The Census Bureau has enlisted Dora the Explorer to spread its message that the Census counts babies and children. In a new video, Dora proclaims that counting small children on Census forms “helps us get important things in our town, like day care centers, schools, and more.”

Dora didn’t discover the connection between Census data and federal spending on her own. The Census Bureau is itself emphasizing the link between counting kids and spending:

“The adults among themselves sometimes forget the census is about everyone, and kids should be counted,” said Census Bureau director Robert Groves. “If we fail to count a newborn that is born this month, that newborn misses all the benefits of the census for 10 years.”

If you forget to count your newborn on this year’s form, does that mean your baby won’t get to attend a publicly funded daycare or school for the next decade? Obviously not. So, what “benefits of the Census” are the uncounted babies missing out on?

A judge refused to dismiss the state lawsuit against a family that was caught selling raw milk from its distribution stand in a parking lot. The state claims that it’s illegal for farmers to set up any raw milk pickup locations away from their farms.

In a Springfield News-Leader article, the assistant attorney general explains why selling milk “from a farm,” as state statute requires, should preclude off-site pickup spots:

“A farm is not anywhere defined in Missouri statutes as a vehicle in a parking lot away from the farm premises,” Blome argued.

Of course, no one would define a farm as a vehicle temporarily parked in a lot. But that isn’t a good definition of a food establishment, either — and the state, calling this family’s parked vehicle a food establishment, says it should be subject to the same regulations as a mini-mart or a grocery store.

If you can’t pick up raw milk from a farmer’s vehicle, what can you do with it? You can pick it up yourself at the farm. But suppose you drive your car to a parking lot, meet a friend there, and give him a gallon of the milk. Does your car now become a food establishment? Or maybe you bring your milk home, invite guests over, and serve them milk with dinner. Does your house turn into a restaurant?

This AP story is one of the most enjoyable articles about the Census I’ve ever read. It explores how residents of very small towns respond to inaccuracies in Census tallies.

Many reports about the Census (like the Springfield News-Leader article I wrote about) stress the connection between Census data and funding for government programs. They include quotes anticipating dire things if participation is low and funding falls short. From this point of view, the larger the total the Census Bureau arrives at for your area’s population, the better.

What sets the AP’s article apart is that the people quoted in it are focused on accuracy. Whether the Census records eight or nine residents in a town doesn’t change federal appropriations. The difference matters only to people who want the numbers to be exactly correct, for truth’s sake. One woman is actually quoted complaining that the Census Bureau states there are two residents in her town, when in fact she alone lives there. I haven’t seen any other calls for the Bureau to revise its numbers downward.

Rent seeking has been a major topic around here recently. I don’t need to provide links — if you’re reading this on the main page of the blog, you can just scroll down a bit for some excellent posts. Now we are going to do a little bit more rent seeking as a nation, by charging international visitors without visas (I guess this means residents of Windsor going to Detroit for a Red Wings game) a new $10 fee that will be used to market the United States internationally. Basically, it will be a national version of what just about every city (including St. Louis and [probably] Kansas City) does with hotel taxes: charge an extra fee and use it to promote the local travel industry. I think we can admit that there are plenty of worse examples of rent seeking than this, but it still entails private enterprise using the government and taxation in order to benefit one sector of the economy at someone else’s expense. (It makes it a lot easier to do this if the expense is borne by someone who does not live here.)

Now, I want to get into their numbers:

The association says the U.S. welcomed 2.4 million fewer overseas visitors last year than in 2000. And that, the group says, has cost it an estimated $509 billion in total spending and $32 billion in direct tax receipts.

We can presume that 2.4 million is for one year, and $509 billion is for 10 years. Taking 2.4 million a year for 10 years, and dividing that into the total spending amount, yields an average amount spent per visitor of just more than $21,000. This article states that the average spending per visitor is $4,500. I don’t think I believe the number put out with the bill signing, but the alternative would be to accuse the PR and lobbying group behind this effort of inflating their numbers. And we all know that would never happen. …

Now that Columbia permits residents to own chickens, it’s a good time for the city to look into the next trend in urban agriculture — miniature goats:

The Carbondale, Ill., Planning Commission was debating this month whether to allow residents to keep chickens when Priscilla Pimentel, a member of the city’s Sustainability Commission, added goats to the mix.

“If you can have a 250-pound dog in town, why not a miniature goat that can produce milk?” she says. “It’s just common sense.”

