Big Bill Thomas, not to be confused with Big Bill Thomson, the crook, is-- Oh no! A crook?
Did Big Bill actually steal over a thousand pounds? The courts says, "Wait a while till we count the cash." Big Bill says, "Hullo!"
We dropped in to find out what's up with the Boss, now that he's between court dates. He ain't saying nuttin', see? We heard what we think was Big Bill shouting down from the rooftop: "You'll never take me alive, coppers!" It could have been pigeons. We'll certainly up-date if we find out more on that. Meanwhile, we visited Big Bill's website for this:
Councillor William (What's a thou. between friends?) Thomas OBE
Events & Sentencing Times
In the new budget starting 1st April we have set aside an extra £100, 000 to improve our parks. Do you agree that a hardworking councillor deserves a slice?
Click on one of the options below to let me know your opinion.
Yes
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This site has been built to the high moral standards of a politician's view of accessible web design.
Show Your Pride In Sandwell At The Public's Expence.
Sandwell residents are invited to pick up a pencil or paintbrush (small donation to the "Free Big Bill Defence Fund")for the chance to exhibit their artwork at The Public. Big Bill Thomas lessons in creative cheque writing available for a small fee.
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Welcome to my website
Thanks for logging on
After my serious illness I have now returned to "full duties" at Sandwell Council, taking up complaints, "collections," and other moral issues, though those latter are better not discussed outside the pub.
I was one of your local Councillors until I was arrested for theft, and together with Iris Boucher and Barbara Price represented the Rowley Ward. Our list of priorities are maintaining low Council Tax increases (cough), continue to regenerate the Borough linked to job creation, modernise Council services Particularly Waste Management. I mean, if the money is just laying there, why waste it?
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I feel very privileged that you have logged on to my personal website and hope that you will visit regularly to check for updates. In future, please check with the warden for those visiting days.
Among the group of twentysomethings, one flew into a rage when I said the Teamsters Union is an outgrowth of wagon drivers, men who worked teams of horses. He countered that Teamsters are "a team, a union." Thus they are Teamsters. A man wears cowboy boots....
I ride a dual purpose motorcycle, eight inches of front suspension. I can go anywhere. The kids all want to own hybrid cars, to protect the environment. No, actually, they prefer velodrome bicycles today. But hybrids are cool, and if they had the money they'd have them. Metro-sexuals in hybrids. My bike isn't pretty, it's a metal horse, able to go wherever we need go. Cowboy boots are pointed at the toe to slide into the stirrup, and heal is high to stop the boot from sliding out. That's why. They're boots to keep out thorns and snake bites and such. That's why. The boots don't make the man. Saying so doesn't make it so.
You'll notice by the end of this post that Sarah Palin, Bill Ayers, and Michael Moore don't play much part in this piece. That's because they come later, from this back-story, such as it is. Know this little bit of background and you might know Obama little better, America a little better, and perhaps your own self a little better.
We begin this look at our time by focusing on music from the sixties, of which Obama and Palin are echoes.
In America in the mid-sixties, the nation was rocked and rolled by race riots in major cities. Those were exciting times, regardless of how one might feel about the violence and loss of property and life. The times were exciting because they were high-energy times, fueled by youthful exuberance, by youthful self-righteousness, and by music that blew the roof off the old folk's home. Those days were very exciting. For those who missed it, they missed something special; and many of those who were there long for a return to those high times. Those there include Bill Ayers but not Sarah Palin, not Obama, not Michael Moore, though the latter must long to have been in the midst of it all. They live on the vapours. Repulsive old men like Ayers were there and they know what it was. That time is gone. They can't let go.
How far back should we go to see ourselves today? We can look at the parents who spawned the radical kids of the sixties, White people whose lives were shaped by the Great Depression and World War Two. There were Black people who's lives were hardly the worse for the depression and who weren't much welcome in the military at the time. They were affected more, and deeply, by a revolution that is seldom mentioned: the Tractor Revolution. America, with returning White men from the war after a long depression were suddenly in the lap of extreme wealth, a first for the working-classes in history. Blacks were on the move as well: to cities in the North after being removed from the lands of the South due to an explosion in tractors on land previously worked manually by Blacks. Blacks moved to cities; Whites moved to suburbs. Whites went to college; Blacks didn't. Generally. There were two kinds of American experience: White and urban or land owning rural; and there was the non-owning Black life suddenly facing each other in growing numbers in cities. Whites prospered; Blacks lagged behind. As bad as it might have been for Blacks in the 50s and 60s, it is nothing compared to the misery of many Blacks in today's Liberal urban setting. At the time, all seemed to be possible, though, that all would live in high style if only the government could equalize things by law. They tried that; but the great equalizer wasn't legislation, it was music.
