* The top 5 states with the highest rates of returned U.S. Census forms: North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska. From The New York Times: "...the extreme participation in the census may have less to do with a wishing for more federal money than with a certain sensibility." "Why wouldn’t you send it right back?" asked Jim Wolf, mayor of Wolford, North Dakota, who is also chief of the volunteer fire squad.
* Residents of Mississippi's Delta region had low rates of returned U.S. Census forms in 2000, and the area still contains some of the most undercounted census tracts in the state. From The New York Times: "According to the last census, there is one person — one hard-to-find, hard-to-prod, hard-to-pin-down person — for every 116 acres in Issaquena County, whose western horizon is narrowed by the bright green band of the levee along the Mississippi River." The area is rife with poverty and illiteracy, and residents harbor a deep distrust of census takers.
* At least 30 Haitians who were waved onto planes by U.S. Marines in the chaotic aftermath of the earthquake are now in prisons in Florida because they arrived without visas. From The New York Times: "...some were pulled from the rubble, their legal advocates say. Some lost parents, siblings or children. Many were seeking food, safety or medical care at the Port-au-Prince airport when terrifying aftershocks prompted hasty evacuations by military transports, with no time for immigration processing. None have criminal histories."
* Founders and spouses of the Blue Man Group, the well-known "alternative theater" troupe whose members perform covered in blue paint, founded a private school in New York City called the Blue School, meant to be different from the Ivy-League-obsessed, insanely competitive other private schools they saw in the area. From The New York Times: "The school, which is entering its fourth year, has remained true to its progressive roots, with “imagination stations” and “glow time.” Children help direct the curriculum, and social and emotional skills are given equal weight to reading and math." But with demand for private schools in New York exceeding supply, the school has resorted to the sort of elitism it sought to rebel against: Six families applied for every one open slot in the school's preschool class next fall. Prospective students must take the same $510 intelligence test that other area private schools require. And tuition for kindergarten is now more than $28,000.
* About 10 years ago, a man named Charles Louis Kincannon working for the U.S. Census Bureau said of the Muzak that callers had to listen to while on hold for a representative: "Man, don't we have anything better?" So the bureau began collecting facts that were recorded and are now played in lieu of Muzak for callers on hold. While on hold, a caller can learn that more than one third of Americans have dogs, and just under one third have cats; 4 percent own pet birds. They can learn that about one quarter of the nation's dentists are female, and about half of the pharmacists are female. They can learn that the average American consumes about six pounds of shelled peanuts per year, about half of it in the form of peanut butter.