Miniature goats are about as big as medium-sized dogs, and can be led around on leashes. Like chickens, they’re domesticated animals that don’t threaten anyone. People should be allowed to own them in cities.

As the latest egregious example of economic illiteracy to come out of Washington, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) has proposed banning Japanese-made cars. This is a knee-jerk reaction that would be ineffectual at making American drivers safer, and would have many unintended negative consequences.

First, the ban wouldn’t even solve the problem, because all of the Toyotas that were recalled in January for malfunctioning gas pedals weren’t manufactured in Japan. They were manufactured in the United States:

As for banning Japanese-made vehicles: All 2.4 million Toyotas recalled Jan. 21 due to sticky gas pedals, and most of the 5.6 million vehicles recalled because floor mats might jam pedals, were assembled in the USA.

Would this ban have anything to do with the fact that the U.S. government has a large financial stake in GM, a major Toyota competitor?

Banning Toyotas would have many negative consequences. For example, the men and women who work in Toyota dealerships and Toyota manufacturing plants would have to join the ranks of the unemployed. This would have a noticeably negative effect in Missouri, which has a high-enough unemployment rate already — 9.6 percent as of December.

Banning foreign imports like Toyota would hurt consumers because it would limit their choice of cars. When free trade is restricted, a people can only consume what their country is able to produce. In an adapted excerpt from their book Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, Milton and Rose Friedman elucidated what this means to consumers:

We cannot eat, wear, or enjoy the goods we send abroad. We eat bananas from Central America, wear Italian shoes, drive German automobiles, and enjoy programs we see on our Japanese TV sets. Our gain from foreign trade is what we import. Exports are the price we pay to get imports. As Adam Smith saw so clearly, the citizens of a nation benefit from getting as large a volume of imports as possible in return for its exports or, equivalently, from exporting as little as possible to pay for its imports.

The ban would also increase consumer prices on all cars by decreasing the total supply. Domestic car producers do not have the capacity to make up for the shortfall in the short run, which would aggravate this effect. In the aforementioned excerpt, Milton and Rose Friedman explained that “‘Protection’ really means exploiting the consumer” because she has to pay more for goods.

The ban would also decrease the quality of vehicles that are available to American consumers, which is the very problem that this policy is intended to alleviate. When a country attempts to protect certain industries, it removes their incentive to innovate in order to compete in the global market. By banning foreign imports such as Toyota, the United States would do the American car industry and American consumers no favors. GM and Ford have difficulty competing with foreign firms like Toyota and Honda in the status quo world economy because they have “benefited” from American protectionist policies on cars for so long. Furthermore, bans on foreign imports become even more disadvantageous in the future if/when the trade restriction is lifted, because domestic car companies would have lower-tech, lower-quality products than their foreign competitors.

Government intervention in international markets hurts business and discourages economic growth. When a country slaps protective measures on its trade policy, it is probable that other nations will retaliate in kind, leading to increased consumer prices. Impeding free trade is very dangerous policy when international economies are so intertwined. We only have to look to the recent past for evidence of this. Last September, Obama placed a 35-percent tariff on tire imports from China. This was effectively a tax on Americans who drive cars, who were predicted to experience a 20- to 30-percent increase in the cost of tires as a result of the policy. China responded the following Sunday in retaliation by placing its own tariffs on imports of American poultry and automobiles.

I have an alternative suggestion: Instead of banning foreign imports, each U.S. senator should complete a refresher course on macroeconomics before assuming office. Based on Sen. Johanns’ proposal, I see no evidence this the former secretary of agriculture ever took one in the first place.

Legislators in New Hampshire are debating whether to declare apple cider the official beverage of their state. As is often the case with proposed state symbols, the bill was submitted at the request of a group of elementary school students. Students at another school have lobbied for milk to receive the honor instead.

New Hampshire state representatives talk about the official beverage proposals as if naming these symbols actually accomplished something:

Rep. Leigh Webb of Franklin saw a problem with both drinks, saying, “Neither is unique to New Hampshire. [...] It will help agriculture, but I’m not sure this is the way to do it.”

This legislator implies that state symbols have the power to shape consumption patterns and improve health:

State Rep. Brian Poznanski, a Democrat from Nashua, reflected on his youth in supporting cider.

“In junior high and high school, I drank sugar and more sugar,” Poznanski said. “There’s a huge obesity problem in this country.”

