The Census; the NFRC; and William T. Vollmann

The Census

Unlike my friend Neal [n.1], I’m typically not one to rail against government inefficiency and spendthriftyness. But I am somewhat baffled by the census mailings I’ve gotten in the last month. First, we got a letter that said little more than: “You’re going to get an official census form in a couple weeks, so keep a look out and please don’t throw it away.” Then we got the census form that informed us that our “RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW.” Then we got a postcard that said: “You should’ve gotten your census form a couple days ago, please fill it out.” THEN we got another census form, identical to the first one, with a note that says, not as directly as it could, that we shouldn’t send this one in if we sent in the last one.

So, we got four mailings when one would’ve sufficed. I understand that the census is important and they want to get the most accurate count they can, but come on. Those that don’t respond to the mailing still get tracked down, in theory, by the census people, and for those people mailing them more things probably isn’t the best way to get them to respond. I’m assuming they sent four mailings—when one would’ve done the trick—to every household in America. (Number of households in America x 3 x pre-sorted first class mailing rate) + printing costs + cost of paper + other mailing costs + all sorts of other unnecessary costs = amount of money the Department of Commerce has pissed away. And on top of that, I guarantee you there are all sorts of confused people who sent in their form twice . . .

Every time one of my conservative friends talks about how a public health care option would be a disaster because of the gross inefficiencies of the government, I say it doesn’t have to be that way. But then I see things like this.

The National Fenestration Rating Council

I saw an ad for some window company and in it the guy bragged about their great rating from the National Fenestration Rating Council. I laughed hard. I decided I really wanted to look this group up. Here’s their website. I assumed they were a window rating group, and was all set to make fun of them for using “fenestration.” Much to my dismay, they define fenestration as “Products that fill openings in a building envelope, including windows, doors, skylights, and curtain walls designed to permit the passage of air, light, vehicles, or people,” and they rate windows, doors, skylights, and “attachments” (whatever that means). So I can’t make fun of them for calling windows fenestration, but I’ll still make fun of them if only because I got my mouth all set for some ridiculin’ and there’s just a swalla in the container. [n.2]

William T. Vollmann

. . . is an author and quite possibly a crazy man. This old story from the New York Times is a decent place to learn a few things about the guy. He published his first novel, You Bright and Risen Angels, when he was 27, and it was considered Pynchonesque and the sign of an amazing new talent. He’s since written several very big books, including Rising Up and Rising Down, a seven-volume, 3352 page treatise on the history of violence. Yes, that’s right, seven volumes, 3352 pages, about violence. And he squeezed it in between writing his many novels.

Anyway. What I really want to mention are his research methods. Instead of just reading up on some stuff, he goes out and lives it. Some stuff he’s done for his writing:

(1) Ran with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in the early eighties.

(2) Immersed himself in numerous other war zones (Sarajevo, Somalia, Iraq, et cetera).

(3) Smoked crack more than 100 times to gain the trust of the prostitutes and street people he was studying.

(4) He’s been burned and beaten on several occasions in his effort to embed himself with street people.

(5) Slept with a great many prostitutes (he’s written about prostitutes in more than one book) (did I mention he’s married?)

(6) Kidnapped a child prostitute from a brothel in Thailand and then set her up in a school.

(7) Spent two weeks alone at the magnetic North Pole without a way to leave or cut the trip short. His gear was woefully inadequate; he hallucinated from lack of sleep (his sleeping bag couldn’t keep him warm) and nearly died.

And so on. That’s a man dedicated to his art, and who's probably at least a little crazy.

Note 1: Neal once sent a FOIA request to the U.S. Post Office to try to figure out how much money they spent when they had their Star Wars theme thing a couple years ago, including painting a bunch of mailboxes to look like R2D2.

Note 2: That was a rather forced Harlem Nights reference. Watch this (the whole thing is worth watching, but if you want to cut it a little short, start at 1:33, if you can’t spare even that much time, start at 3:30).