According to St Luke "In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world." And everybody obediently went to their ancestral home to get counted. Nowadays submitting to Caesar's ten year count is an act of submission to an overly intrusive government. Unless, like me, you figure it's a not unreasonable thing for the government to know how many people actually live in the country we call home. 
Mind you we live in weird times when a good proportion of the population seems to think the world will end in a couple of years thanks to the Mayan calendar nonsense some illiterates are putting about. I welcomed the census taker into my home where she planted a chip under my skin so the government can trace my every move. Actually she just asked a few questions, I got most of them right and she handed me a piece of paper listing my options.
I am actually "White, Non Hispanic" but I want to be "Some Other Race." I haven't exactly decided what. Had my wife been home she might have been pissed that there wasn't a box for "Jew." But with the coming Fascist era, promised this November, that may be no bad thing. The census lady was charming and commiserated with me that Cheyenne should count, but doesn't.
Five minutes later I was all done and now the government had my secret information, all that stuff that is already on my driver license and credit reports. And passport application. Job applications. Shopping bar codes at Publix and Winn Dixie. My motorcycle tag. My blog. Anyway all that secret information that the government can only wrench out of me by sending a suspicious person to my house to ask me. Onward and upward then. Perhaps I should have Netflix send my discs inconveniently to a PO Box where the government can't spy on my movie choices? Ad i ca't forget how my details are listed on my library card...my Google browser...my bank account...my health insurance card. Damn these intrusive census takers! What would Jesus have done? Given unto Caesar? I think not; he would have run, not walked from the Government census taker.
Mind you we live in weird times when a good proportion of the population seems to think the world will end in a couple of years thanks to the Mayan calendar nonsense some illiterates are putting about. I welcomed the census taker into my home where she planted a chip under my skin so the government can trace my every move. Actually she just asked a few questions, I got most of them right and she handed me a piece of paper listing my options.
I am actually "White, Non Hispanic" but I want to be "Some Other Race." I haven't exactly decided what. Had my wife been home she might have been pissed that there wasn't a box for "Jew." But with the coming Fascist era, promised this November, that may be no bad thing. The census lady was charming and commiserated with me that Cheyenne should count, but doesn't.Five minutes later I was all done and now the government had my secret information, all that stuff that is already on my driver license and credit reports. And passport application. Job applications. Shopping bar codes at Publix and Winn Dixie. My motorcycle tag. My blog. Anyway all that secret information that the government can only wrench out of me by sending a suspicious person to my house to ask me. Onward and upward then. Perhaps I should have Netflix send my discs inconveniently to a PO Box where the government can't spy on my movie choices? Ad i ca't forget how my details are listed on my library card...my Google browser...my bank account...my health insurance card. Damn these intrusive census takers! What would Jesus have done? Given unto Caesar? I think not; he would have run, not walked from the Government census taker. 
6 comments:
She didn't get your Social Security Number, so there's really no way to identify you from what you put on the questionnaire.
I got to count homeless people and nuns, and in a week or so will begin training to collect data from the folks who didn't send their forms in (like, uh, you?)...
__Orin
Scootin' Old Skool
The Jehovah's Witnesses who came a few days later than the Census taker, were a lot more annoying. Heaven forbid I should answer the NEW WORLD ORDER census and let Obama find out my birthday.
I saw a bumper sticker recently. It read, "Get real! like Jesus would ever own a gun & vote republican" There were two others that were better but maybe I'll post elsewhere... don't want to stir up things with your readers again. :)
Dear Danette via MR. CS:
We know Jesus wasn't a Republican because he drove the money-lenders from the temple with a scourge. The fact that he used a scourge suggests it was the first thing he could find. There is at least room for an argument that he might have used a .38 if it was handy.
We know that Jesus wasn't a Democrat because he never lied, and he didn't shake down the money-lenders in a pretense of driving them from the temple.
By the way, I deal with legislation all the time on my job... I can think of fifty reasons to tell the census takers to shove that document up their collective asses. The first starts with federal mission creep, the second includes GAO assessments that various federal offices at at poor risk for data storage, the third starts with a violation of their initial mandate, and so on, ad infinitum.
Eight years ago, Leslie and I were having a real bad day. There was a knock at the door, and a nicely dressed, little rolly-polly of a woman asked if she could read the bible with me and pray for a bit.
She was a Jehovah's Witness and my first reaction was to tell her to go fuck off. But then I thought, "Every call I took today just made things worse. This lady, who I didn't know, just wanted me to find some peace. I told her "fine," and she opened a bible to marked passage and read something.
Then I said, "Let's do it my way." I flipped through her bible and stuck my finger in the book at random. The passage had something to do with finding answers for a problem that affected my job.
I had to think about that for a second.
I shook her hand and she left. She came back every other month, on Saturday mornings for three months. Then she brought in the artillery... A team of Jehovah's Witnesses who came every other Saturday for a year. I had coffee and cookies ready when they came. They offered to give me a bible, and I insisted on paying for it.
"We don't usually get this kind of a reception," their team leader said.
They were the nicest, best-intentioned people I had met in a long time. It took them a year berfore they realized I was never going to be a Jehovah's Witness. And they faded away.
They can come back anytime. Their version of God wants them to preach. I picture Christ as a good-natured deity with a sense of compassion and humor. In my mind, I thought he'd want me to listen.
Leslie filled out the census form and sent it back. I wouldn't touch the damn thing and I wouldn't answer any of their damn questions either. They're laying off teachers, cops and fireman in every state in the Union, and pissing away millions on this stupid census project.
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
Orin- I don't remember receiving a questionnaire but I enjoyed the visit and it generated some great comments as you can see.
I'm with Danette and the Other CS. riepe is full of shit and I didn't see a single category of race labelled "Bag of Shit so I wonder what box the long suffering leslie checked off?
On the other hand we make a great couple, an oil slick and a bag of shit. Hell is going to get interesting when our time comes.
Dear Conch, Orin, and Danette:
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!!!
She checked "other" and wrote in "bag of shit."
Fondest regards,
Jack • reep • Toad
Twisted Roads
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