The students’ teacher has a more realistic perspective on state symbols, and acknowledges that an official beverage probably won’t change people’s actions any more than the official recognition of state animals does:

“My students wanted cider to be a symbolic representation of New Hampshire because of autumn and farm stands,” Nichols said. [...]

“We have a white-tailed deer as our state animal, and I’m not sure what that does for the economy, but it’s symbolic because it’s here. That’s what the children were going for, not to exclude milk by any stretch of the imagination.”

It’s clear from her statement that some people already associate apple cider with the state of New Hampshire. Her students nominated it because they’ve seen apples growing and they’ve seen stands selling cider. Many other New Hampshire residents identify these familiar sights with their state.

People are justified in thinking of apple cider as symbolic of New Hampshire. But it’s a bad idea for New Hampshire to create a new state symbol recognizing it, for the same reasons I’ve opposed the proliferation of official symbols in Missouri. Long lists of state symbols encourage people to ask the government to sign off on their opinions and preferences. They give the impression that for a symbol to count, it needs a state imprimatur.

However, there is a positive aspect of state symbols that I’ve overlooked. When people watch their representatives argue about whether cider or milk should be the state beverage, they may conclude that legislators don’t share their priorities. This could prompt them to realize that if they want to get things done in their state, they’re better off finding solutions in the market. Elected representatives are often apt to shy away from making waves about the things that matter to their constituents and instead talk about less consequential things like official drinks. Maybe the official political fish should be the red herring!

This article describes neuroscience research that seeks to explain an observed correlation between breastfeeding and higher child IQ scores. What caught my eye was the fact that a Parents as Teachers program in North Carolina helps recruit subjects for the study. Here, a Parents as Teachers educator expresses her approval:

“It’s very interesting and has a lot of validity,” said Marcie Petty, an educator with Parents as Teachers whose office is in Cheatham’s lab. “It makes you think about what your children eat and what they’re taking in.”

Encouraging participation in medical studies goes beyond Parents as Teachers’ mission of promoting good parenting practices. It’s entirely possible to be conscious of what your children are eating without signing them up for research.

I see two problems with Parents as Teachers recruiting subjects for studies. First, parents may not understand the difference between enrolling in a study and the other activities that Parents as Teachers promotes. Playing and reading helps their children learn; research helps scientists do their jobs. Parents may feel pressured into joining studies that won’t benefit their children one way or the other. They also might feel guilty if they go against the educator’s recommendation to enroll their children in research.

Second, as you know if you’ve read the comments to my last post on breastfeeding, people disagree about the effects of breast milk. Some researchers think breastfeeding is crucial for children’s health; others dispute its importance. No one study can put this question to rest. If Parents as Teachers educators tell parents that a study is valid and that it’s a good idea to participate in it, that could be viewed as an endorsement of the study’s findings.

I’ve never heard of a Missouri Parents as Teachers program suggesting that children join research studies. And, although Parents as Teachers programs are connected by a national organization, they’re run individually by local people, so the fact that a program in another state did something is no indication that it will happen here. Still, people need to know about what the program does in other places, and to consider whether those aspects should be replicated in Missouri or avoided. Any publicly funded programs that go to people’s homes and endorse specific activities need to be closely scrutinized — and that includes Parents as Teachers.

Wisconsin is debating another proposal involving milk. The Wisconsin raw milk bill I wrote about yesterday would put Wisconsin’s policy ahead of Missouri’s, but on this issue, Missouri already guarantees its citizens greater freedom. The matter I’m referring to is breastfeeding in public.

Breastfeeding in public places is protected by Missouri law. In fact, you can print out your own “license” featuring a quote from the statute, and show it to anyone who challenges your right to breastfeed.

As many residents of Saint Louis are aware, there has been a coyote wandering through Tower Grove Park for more than a week. As someone who lives very close to the park, I demand the city of Saint Louis take swift and drastic action to drive the beast from our midst. The city should establish a Coyote Patrol, similar to the Bear Patrol created after a bear wandered into Springfield in The Simpsons episode “Much Apu about Nothing.” No expense should be spared to protect us from the solitary predator: We need round-the-clock surveillance of the park, and patrols of all nearby wooded areas to ensure that no more coyotes sneak in.