White kids picked up on black people's music and turned it into "Rock and Roll," previously a Black euphemism. Electric music for an electrified time. Blacks brought from the South the seeds of marijuana, and Whites brought the rhythms of Country music to combine in a burst of noise that reverberates to this day. Country and Jazz combined in electric wailing and white hot pounding rhythms set the soul afire. And the cities, too. White kids, off to college in numbers unimaginable a generation earlier, born to parents who might have read comic books, and if they were "intellectuals," Life Magazine, read Marx and European philosophers, also electrifying, and gained a sense of utopian coolness, the thrill of finding a perfect world there for the making if only they would dare. They did. For everyone. Not the old stand-by for Americans of a man's right, but civil rights-- for all, and all at once. Equal rights for Blacks. And the music to go with it.
Coolness, a Black concept from the rural tradition of working at a regular if slow pace, of acceptance of things going on about one because there is no arguing with the weather, of putting down the boss by not reacting, became a White joy, aided by marijuana. Also transformed by electric music and the thrill of being young and right about everything moral, backed up by mysterious, exotic Europeans, philosophers so cool that no one could resist them, at least no cool guy could resist. No resistance but for the rural hicks in small towns and farms, those like the Sarah Palins of our time, those who just didn't get out and experience "real" living, the world outside the farm, the land of rural idiocy where noting ever happened and nothing important ever occurred. Suburban kids, they knew it all, and the music moved them. Philosophy, Europeans, and exotic Blacks. It was the best of all worlds, that one could live the life of a Bohemian, a beatnik, a cool guy who could almost be a Negro, so far removed from the philistine world was he in his studies of European philosophy, smoking pot in the dorm, planning the Revolution to transform the world into utopia, a place of endless sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Wow, man. It was cool. And it was hot! Black was White Hot. Those guys didn't have to put up with their parents at all. Rebels with a cause. A Great Cause. Civil Rights. And no parents. 'Cept for loans and stuff. To be cool. That was all that truly mattered.
Blacks were moved off the land and into cities where they were crowed and cramped and dispersed from former family networks into an alien place of rip and tear and patronage. Their rural culture was dropped into cities, and they were a race apart to begin with, segregated and not well-liked by the White majority. Now really, what could be more exciting for excited White kids? They got to hang out with strange people who didn't have to follow the rules. They had cool music and did cool things like use wild slang. Man. They were also outsiders one could get in with by sucking up, by sharing ones lunch with, and even by having totally wild sex that would freak out ones parents, should they ever find out, a huge great laugh and exciting. Also, seriously, a moral imperative to save them from ones parents, bigots and provincials and bores, unsophisticated types who didn't go to college, didn't know philosophy, and didn't like hanging out and being cool. It drove the folks nuts, and they barely bitched.
One way of being very cool, and hence a way of getting laid, was to hang out, smoke pot, and pretend one was Black. The focus of the hanging-out was music, played loud enough to attract girls to come and hang out too. Being in a band was the ticket to the sack every time. Being in a garage band was the local ideal. MC5 did it. They combined the energy of electric music with the rebelliousness of young White guys pretending to be Black, and they also had the added bonus of being radicals who made reference to Revolution, to European philosophers, and were very noisy. Blacks were impatient to join the general prosperity, not so satisfied with being second-class citizens when White people had so much and they didn't. It's not so noticeable on the farm. In the city it's impossible to miss that some folks like oneself are better off than oneself. Not right, not fair, and not tolerable.
White kids in cities formed garage bands and some pretended to be Black kids. they made exciting music, and sang about Philosophy and Revolution and Utopia. Very cool.
