It’s census time again. Not since the last census have Iowa State students been so valuable to the Ames community.

During the next semester, we are going to be made to feel right at home. At least long enough for us to fill out our forms and send them back in.

I don’t buy it. I don’t know about most of you but Ames, mecca of civility and urbanity though it may be, does not feel like home to me.

We aren’t welcome here beyond what we do for the local economy and this census business is just part and parcel of that phenomenon.

Now, I respect the census in theory. I want to know how many people live in this country and this state.

My undergrad degree was in sociology, so I’m as curious as the next dude to know about the socio-economic status of every corner of this fair land, where people are and where they’re moving.

I want to know how various trends are playing out. But beyond that, the census is a joke. It never flies right. You can knock on doors and count every body twice and you still won’t get close to an accurate picture of what’s going on in this country for a number of reasons.

One reason is apathy. The average person in the United States isn’t lucky enough to have a sociology degree.

They don’t see the value in voting, so why would they see the value in being counted in the census?

They get a piece of paper in the mail that they don’t absolutely have to respond to and they won’t.

They get a call from the census bureau while they’re choking down dinner and watching “Seinfeld” re-runs, they check the caller I.D. and they aren’t picking up the phone.

The big problem ten years ago was with the immigrant population. Legal or otherwise, immigrants avoid the census like the plague because they don’t believe for one second that the INS, IRS, ATF, WIC and FBI don’t have access to those records. Why risk it?

They can assure us all they want to about confidentiality, but only a sucker believes one government agency is going to protect our privacy from another government agency.

No one trusted the government ten years ago and since then we have Ruby Ridge, David Koresh and Oklahoma City fresh in our minds. The government couldn’t do much there, could they?

Locally, there is another issue. For ISU students who do little else but drink and watch “James Bond” marathons on TBS when they aren’t getting stopped by the cops for drunk walking, there is nothing of value in the census but an opportunity to put their apathy to good use.

What’s in it for Ames is a serious upgrade in status. There is no city in the United States that doesn’t want the kind of fat federal money that comes with having a large population.

At the 50,000 mark, Ames becomes more than just a podunk small city in the middle of nowhere. Between 49,999 and 50k, a small city becomes a small metropolis in the middle of nowhere.

The doors of economic prosperity open wide as businesses are suddenly fooled into thinking this is the kind of place their plant would thrive.

The feds will give more money for roads, infrastructure, hell, maybe even an airport. All of which the average student will never see, let alone get any use out of.

Ames is a pimp city if I ever saw one. This debate wouldn’t even be necessary in Iowa City.

They LIKE their student population. They recognize the value of having 30,000 “more liberal than average” young adults injecting vitality into what would otherwise be a sleepy Iowa town unable to support more than one pop radio station let alone a cultural scene beyond the occasional antique shop or grain store.

Those people wouldn’t know a bagel from a stale donut if it weren’t for the students in their town eager for signs of the outside world, and they respect that.

Ames, however, takes a dim view of “outsiders.” Listen to the talk about Veishea. Anyone not a part of the “ISU family” is an outsider.

Those low-class trouble-makers from the shoddy parts of Iowa come in here with their pick-up trucks and seed caps just looking for trouble, cheap beer and free love.

Circle the wagons and guard the women, it’s springtime in Ames.

It hasn’t started yet, but mark my words, it will. You are going to see letters to the editor reminding students that they have to fill out the census information or risk the wrath of the feds.

You will see the gentle, sweet seductive voice of rationalization telling students how much Ames loves them. The check is in the mail. I will call you tomorrow.

I don’t even have to encourage students to willfully disobey the law. Civil disobedience could enter into the debate at some point, but quite frankly, Ames itself has taken care of this solution, too.

Student apathy in Ames is of the hopeless, brow-beaten variety.

Ames tells us in many ways subtle and tacit that we have no right to leave a mark on this city.

That no matter how many years we live here, we are still temporary residents.

Students will not take a stand in Ames city elections and they will not take an active role in getting Ames designated as a metropolis.

You reap what you sow and Ames has sown some pretty discontented seeds in the hearts of thousands of outsiders living for a short time in this burg.

But just for the sake of argument, let’s talk hypothetically. If you do decide to say to hell with the rules, do you know what will happen to you if you don’t partake in the census or list your home town as your residence?

Jack squat, that’s what.

The census bureau, unlike the IRS, does not maintain its own police force ready to break down your door to get their information.

“CENSUS BUREAU, GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR, MEAT PUPPET! WHAT TOWN DO YOU RESIDE IN? WHAT IS YOUR PRIMARY ETHNICITY? THANK YOU, SCUMBAG! HUP, HUP, HUP!”

So make up your own mind, take the consequences and if you think a town that would just as soon spit on you as call one of them is home, then God bless.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily and not a resident of Ames.