While some might say that the risk of coyote attack is still very low — negligible, even — and that therefore we shouldn’t spend lavish amounts of money guarding against it, I respond that the risk can’t be much lower than some other risks the government pours billions into thwarting. And when Tower Grove Park is once again free of coyotes, we will have the government’s Coyote Patrol to thank — just as Homer knew to credit the Bear Patrol for keeping bears out of Springfield:

An op-ed in the Daily Iowan refutes some arguments against urban chickens, including one I hadn’t heard before:

Bailey was quoted suggesting that urban chickens undermine local economies, saying, “We have a lot of small farmers around here making chickens and eggs available for sale. My fundamental question is: Why aren’t we supporting the regional economy?”

Here is the op-ed’s excellent response:

I would argue that urban chickens would in fact strengthen Iowa’s economy, especially when we consider unique and important businesses such as the McMurry Hatchery in Webster City, known nationally for its collection of rare chicken breeds. Likewise, I highly doubt Bailey would make such an argument when considering whether citizens ought to be allowed to have vegetable gardens.

City residents are also part of the economy, and they shouldn’t have to pass up opportunities to create value for themselves in order to protect people who are already farming. Transactions in which money changes hands aren’t the only economic activity that matters.

In fact, the freedom to raise your own chickens is an important check on the farmers’ power. When customers can build their own chicken coops, farmers aren’t able to overcharge them for eggs or sell lower-quality eggs than what the market demands. If farmers don’t offer acceptable price and quality, customers will walk away and raise chickens themselves.

A school district in Florida found itself on the Drudge Report after it used stimulus funds to buy iPods. The iPods, which the district will give to parents in exchange for completing a survey, cost $350,000.

That’s a small sum compared to the $1.25 million the Jennings School District spent on hand-held computers for students. Most of those computers ended up in storage. Jennings is now selling some of the devices for a fraction of what it paid, and it plans to distribute others to graduating students over the course of a few years.

It would be wiser for Jennings to emulate the Florida district and give away whatever computers it can’t sell, as soon as possible. If the district gives them all out at once, recipients may be able to find some use for them. If it waits to hand them out to graduates in a couple of years, they’ll be completely obsolete. By then, graduates won’t want to do anything with the computers — except maybe to display them with their caps and gowns as mementos.

There’s no need to attach a survey; just get rid of the devices. But if Jennings does give them to survey participants, I can imagine what a common response will be: “Stop wasting money on gadgets that students don’t use!”

Kansas City Prime Buzz links to a post about preregistering teenagers to vote. A bill introduced in the Kansas State Legislature would allow people as young as 14 to preregister.

In Missouri, you can register six months before your 18th birthday. That gives people plenty of time before they’re eligible to vote, so I don’t see a need for Missouri to adopt a new policy. Opening preregistration years early looks like another product of the mindset I discussed in my post about anti-obesity efforts — the notion that everything worth doing should be made easy by law.

The state should not make it unnecessarily difficult to register, or set up hurdles to prevent people from voting. However, asking people to wait until they’re almost old enough to vote before they register is not imposing a hardship on them. We do need laws to facilitate voter registration, but it’s OK if the process calls for a little bit of initiative on the part of voters.

We don’t allow 14-year-olds to sign up early for their driver licenses or concealed-carry permits. They wait until they’re old enough for the licenses and permits to matter to them. It’s reasonable for them to wait a few years before they register to vote, too.

A Parents as Teachers program in Alabama has started a “baby bucks” program to reward parents for what it considers to be appropriate decisions:

Parents of children up to age 36 months are eligible to earn “baby bucks” when they make good parenting choices, such as participation in child-development programs for family events.

Parents can also earn “baby bucks” through other actions, like signing up for WIC assistance or allowing Parents as Teachers into their homes. The “baby bucks” are redeemable for items such as diapers, toys, and clothes, which are donated to the Baby Bucks Boutique.

I spoke with a representative from the Alabama program who confirmed that “baby bucks” is open to all parents with children in the eligible age range. Although Parents as Teachers obviously can’t enroll wealthy families in WIC, parents at all income levels can earn “baby bucks” in various ways.

“Baby bucks” are not given only to families that couldn’t afford baby items on their own — kind of like the entire Parents As Teachers model, which isn’t means-tested. A program that starts out as free for all parents, so that it’s not a welfare program for the few, can turn into a welfare program for everyone.

