December 20, 2006--TMI (Too Much Information)

To tell you the truth I not a big fan of Census data.

I don't need to know about what and how much "average" Americans eat and drink in a year (no surprise—too much); how many square feet their apartments have (twice as many as mine); or, for that matter, how much they weigh (also too much).

I always thought that the Census was carried out every ten years, as required by the Constitution, to see how many of us there are so that congressional districts could be apportioned among the states based on the size of their populations. To accomplish this, Census Bureau folks used to send out forms to every household; and to follow that up, they would hire canvasers who would visit every household to see if you were hiding anyone up in the attic.

So how did they get from that into counting how many gallons of bottled water we drink each year (23) or how tall we are (24 percent of Americans over 70 years of age are shorter than 5-foot-6)?

It's enough to make a strict constructionist out of me--someone who, like Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia, wants the Constitution to be taken literally: just count the noses but stay out of my medicine cabinet, or bedroom. For example, do we have to know that 11.2 percent of women admit to having had same-sex "contacts” but only 6 percent of men were willing to fess up? (See NY Times article linked below for all the salacious details.)

I’m most fascinated by the statistic that reveals how much more bottled water we have been drinking in recent years. Ten times more than in 1980. Has the quality of municipal water declined so precipitously? Or is it that we are going to the gym more and are taking bottled water along with us to keep us hydrated or looking cool? Or is it because of all the Wall Street bonuses, splurging on a $7.00 a bottle of Evian or Pellegrino makes a better impression than drinking plain-old New York City Tap?

Which brings me to another point—I’m getting a little worried, from a national security perspective, about our growing dependence on foreign bottled water. With the price of these, gallon-to-gallon, actually higher than the cost of imported gasoline, aren’t we putting ourselves in danger of being held hostage by our enemies, including and especially the French?

What would happen, for example, if France and Italy and Poland (Poland Springs, no?) were to form OWPEC—the Organization of Water Exporting Countries—and imposed a bottled-water embargo?

Now I’m beginning to understand why President Bush just announced that he’s going to increase the size of the army—for use when we have to preemptively invade Perrier.