncoordinated and took hours.  But are the delegates assigned by the number of votes?  No.

First, everyone signs in to illustrate their preference.  Most go home and leave - some stay behind to vote on who gets to take the ballots home for the night until it can be mailed in the next day.   Of course, each camp wants people to stay so that they can be sure that one of THEIR guys gets to take home the box.  Cause you can’t trust the other guy.  Then delegates are assigned, and that means you have to convince people to stay even longer because if your side doesn’t have enough people running for delegate, you lose those delegates and the other side can pick those up.

Those precinct delegates meet at the county convention, and at the county convention, each precinct is assigned a certain number of delegates.

For example, let’s take a hypothetical.  Let’s say that Camp A had 20 delegates and Camp B had 10 delegates. - and only three county delegates would go on to the state convention.  You’d think the math would be easy - let Camp B election one delegate and Camp A elect two amongst themselves. No.

It doesn’t quite work like that.  The delegates that get the top three votes get the spot.  Which means there are all sorts of wacky fun that could mean that even though Camp A had more votes, Camp B gets more delegates.

For example, Mr. A1 might get all 20 of the Camp A votes, but two people - B1 and B2, could split Camp B supporters.  That results in a count of Delegate A1 with 20 votes, Delegate B1 with 5 votes, and Delegate B2 with 5 votes.  A1, B1, and B2 all get to be delegates to the State Convention - Camp B picks up an extra delegate.

Or, let’s say that there are five people who want to go on to the state convention in Camp A’s camp.  A1, A2, A3, A4, and A5.  If they split the votes equally, they’ll get four votes each.  Let’s say Delegats B1 and B2 are there again with their five votes. Delegates B1, B2, and only one of A’s delegation gets to go on to the state convention.

It, of course, is absurd.  And I think it’s a good counterpoint to the claim that MMP is somehow a “difficult system” compared to “what we have in America.”

Makers complete, posted online.

Posted on March 9, 2008 
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“Makers” has been completed, and at 26:40, it was just big enough to fit online in 1024×576 video.  Perfect for PAL Anamorphic Widescreen DVDs.  Check out the “Makers” page above to view it and find out more about the project. 

Makers is finished

Posted on February 19, 2008 
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Barring some unusual problem, I’m ready to have Makers, my short subject documentary on the do-it-yourself counterculture, shown to friends, and from there, printing up a batch of DVDs.

Final running time came to 26:40 exactly, which is about the standard length for a PBS half-hour.

I like how it came out, although I’m holding my breath until I get the proof back without errors.

The Following Alexis West Archives

Posted on February 12, 2008 
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Here is the the raw footage of 21 interviews with New Zealand’s current and past political VIPs. It’s all released under a Creative Commons 3.0 BY-NC-SA license - feel free to use this in your academic or research projects but you are not allowed to use it for commercial projects unless you arrange permission to do so.

The links below lead to low quality versions of the raw footage on Google Video. If you’re interested in getting the high quality version of the footage, e-mail brian.boyko@blogphilo.com and I can send you the footage you request via FTP. Please keep in mind the size of HD footage - feel free to download the files off of Google Video while you’re editing and just give me the timecodes of the actual clips that you need. That way I can send you the files much more quickly.

Rodney Hide

Posted on February 12, 2008 
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