I don’t know of any Parents as Teachers programs in Missouri that offer material incentives for participation and parenting decisions. But if you’re not enthusiastic about publicly funded programs giving out stuff in exchange for approved parenting behavior, keep in mind that this is a direction that Parents as Teachers can go.

Wherever you are in located in Missouri, there is probably a chapter of Liberty on the Rocks near you!

• Saint Louis: tomorrow at 6 p.m. at the Drunken Fish in the Central West End (1 Maryland Plaza, Saint Louis)
• Kansas City: tomorrow from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Coach’s (414 W. 103rd St., Kansas City)
• Columbia: next Thursday, Feb. 18, at The Heidelberg (410 South 9th St., Columbia)

Liberty on the Rocks is about connecting freedom lovers across the country — to encourage more education, more involvement, and a larger demand for liberty! Stop by for some good drinks and good discussion!

These events are not sponsored by the Show-Me Institute, but perhaps some of our blog readers would be interested in attending.

Also, thanks to the Missouri Record for the link!

My Two Census declares the Census Bureau’s marketing campaign a flop, based on data from its YouTube channel:

The Portrait of America video has just over 6,500 hits…which would sound pretty pathetic for a 10 month campaign if only it wasn’t revealed that the other six videos posted 10 months ago each received between 347 and 1,305 hits. In the series of videos posted 6 months ago, the most widely-watched video, about the address-canvassing operations, has been viewed a measly 1,083 times. (This means that only a tiny fraction of the workers involved in this process even watched the video…)

For comparison, 1,700,000 people watched Google’s Super Bowl ad on YouTube. And “How Many Times Must Our Health Care Fail,” the song I linked to in this post, has been viewed 3,700 times.

My Two Census’ numbers don’t reflect the Census Bureau’s full impact on YouTube, because they don’t take into account the separate channel that the Bureau created for its Super Bowl ad. The ad features an imaginary film director named Payton Schlewitt, and it can be found — along with other clips of Schlewitt’s antics — on the Payton Schlewitt channel. There, the numbers are better. The ad itself drew 117,300 hits within five days. Another video of Schlewitt and his cohorts, which highlights the fact that animals are not counted in the Census, is up to 1,400 hits, also after only a few days.

So, the numbers aren’t as bad as they would appear from the Census Bureau’s channel alone. Still, My Two Census has a point. Payton Schlewitt’s viewership pales next to Google’s. And, of the people who watched the Census ad, many reacted unfavorably. Viewers rated it a mediocre two-and-a-half stars, and several comments complain that taxes had to pay for it.

The USDA announces that the secretary of agriculture has appointed new members to the National Mango Board. I didn’t know we had a National Mango Board, although until today, I didn’t know about the popcorn, avocado, or watermelon boards, either. (There’s no board for raspberries yet, but the USDA is working on it.)

Why is the USDA involved in promoting individual fruits? Can’t the blueberry growers and the mushroom growers manage their own public relations?

These organizations belong in the private sector. The USDA should follow the precedent set by the state of Missouri and get rid of extraneous boards.

While we’re on the subject of produce, the National Watermelon Promotion Board links to this picture of a bus stop shaped like a watermelon. Check it out.

State Rep. Ellen Brandom of Sikeston has proposed for the third time in as many years that welfare recipients be tested for illegal drug use, and the editorial board of the Post-Dispatch thinks this is such a good idea that it should be extended even further:

There’s a logic to this, of course. Many employers conduct drug screenings as a routine matter. And Ms. Brandom has noted that taxpayers object to subsidizing drug use. No doubt they do.

But if Ms. Brandom is intent on protecting taxpayers, why just go after poor folks? And why screen only for drugs?

Lawmakers, like TANF recipients, also feed at the public trough, and plenty look as though they don’t lead the healthiest lifestyles. Given their grueling schedules and the rich food that lobbyists feed them, it’s no wonder.

This can drive up the cost of public employee health insurance. So why not, as a matter of routine, assess senators’ and state representatives’ body mass index and screen them for blood cholesterol levels?

Those found not to be taking care of themselves shouldn’t be automatically punished. But they shouldn’t be a burden on taxpayers either. Those found to have LDL (“bad”) cholesterol of, say, 200 or more, should be given a second chance before the public subsidy for their health insurance is suspended. Maybe free oatmeal, too.

What’s more, barely a year goes by without a lawmaker being involved in an alcohol-related driving offense. If welfare recipients can be cut off from public benefits for substance abuse, what about top state officials?

