The 2010 Census

The census bureau has spent millions on ads to encourage people to fill out and return the 2010 census forms. As someone who uses old census records all the time to track people, I firmly believe in completing the forms.

But this year the absurdities of the 2010 firm really struck me.

First of all, they wanted you to return the forms almost immediately, even though the count was supposed to be "as of April 1." And the instructions were explicit about how to handle visitors and people temporarily staying in the house.

Then there were all the blatant efforts to assign people to ethnic and racial categories. I protested apartheid and refuse to participate in the collection of data that could support it here. My daughter will remember that her high school refused to enroll her until I checked off one of several dozen micro-racial divisions. The idiotic bureaucrats absolutely insisted a box get checked off, so finally my daughter took the sheet of paper and randomly checked one.

So we discussed the form extensively, and decided to fill the form out on April 1, giving only our names and the number of people in the house. Our descendants will just have to get their information about us from the extensive records I plan to leave.

Update: My daughter was asked to fill out a census form by her dorm floor's resident advisor. Her descendants are going to wonder why she was born in Norway.