The MC5 is an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan in 1964 and active until 1972. They played hard rock music that also included blues-rock, psychedelic rock, rock & roll and garage rock. "Crystallizing the counterculture movement at its most volatile and threatening",[1] their far left political ties and anti-establishment lyrics and music would serve as a prototype for later punk rock musicians. The band consisted of Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith (guitars) Michael Davis (bass), Rob Tyner (vocals), and Dennis Thompson (drums).
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According to Kramer, the MC5 of this period was politically influenced by the Marxism/Maoism of the Black Panther Party and Fred Hampton.[4] Black Panther Party founder Huey P. Newton prompted John Sinclair [see below] to found the White Panthers, a militant leftist organization of white people working to assist the Black Panthers. Shortly after, Sinclair was arrested for possession of illegal narcotics.
Under the "guidance" of John Sinclair (who dubbed his enterprise "Trans-Love Energies" and refused to be categorized as a traditional manager), the MC5 were soon involved in left-wing politics: Sinclair was active with the White Panther Party and Fifth Estate.
Fred Hampton was killed in a shoot-out with police before I had a chance to meet him, though I met some of his friends and colleagues. I also missed Sinclair, he being in prison at the time. They were stars of the show, and I only met the roadies. It wasn't so clear to me then as now that it was all a game. I hated most of those I referred to then as "bearded assholes." I wrote for "underground" newspapers and lived what I now see as a terrifying life. Then it was simply exciting. today I love Sarah Palin, and that's because I know Michael Moore and Obama for who they are: kids who wish they'd been where I was then.
The White Panthers were a far left, anti-racist, White American political collective founded in 1968 by Lawrence Plamondon, Leni Sinclair, and John Sinclair. It was started in response to an interview where Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, was asked what white people could do to support the Black Panthers. Newton replied that they could form a White Panther Party. The group took the name and dedicated its energies to "cultural revolution." Sinclair made every effort to ensure that the White Panthers were not mistaken for a white supremacist group, responding to such claims with "quite the contrary." The party worked with many ethnic minority rights groups in the Rainbow Coalition.
How's this: Black guys are cool. White guys pretending to be Black guys are cool. But if a White guy were a Black guy, that would not be cool: the White guy being cool by pretending to be Black is only cool in relation to White guys who aren't pretending to be Black.
John Sinclair (born October 2, 1941 in Flint, Michigan, United States) is a Detroit poet, one-time manager of the band MC5, and leader of the White Panther Party — a militantly anti-racist countercultural group of white socialists seeking to assist the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights movement — from November 1968 to July 1969.
White guys in Detroit and other burning cities didn't burn down their own parents' houses in sympathy with Black rioters: they went to Black neighbourhoods and encouraged Blacks to burn their own neighbourhoods. Sometimes they'd use dad's Manhattan condo to build bombs, but that wasn't to blow up the place, it was to blow up White guys' office buildings downtown. Blowing up dad's place would be a mistake. Fatal, sometimes. So too was taking drugs, like heroin. Who would have thought one could die? That was so uncool. It was very cool for others to die, though. Not from something petty like drug over-dose. That had no coolness, unless one was a famous rock star. That was cool. But for the average guy, drug-overdosing was just amateur stuff for fools. Not Romantic. Not memorable. No music in it.
Cool was MC5 making big noise and singing about Revolution. Black people were doing it in the streets, man, and that was so cool. Our parents really hated it, and we were gods. We could rock and roll all night, and the music just got louder and louder... till we couldn't hear anymore.
When I look back at the people I used to know and used to look up to as the coolest of people, I see that they aged and became boring and silly, those who didn't die of drug over-doses and who didn't spend their lives in prisons or taverns drinking and reminiscing about how cool it was back then. Today I see people like Obama who see people Like Ayers as heroes. man, they weren't there to see how shabby and phony it all was, how cheap it would have been had someone pulled the plug on the speakers and we'd had to actually listen to the drivel that passed as profundity. No kidding. Try reading Alan Ginsberg. Or worse, think back to being in jail with that creepy bastard. (For a very short time, no charges pressed.)