Read the whole thing here.  What a world it would be if politicians were actually constrained by the rules they force on the rest of us.

Last night, the Columbia City Council passed its urban chicken measure by a 4-3 vote. The meeting was well-attended, and spirited public comments preceded the decision. If you missed it, you might want to watch the archived video here.

Opponents of the proposal brought up two arguments against urban chickens: First, that chickens would be dirty, noisy, and wild; and second, that chickens would lower property values. Urban chicken supporters answered both objections very well.

Opponents told horror stories about disgusting chickens, but they failed to show that chickens are any worse than the birds that already live in Columbia. If chickens harbor pestilence and filth, then so do all the sparrows and pigeons that fly around unmolested. Chicken supporters pointed out that other pets like dogs can carry disease or leave waste, and Columbia has no trouble regulating dog ownership so that most people are satisfied. No one is asking the city to ban all dogs for sanitation reasons; chickens should be equally tolerable.

The Columbia ordinance prohibits roosters, which should go a long way toward preventing noise disturbances. One Realtor who spoke predicted that wild roosters will find a way into the coops despite the owners’ best intentions. I find it hard to believe a rooster could break into a coop that, by law, is made of sturdy fencing with a wire net on top — unless the rooster had access to power tools.

Then there’s the possibility that escaped chickens will flock in the streets. Again, the opponents haven’t shown that chickens are more likely than other animals to cause problems; owners of any kind of pets can be irresponsible. As one councilman said, chickens aren’t the nuisance — people are. Those people are the exception, and Columbia can deal with them on an individual basis. Urban chicken supporters have lots of ideas for reducing the number of wild chickens: A private organization has offered to teach people how to care for chickens, and it’s volunteered to help place abandoned birds in new homes. One graduate student pointed out that unwanted chickens can be sold on Craigslist.

It’s clear that chickens are no more of a nuisance than dogs or cats. However, some Columbia residents — namely, Realtors — say that chickens are uniquely harmful because people think of them as farm animals. They claim that the chicken ordinance will lower property values, and that chickens next door to homes on the market could quash sales. These Realtors overlook the fact that the ordinance doesn’t override neighborhood associations’ covenants or landlords’ policies, which can exclude chickens. Chickens are not about to move into a community of mansions and destroy the value of the surrounding estates. And, as several commenters indicated, some people would actually prefer to buy a house in a city that allows chickens.

The only time chicken enthusiasts lost me was when they appealed to “sustainability” and “food security.” I can’t imagine how building a chicken coop could be fun, either. But whether I agree with the chicken owners’ ideology is not the point. People should be free to pursue their ideals and passions so long as they aren’t hurting anyone else. Chicken raising meets that criterion.

Here are a couple videos people recorded as part of the Census Bureau’s Portrait of America road tour. As in the Springfield News-Leader article I wrote about a few weeks ago, the focus is on people needing help and the Census’ power to bring federal money.

Tonight, the Columbia City Council will vote on an urban chicken proposal. If it passes, Columbia residents will be free to keep up to six hens on each property.

The text of the proposed ordinance anticipates concerns about sanitation and possible nuisances, and it includes regulations to prevent problems. I hope that those clauses satisfy the critics. Cities like Columbia should not allow anyone to pack unsanitary numbers of poultry into city plots, but residents who raise a few hens in their backyards without harming their neighbors should be left alone.

If you’d like to learn more about urban chickens in Columbia, supporters have created a blog and a series of YouTube videos.

About the drunk walking bit, at least … and Superfreakonomics is probably right about a number of other things, too.

I’ve criticized the Parents as Teachers program for, among other things, giving services to kids who don’t need help and sending a stiff bill to taxpayers. I’m probably the only one who’s happy to see Parents as Teachers take a $4 million cut in Missouri’s budget.

I don’t like Parents as Teachers the way it has been run for the past couple decades, but I’m optimistic that it can evolve into a better program. Parents as Teachers could move in one of two directions to control costs and better serve families. It would also be possible to split it into two separate programs with different missions.

