The Libertarian Party has declared the 2010 Census “unconstitutional, unnecessary and too expensive,” because there are too many questions. The party insists that the U.S. Constitution allows the U.S. Census Bureau to ask only one question: How many people are living here?
National Libertarian Party Chairman William Redpath, in an e-mail release, said, “the federal government wants to use the additional information to fine tune its control over the lives and money of the American people.”
I am reminded of the Buffalo Springfield lyric, “Paranoia strikes deep. ...”
Asserting that the Constitution should be interpreted inherently is consistent with the Libertarian Party’s beliefs, but the Constitution, in what is called the “enumeration clause,” also ruled that slaves should be counted as three-fifths of a white person.
Among other issues, participating in the census is critical if Indiana is to receive a fair return on its federal tax investment.
Will Higgins of The Indianapolis Star reported earlier this week that the Brookings Institution estimated Indiana could have received $4.4 million in additional Medicare funding in 2008, had the 2000 census “had counted just 0.1 percent more Hoosiers.”
Even though Indiana’s population topped 6 million for the first time, the state lost one seat in Congress. There are 435 seats in the House of Representatives; the number of representatives a state receives is based on population. Based on the 2000 Census, a congressman represented 656,952 people.
Told of the Libs’ focus on census constitutionality, Cody Jones, one of our graphic artists, remarked, “That’s not the hill you should be dying on right now.”
There’s another irrelevant hill being assaulted by the national media: The information (I won’t dignify it by saying it is “news”) that recovering sex addict Tiger Woods will return to professional golf, by playing in this year’s Masters tournament.
I suppose if he wins he will be master of that domain, too.
What’s more important to me, and what I find to be discouragingly under-reported, is a plant disease that could literally take the bread from our mouths.
In Wired magazine, author Brendan I. Loerner reported that Ug99, a variant of wheat stem rust that he called “the polio of agriculture.”
A fungus that could destroy the world’s wheat crop is spreading from central Africa toward central Asia. Named Ug99 — it was discovered in Uganda in 1999 — the fungus has is referred to by scientists as the “Red Menace,” because no existing wheat strain is immune. Scientists are frantically seeking a wheat strain that will resist Ug99. Uncontrolled, Ug99 could potentially lead to the starvation of millions of people.
It would take only one spore of Ug99 to potentially affect the U.S. wheat crop, which the USDA on Sept. 30 estimated at 2.22 billion bushels, including 30 million bushels in Indiana.
“A loaf of bread would be a luxury,” Loerner wrote.
Well, there’s always field corn. But it’s so hard to chew ...
Oh, and also according to city-data.com, Boone County’s historic tornado activity “is significantly above Indiana state average” and 5.8 times the national average.
So forgive me for not caring much about whether Tiger ever swings a 3-wood again.
— Rod Rose is the assistant managing editor of The Lebanon Reporter. He may be reached at rod.rose@reporter.net. He occasionally blogs at http://rodmrose.wordpress.com.
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- Community calendar for March 26, 2013
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Dear GOP: It's time to stop
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Pence jumps into the harbor
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Spring: A wonder to behold
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