Life's Better Ideas

Occasional links to, and comments on, ideas that I think will make this a better world, and remarks about things that need fixing, too.

Name: David Aitken

Location: Denver, Colorado, United States

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Here's what John Gilmore has to say about the census. I couldn't agree more.

Anonymous said...: In 1980 I moved in after the census date. The census bureau kept calling to verify there was no one resident on census date to my knowledge (house was unoccupied and on the market then). I had received the long form.

In 1990 I received, filled out, and returned the long form.

In 2000 I again received the long form. I filled it out until I got to the question on the size of an average utility bill. I'm not going to spend all that time hunting down my old utility bills and calulating the average. I didn't return the form. The census taker called me twice. I told him there was only one person resident for the purpose of determining congressional representation and anything more was an invasion of privacy.; 9:47 PM
goyishekop said...: Like Teddy Roosevelt, I don't believe in hyphenated Americans; when I'm asked "ethnicity" questions on government forms, I check "Other," and write in "American."

(Why, for example, a checkbox for "Hispanic," but not for "Irish," or "East Indian"?)

After the last census, I was talking to my mother, who'd gotten the long form. When I asked her what she'd checked for that question, she said, "Oh honey, I just always check 'Other' and write in 'American.' "

This suggests to me that ethnicity is genetic.; 11:53 AM