Some people never grew up; and some people grew up under the impression that to grow up is to be a kid in the sixties. We can see the painful result of that when we compare MC5 with their latter day kind: Jennifer Lopez and Whitney Houston. Man, the sixties rocked, and it still hurts my ears. Now I smile when I can remember something from back then that doesn't actually hurt. There is the music, mostly, the pounding, noisy electricity of it all. Today, all they have is Islam to attach themselves to, as if it's cool and Revolutionary. I call this lot "Conformity Hippies." They missed the real thing, and it's gone for good. There's no music in Islam, and the kids don't get it. Without the music it's just shit on a stick. It ain't Sarah Palin. It's enough to make your eyes water. These kids are so like my 50s parents. So uncool.
Motor City's gonna burn, but it's not going to burn hot. It's gonna burn like a wet mattress. If you know a little more now, maybe you'll shed a tear when the smoke gets in your eyes. Talk about cool!
I couldn't make it up if I tried. Big Bill Thomas is a crook. Now I know why all the sudden interest in him and Sandwell itself. There's more here on Sandwell's finest at the bottom of the page.
Sandwell Council leader Bill Thomas quits after being charged with theft.
Sandwell Council leader Bill Thomas has quit after being charged by police with theft.
Coun Thomas, aged 69, resigned as council leader today, although he remains a councillor. He was one of the West Midlands’ longest serving council leaders.
Deputy Labour group leader Steve Elking has taken over the task of leading the council.
Details of the alleged offence are unclear, but Sandwell Council chief executive Dr Allison Fraser confirmed that Coun Thomas had decided to stand down.
Dr Fraser said: “The council has been notified that a 69-year-old man has been charged with theft.
“We have been advised by police that this is a personal matter. The council has not been approached by police about their investigation.”
Coun Thomas’s decision to quit was reported to shocked colleagues at a Sandwell cabinet meeting this morning.
Coun Eling said: “Coun Thomas’s resignation is for reasons which are wholly unconnected with the council and his role here.
“For us it is business as usual. We have recently strengthened the leadership team by appointing a third deputy.
“I as leader and councillors Pauline Hinton and Darren Cooper as deputies are available to ensure council business goes ahead smoothly.”
'It is not only the parade which is the problem, but the tribal excitement it creates.'
Hello, all you naughty tribal types in Sandhill. At last, the long-awaited and deeply anticipated expose on the ever lovely Yvonne Davies. Ooh, I'm feeling tribal, I say!
YvonneDavies' Sandwell Spankies: Come Ye Hither, Naughty-Boys.
YvonneDavies, Sandwell City Councillor, has some strong words for you, naughty boy. And if you're one of those who likes to dress up in nappies and get your sagging bottom paddled, you might be in luck. In Sandwell, think a racist thought or exhibit a sign of tribal excitement, and, ooh-la-la, you might get swished in that special way. Naughty! you naughty, naughty thing, you.
Daniel Bates, "Axe falls on St George: Parade is halted after council says it attracts racist thugs," Daily Mail.co.uk. 12 Feb. 2009
In a letter to the organisers, one councillor, YvonneDavies, ["My Politics: the Labour Party;
Working hard for the people of Sandwell;] said the [St. George's Day] parade created an 'unhealthy atmosphere' and inspired young boys to be racist.
She wrote: 'It is not only the parade which is the problem, but the tribal excitement it creates.'
Dare I say it? Yes, I must. I'm feeling "tribal" already.
Sandwell, in the news for it's daring attempt to bring not-naughty-behaviour to little boys no matter how old they might be.
One might cage the naughty, but the tribal excitement builds in the savage breast regardless.
Councillor Davies wrote in her letter: 'I am sure most are very respectful and law-abiding, however some are distasteful in the extreme and wish to divide and separate people from each other.'*
She said she had once been abused by youths who 'had been emboldened by the parade and thought racist chants were funny'.
'I have seen first hand how the parade (albeit unintentionally) creates an unhealthy atmosphere.'
Yes, dear reader, you have just read the immortal words of YvonneDavies, Labour Party Councillor from Sandwell. " Working hard for the people of Sandwell."
Sandwell is a metropolitan borough of about 286,000 people in the heart of the post industrial West Midlands of England. The area is culturally rich with 1in 5 from an ethnic minority. It is one of the most materially deprived areas outside London with high long term unemployment and about 100,000 people live in households which receive income support. The problems faced by many of the poorest people in deprived areas of the UK have similar root causes and similar solutions to those faced by poor people and poor countries around the world.
