This just in - gerrymandering began right here in Davis, California

Plus ICE's offer of up to $110,000 for new agents and Tulsi Gabbard's moving video on Hiroshima

GERRYMANDERING BEGINS AT HOME ... When I was growing up, our family home was on a slight curve in the street that somehow allowed us to have an extra-large backyard where neighborhood kids would gather to play sandlot football and backyard baseball.

Unfortunately, the neighbors over the back fence were raising some angry chickens, so the rules of baseball were modified by my dad so that if you hit the ball over the fence you would be out, instead of circling the bases with a home run. That fear of hitting the ball over the fence helps to explain my less than sparkling batting average in the Davis Little League.

Be that as it may, someone had to mow that extra large lawn that grew faster than the corn sprouting in fields between here and Woodland. That task fell to me and my brother, J.J., who was a year older than I was. Dad's plan was that one brother would divide the lawn with our old push mower and then the other brother got first pick of which side he wished to mow. We'd then swap roles the next week.

Since there were patches of thick impossible-to-mow Bermuda grass in some areas and almost bare patches in other areas, the "division" was never a straight line. No, it wandered all over the backyard to the point that it took a long time to decide which side you wanted to mow because you just knew your brother was trying to trick you into taking the hard part.

I believe this was the first instance of gerrymandering in the State of California.