Our parent company's new initiative is to provide you, the readers, with loads of short videos about what is going on in your communities.

To make this happen, they've given all the reporters tiny digital video cameras.

I think this is a great idea. We sorely need a way to get new - and younger - readers. Multimedia journalism is the future, and unlike the typewriter-pecking, whiskey-slugging fogies of newsroom days of yore, I embrace this future.

There are more ways to tell a story than "WEST CHESTER -- Borough council voted yesterday to..."

The video work is rough right now - we're still learning how to use these tiny little cameras. Here's today's attempt by yours truly (in it, West Chester Borough administrators talk about the coming snow):

Note - these cameras don't come with tripods. I'm working on a way to cut down on the shaking.

If you're curious, here's yesterday's ultra classy effort (again by yours truly ... things can only get better from here. I'm composing the voiceover on the spot, as I'm holding the camera. The voiceover microphones have not yet come in):

Yesterday, I visited the Chester County ACTION website. I hadn't been to it in a while, and I noticed some pretty significant changes. Gone is all of the we're fighting to bring God back into government rhetoric. But there's a new quotes section.

Here's who's quoted:

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke, William Penn, John Jay, Edmund Burke, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Dr. D. James Kennedy, and Ronald Regan.

Huh?

I suppose Rush Limbaugh is kind of like a modern day founding father?

I wonder how many members of Chester County Action have read Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. It's a much more difficult read, of course, than Beck's Arguing with Idiots.

But here's what really gets me: guess which Sean Hannity quote Chester County ACTION included on its quotes page?

"It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.”

Whew! That's a relief. And all this time, liberals and those insidious RINOs have been telling us that we need to have separation of church and state!

Hannity is correct, if you want to consider the Constitution and the Bill of Rights two separate documents. But, you know, they're not, and Hannity is an idiot.

Let's remember what ACTION stands for: "Americans for Christian Traditions in Our Nation."

Why this rant? Why now?

A) I, for countless reasons, value the First Amendment. Without it, I'd likely be in a different line of work.

B) Gwenne Alexander, the president of Chester County ACTION, plans to run for the 156th District State House seat.

You can read a draft of her letter of interest (which is now circulating on the internet - this draft might not be the final one) here.

Note this sentence: "I have served as the CFO for a large non-profit Foundation in Chester County."

Oh? Which one is that?

All mention of Alexander has disappeared from ACTION's homepage. (OK, not entirely true. All of the pictures in the photo gallery were posted by "Gwenne." Click on the "Gwenne" link and you get a stub of Gwenne Alexander's Facebook Page.) ....

CORRECTION - On the contact page, she is listed as the president of Chester County Action. When writing this post yesterday, I didn't see the tiny red text in which her name is listed.

Why do we conduct a census? Because the constitution tells us to, in this unassuming language:

"The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct" (Article I, Section II).

(Interestingly, the sentence right before that one is the infamous Three-fifths Clause.)

One of the purposes of the census is to figure out how many congressmen each state gets. However, the Constitution says nothing about how legislative districts should be drawn. Pennsylvania's Constitution does, but it does not, apparently, say enough.

Which has led to blatant gerrymandering. For a close-to-home example, check out the Sixth Congressional District:


They drew it in 2001 for Jim Gerlach.

And, based on the 2010 census results, the partisan line drawers in Harrisburg are likely to come up with even more abstract shapes.

To prevent such abuses, a few state legislators have introduced bills that would seek to limit gerrymandering. The goal is congressional districts, state senate districts and state house districts that do not unnecessarily split up geographic regions, neighborhoods, municipalities, school districts, etc.

State Rep. Paul Drucker, D-157th of Tredyffrin, is one of the legislators who has introduced such a bill. He held a hearing on Thursday at which he sought feedback on his bill and on a similar bill by State Rep. Babette Josephs, D-182 of Philadelphia.

Drucker sought testimony from the League of Women Voters and Common Cause for Pennsylvania. Spokeswomen from both of those agencies testified that Drucker's and Josephs' bills were a good start, but were highly flawed.

The problem, the spokeswomen said, was that both Drucker's bill and Josephs' bill call for the creation of bi-partisan redistricting committees. The League and Common Cause would prefer if these committees were non-partisan.

The committees that Drucker and Josephs call for would be composed of the house and senate majority and minority leaders. Drucker's bill would add on the majority and minority whips. Both bills call for the committee to be chaired by a non-legislator appointee.

The League and Common Cause wonder, "Why the hell would you want to leave legislators in charge of redrawing legislative districts."

You can read Drucker's bill here. You can read Josephs' bill here.

You can read the League of Women Voters' response here. You can read Common Cause for Pennsylvania's response here.

(There are other redistricting reform bills. I've concentrated on these because they were the subject of yesterday's hearing, which I covered.)

I have, in the past, written a post that makes it sound like I support the installation of lights at Bayard Rustin High School's football field.

In fact, I don't care whether lights end up on the field. At the time I wrote the post, I was in a literary mood. What I wished to express was this: Westtown Township is part of the Philly suburbs. It is not "the country." It will not be "the country" until 95 percent of its residents voluntarily demolish their houses and move out and the remaining 5 percent quit their jobs and take up farming.

In short: light pollution is part of suburban life. Deal with it.

The West Chester Area School Board on Monday voted to hold off on installing lights at Rustin's field. I wrote pretty extensively about the decision here and here. Cost, not light pollution, was the reason for the school board's opposition.

What is interesting, however, is the voting pattern that has emerged: Terri Clark, Sean Carpenter, John Wingerter, Heidi Adsett and Maria Armandi Pimley (all but Clark are new to the board) vote together. They have, it appears, formed a 5 to 4 majority.

Skip Carroll, a West Chester Area Democratic committeeman, forwarded this message to me. Its intended recipient is Obama fundraiser David Plouffe, and Carroll wrote it in response to one of that publicist's many pleas for donations. It is an example, I think, of the intense irritation Democrats feel now that the Tea Partiers (with the help of the dutifully bored press) are stealing the national spotlight.

David Pouffle.

You guys just don't get it.

Obama has, with a lot of advisory help, surrounded himself with the sorriest lot I can believe. Rahm Emanuel. Despised by most in Congress, many in the White House, the majority of party faithfuls and half of Illinois.

Larry Summers. He may be the poorest financial manager/adviser living. He screwed up Lithuania, Russia Harvard and the US!

Tim Geitner. A toady to Wall Street in his whole career.

Ben Bernanke, who should be fired for every decision he has made counter to advice from Paul Volcker.

And many, many more.

In addition to this he has made back-door deals on Healthcare Reform with many of the people criminally responsible for the crisis, To Whit: The HMOs and Insurers, Big Pharma, The Doctors (read AMA) and Hospitals and the Ben Nelson types in congress.

And, you have the insensitivity to include a red "DONATE" button on your propaganda messages as though we should feel obliged to donate to an already elected president!

No wonder you lost Massachusetts and are on a course to lose the whole country.

Nice work Brownie.

Skip Carroll