Translation time for all you ignorant Yanks:
A metropolitan borough: A working-class backwater in the middle of nowhere.
Post industrial West Midlands of England: People had jobs there in the nineteenth century.
Culturally rich: Lots of immigrants.
1 in 5 from an ethnic minority: Lots of Pakistani tribesmen who beat their wives.
One of the most materially deprived areas outside London: Think inner-city Detroit.
With high long term unemployment: Grandma on welfare takes care of grandkids on welfare.
100,000 people [out of 285,000] live in households which receive income support: Just about anyone you meet there will be on welfare.
The problems faced by many of the poorest people in deprived areas of the UK have similar root causes and similar solutions to those faced by poor people and poor countries around the world: The socialist parties have turned large parts of Britain into the Third World.
YvonneDavies, the head of Sandwell council’s anti-poverty and welfare rights unit says abject poverty is still faced by many inhabitants of Britain’s inner cities. Many do not receive their full benefits entitlement. Many are unable to afford every day health maintaining items such as transport, decent food, a warm coat for the winter, leisure, which are taken for granted by most of the health audience. The average gain possible for the Sandwell clients of the welfare rights service is £62 per week. Health services and local strategic partnerships in inner city areas need to promote specialist welfare rights to get people their entitlements to a healthy living income. PCTs need to make hard choices when considering investing in health visiting or health advisory services or in welfare rights advisers who could put money directly into people’s pockets- creating healthier and more independent citizens. An injection of cash is ‘better than penicillin.’
A Sunday-school teacher without a church. Boys who won't sing with the choir. A massively failed city with over one in three on welfare and demanding more cash. The locals get their parade rained on. Thanks, Yvonne. And thank you, too, Big Bill Thomas.
What a deal, though, for them that gots. Them that gots shall get, and them that ain't shall not. God bless the child that's go it own. Or, move to Sandwell and go on the dole. One can be sure that at least more than one in three will vote Labour in Sandwell. That doesn't include the folks like YvonneDavies and big Bill Thomas who also collect the dole by working for the government. You can be sure that it'll stay that way. If it looks like the natives are restless, that they might vote non-Labour, then one can be sure Labour will import more voters from -- who cares where! It's called vote-buying. It's called gerrymandering.* For all the sanctimonious drivel from the likes of YvonneDavies and Bill Thomas, it's corruption. If you're not on the dole there, the only reason for liking it is because you really get off on being spanked by a middle aged lady. Naughty you.
How many people are going to continue to put up with being scolded and spanked by not very attractive middle aged fat ladies? Lots, probably, particularly in Sandwell. But not all. And not forever. Even Leftist gerrymandering and the resultant probable defeat of the people's choice won't stop the surge to freedom among Europeans. Elections and seats will still come by ridings, balkanizing the nations, but also dividing them into armed camps of "Us and Them" by party and faction, clearing the way for those who live by rule of law and those who live by perfidy, force, and violence. Sides will have to be taken, and in time, actively rather than passively. The choices will be clear in that the district ridings will have representatives or they won't, according to the ruling party fiat. When the native population finds itself a majority without a say in government, and the alien, including the Left dhimmi fascists, precluding the opposition from power, then there is already a constituency in the rough for rebellion. Elections will be too obviously non-representative for the people to indulge further.
There is one glaring problem with this scenario: that we tend to think of our divide as being between Left dhimmi fascists and jihadis on one side and an opposing conservative Right on the other. I think it's flawed.
I see the division as between those who will act and those who will not, i.e. between activists and passivists. I make my conclusions based on the work of Joanna Burke, An Intimate History of Killing, (2000) who writes that of the 100 percent involved in combat, only 15 percent will fire their weapons even under enemy fire. The remainder will "assist" those involved in firing. Look too at Primo Levi's essay, "The Drowned and the Saved," Survival at Auschwitz, in which he claims that only ten percent of those entering the death camp were engaged in surviving the routine, hence "the drowned." If this is correct, and it seems so intuitively and empirically according to my life to date, of the 100 percent of the European people, ten percent will struggle to survive, and of those only 15 percent will engage the enemy directly. One must also consider that the active among that 15 percent of ten percent will mostly be those who are the enemies of freedom. I make that last claim based on the nature of the battle in the first place, that it is not between Left and Right but between those who are "activists," which is generally the people one finds on the "Left" as opposed to those one finds on the "Right." Conservatives, by which I mean Liberals such as Locke, J.S. Mill and F.A. Hayek, as a few examples, democrats, are not those who will rush out to change much of anything. The Right, on the other hand, will be those activists to the right of the Left, i.e. those we might not wish to represent us.
