Making Sense of the Census

I almost put down "Czech", but then it occurred to me that they were asking about my origin, not my ancestry, so I put down "American".  I was reminded of the time I went to Europe with my parents and a bunch of other people back in the 60s.  We flew to London, and then traveled by train from there.  The flight attendant, who spoke with a British accent, asked us to fill out these cards on the flight so as to expedite our passage through customs when we arrived.  One question was "nationality", and I almost wrote "Czech", but then I got to thinking that we were Americans from the British point of view.  After discussing this with my parents and sister, we put down our nationality as "American".  Turned out we were the only people in the group who did it right, and everybody else had to do their cards over.

Now that I think of it, women couldn't vote back in 1790, but the census counted them anyway.  I can see the reasoning behind counting everybody who is a permanent resident, but I don't think they should count people on temporary visas, and certainly not the illegals.  I suppose the reason is so they know where to send the federal money, but the census determines our congressional representation and I don't think that it should include visitors, especially illegal visitors.  Many of the houses around Cheboygan are second homes, which are taxed more than primary residences.  It could be argued that, since these people pay property tax here, they should be able to vote here, but then they would be voting twice, once in their home precinct and once here, and they would have two different congressmen representing them at once.

I had to think about it, but Beaglesonia must be about the same elevation as the northern part of the City of Cheboygan, which isn't much higher than the Straits of Mackinaw.  The road we live on doesn't go through, so we have to jog a half mile or so to the south before turning west to the city.  There is a steep grade, called the Butler Hill, on this southern jog.  Now that I think of it, it's at the top of this grade that I notice the difference in temperature.  There is a dam and lock on the Cheboygan River, with about a 20 foot drop, which approximately lines up with the Butler Hill.  I have heard the southern part of Cheboygan called "the heights",  although there is no noticeable change in elevation as you drive south on Main Street.  Be that as it may, our small airport west of town should be about the same elevation as the northern part of the city.  This might be where they get the officially reported temperature, although they used to get it at the wastewater treatment plant before the airport was built, and maybe they still do.  That's right on the waterfront, while we are about a mile back from it, but I don't think there's much of an elevation difference.

Has it occurred to anybody to question whether this corona lock down is doing any good?  It seems like the numbers in Michigan have been rising faster since the lockdown was imposed.  Of course that doesn't prove cause and effect, but it kind of makes me wonder.