Here’s the first route Parents as Teachers could take: Continue to serve all interested families, including wealthy ones, but do away with home visits. A Parents as Teachers educator could be stationed at a public library or in a public school. Parents could make appointments to bring their kids to the educator, and there might be drop-in hours too. Some services could be provided to multiple families at once. For example, an educator could teach a group of parents about activities for toddlers, and only parents who still had questions would consult with the educator one-on-one. Holding sessions in a public building would allow educators to direct parents to other resources (such as children’s books in a library), but its main advantage would be efficiency. Home visits to individual families are expensive — and also unnecessary, because educators give much of the same advice to everyone.

The other option is to model Parents as Teachers on the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Baby College program, providing intensive help to the people who need it most. Baby College serves disadvantaged families by restricting enrollment to residents of a neighborhood; Parents as Teachers could likewise confine itself to poor neighborhoods, or it could limit enrollment by family income. Baby College incorporates home visits, but it also brings parents together for a class one morning a week. The group sessions allow parents to get support from each other, and they also allow Baby College to bring in outside speakers. The once-a-week format means Baby College can reinforce what it teaches in a short period of time, unlike Parents as Teachers’ home visits, which might be spread apart by a few months. A Parents as Teachers program resembling Baby College would still be expensive, but at least it would be targeted, and families would get more out of the experience.

Do you have plans tonight? The Saint Louis chapter of Liberty on the Rocks is meeting today at 6 p.m. at Sasha’s on Shaw for wine and, of course, to discuss issues of personal freedom.

Our last meeting, at the Martini Bar, included some heated discussion with the Motorhome Diaries guys about whether anarchy is feasible. It’s cool, though — we’re all Facebook friends now.

Liberty on the Rocks is not a Show-Me sponsored event, but I figured that a lot of our blog readers would be interested in attending. If you’re looking for good wine and good discussion, drop by.

The forms that the Census Bureau sends out aren’t directed at children, and when Census workers go door-to-door collecting information about households that didn’t respond, they can’t accept answers from anyone under 15 years old. So this cute jingle telling people to raise their hands and say “Here we are” appears to target the wrong audience.

There are a few other Census promotions that I just don’t get. One is this public service announcement that urges viewers to “make your voice heard.” The Census asks people very specific and limited questions, as it should. It doesn’t ask for your opinion or for a personal statement. People who fill out every line of the Census form won’t be making their voices heard — they’ll just be reporting basic details about their households to the government.

And then there’s a clip from a legislator from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe of South Dakota that’s both inspiring and scary. I say “inspiring” because it starts off with a message of being true to yourself and overcoming whatever obstacles you face. (The legislator then loses me by saying that the way to overcome those obstacles is to participate in the Census.) The scary part is the end of the segment, when the legislator ominously warns that federal funding for health care will be insufficient if some tribal members don’t fill out their forms.

I hope Show-Me Daily readers will mail back their Census forms, in accordance with the Constitution. But I’m not expecting thunderbolts from heaven if a few of you don’t participate. And, to the people who want to express themselves: Blogs are a better medium than government paperwork.

Here’s some good news for consumers: Schnucks is dispensing free prenatal vitamins to women with prescriptions. The offer builds on Schnucks’ free antibiotics program, which brought positive publicity and new customers to Schnucks pharmacies.

This is an example of market forces lowering health care costs. Schnucks wants to draw people to its stores, and to do that it has to stand out from its competitors. Other pharmacies will probably follow suit — if not with the same promotions as Schnucks, then with discounts on other medical services or products.

In the policy debate over the cost of care in hospitals, much of the discussion deals with putting medicine under regulatory control. Instead, we should be asking: How can we make hospitals operate more like Schnucks?

The Central Missouri Humane Society is alarmed by a proposal to allow urban chickens in Columbia. It anticipates trouble caring for and finding homes for the chickens that would end up in the shelter:

Shelter Relations Coordinator Allison Toth said a chicken was brought in during the summer. The staff named it Tyson, after the food manufacturing company.

[...] It was a small inconvenience until Tyson was finally adopted by board member Ann Korschgen, who owns a farm.

But staff cannot rely on such acts on a regular basis.

The argument that no one should be permitted to keep chickens because a few of them will probably be abandoned is unpersuasive. By that reasoning, the city should ban cats and dogs, too, because some owners leave them at shelters. And, although it’s inconvenient for a shelter to build new coops, the city’s animal population changes over time and shelters need to evolve.

The shelter’s contract for 2010 excludes chickens, and the city is thinking of other ways to deal with abandoned chickens this year — perhaps paying a farmer to take care of them. That means the shelter would have a whole year to prepare for the chickens’ arrival.