If by parliamentary chicanery we find ourselves cheated of our representation in the public political sphere, my conclusion is that few people will care, and fewer still will dare. H.L. Menken puts it clearly when he writes that most people do not want freedom, they want security. Of those who will dare to struggle, we might find that many of them are not exactly democrats. If this is reaching someone who cares, I would hope s/he understands that the number of supporters will be small even in a large nation, and the number of activists will be tiny. With a tiny vanguard, as we see from history, much can be done.
YvonneDavies. She's a fool and a silly old lady who, 50 years ago, would have been a finger-wagging Methodist busy-body scolding rambunctious boys for misbehaving. Today she's picked up the post-Methodist socialist cliches of the day and still wags her finger. But not everyone will tolerate it forever. When people finally sicken of this parody of government, something is going to blow. [Not Yvonne, you naughty boy.] The question is, will there be enough people in England still who love freedom? And if not, if they've been replaced by Labour-voting immigrants and lay-abouts, what will the natives do? The government can gerrymander the locals right out of power forever. Until the people find themselves in a country that used to be their own and ain't no longer. How much spanking will people put up with before they get sick of it? What if people lose faith in the bogus religion that is post-Methodism? What if they find some serious "tribal excitement"?
So I'm naughty. Try spanking me.
*Elbridge Gerry, a former governor of Massachusettsa state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, "That will do for a salamander!" "Gerrymander!" came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only "the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage" but also "any representative elected from such a district by that method." Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.
This is some surprise? Sanctimonious hippies got political power and decided to show the old fogies just how moral and righteous the hippies are by importing Third World people to create a "multi-cultural" nation in Britain. The hippies knew that we are all one and that only racists and conservatives and other Nazis don't like hordes of savages roaming the nation in violent religion-intoxicated mobs. So now Britain is multi-cultural, and the Muslims are amok. It's not working according to the hippie plan because the Nazis are too strong. Yeah, that's it. That's the stupid story, and they're sticking to it.
Labour 'Encouraged Mass Immigration To UK' October 24, 2009 Steve Davies, Sky News
Labour ministers deliberately encouraged mass immigration to diversify Britain over the past decade, a former Downing Street adviser has claimed.Andrew Neather said the mass influx of migrant workers seen in recent years was not the result of a mistake or miscalculation but rather a policy the party preferred not to reveal to its core voters.
He said the strategy was intended to fill gaps in the labour market and make the UK more multicultural, at the same time as scoring political points against the Opposition.
"Mass migration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural,"...
Hippie platitudes about the nature of things is just fine among hippies smoking pot in the park; but when the hippies are the government, then things go jihad. We all know from experience how enraged the self-righteous are when they see things not working out their way, how they explode in fury and attack anyone who points out their foolishness.
Or maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe Britain was so rotten before the hippies decided to change it all that this is a good thing. Let's look back at just how horrible it all was:
Posts
a state noted for its varied, often colorful political fauna. Gerry (whose name, incidentally, was pronounced with a hard g, though gerrymander is now commonly pronounced with a soft g) was immortalized in this word because an election district created by members of his party in 1812 looked like a salamander. According to one version of gerrymander's coining, the shape of the district attracted the eye of the painter Gilbert Stuart, who noticed it on a map in a newspaper editor's office. Stuart decorated the outline of the district with a head, wings, and claws and then said to the editor, "That will do for a salamander!" "Gerrymander!" came the reply. The word is first recorded in April 1812 in reference to the creature or its caricature, but it soon came to mean not only "the action of shaping a district to gain political advantage" but also "any representative elected from such a district by that method." Within the same year gerrymander was also recorded as a verb.