And I don’t buy the argument that no one will adopt chickens. When urban chickens are illegal, the shelter has to wait for someone from a farm to take a stray chicken. But if city residents could keep chickens, there would be many more potential chicken owners. Finding homes for abandoned chickens would be easier.

I learned from the Census Bureau’s advertising launch today that the bureau will be the top advertiser in the United States during the next few weeks. Agency officials intend to bombard the average person with pro-census messages 42 times.

The gargantuan campaign won’t end when the census forms are released. According to the Census Project’s website, some meteorologists will be reporting local census response rates along with high temperatures and the chance of rain.

Why the sudden onslaught of publicity for something that the country has always done every 10 years? The bureau is touting its campaign as “unprecedented,” as though this year’s census were different from previous counts and required a radically new approach. I noticed that sentiment in today’s advertising kickoff, particularly when MTV Networks’ executive vice president of public affairs stated that people should participate in the 2010 Census because it will be “the most important count of their lifetimes.” This characterization is puzzling given that we’re going to conduct another census a decade from now.

One thing that I’ll admit sets this census apart is its timing: As the economy slowly pulls out of a deep recession, any large enterprise that generates employment is welcome. Still, it would be unwise to expect the census to have a big effect on the economy, even through its biggest campaign ever. I agree with MyTwoCensus.com’s prediction that the Census Bureau’s hiring won’t spur economic growth because the jobs last only six weeks. Fortunately, no one is lobbying for continuous recounts to make those jobs permanent, the way fans of tax breaks for filmmakers would like Missouri to grant tax credit after tax credit, year round.

Regarding raw milk regulations, the Springfield News-Leader reports:

Most commercial dairy producers are against the unregulated sale of raw milk because they fear if anyone got sick from it, the pasteurized milk industry would suffer from the bad publicity and confusion.

Fear of bad publicity can’t fully explain why Missouri law allows farmers to sell raw milk from their farms but not from makeshift stands in parking lots. Nor does it justify other states’ stricter controls, such as Oregon’s ban on advertising raw milk. If avoiding negative publicity were the only object, it would be sufficient to keep raw milk out of grocery store aisles. There would be no need for fine distinctions between customers ordering milk ahead of time or paying for it on the spot.

In fact, commercial producers who truly hoped to prevent a public relations disaster would want raw milk to be more visible, not less. Confusion might arise if people heard that someone got sick from raw milk, but they didn’t know what raw milk was or where people got it. They might erroneously assume they were buying raw milk themselves. If raw milk were widely advertised and many people saw it available at independent stands and distribution centers, they’d understand that raw milk is not the same product as the milk they find at the store.

The plethora of raw milk regulations are more effective from the point of view of avoiding competition. When consumers can’t hear about raw milk sales because advertising is forbidden, or when there’s no convenient way to pick up raw milk because it’s sold on a distant farm, most will buy pasteurized milk at the store. Producers stand to lose from easy access to raw milk.

A legislator in Washington state wants to rewrite laws that characterize poor children as “disadvantaged” or “at-risk,” so that they instead read “at hope.” She thinks there’s a significant difference between those phrases:

Positive labeling is more than a gimmick or political correctness, Franklin says. She believes her idea could lead to a paradigm shift in state government and to changes in classrooms across the state.

The paradigm shift won’t happen, although political correctness is not to blame. There’s a place for political correctness; in some cases, updating legal language to be more sensitive is the right thing to do. For example, laws that were written many years ago may refer to medical conditions or physical disabilities in terms we would now consider offensive. That’s the reason behind this proposal to change the name of a Missouri agency. Racial designations are also susceptible to obsolescence, although switching to the politically correct language is not always easy, as the Census Bureau has found with the word “Negro.” (While many people take umbrage at the name, a diminishing number of people still identify with it, so removing it from forms could impair the accuracy of the Census.)

Politically correct language is useful when you want to avoid antagonizing people. However, you can’t solve a problem just by describing it with different words. Proponents of the “at hope” label argue that children respond to expectations, but the phrase wouldn’t change anyone’s expectations. People form expectations based on their experiences and on available information, not on the legal lexicon. The phrase could actually lower people’s expectations if they suppose that the state wouldn’t establish a euphemism to describe children who really had potential.

Expecting a phrase to transform education is like asking children to learn music with the “think system.” It’s an attractive idea, but it lacks a basis in reality.