Momnesia

Thanks for the Rebuttal

I appreciate whoever reads my blog having taken enough of an interest to leave a printout on my desk from Wikipedia regarding my rant against The New York Times. I am happy that people have responded to that post because it was important to me.

The printout was this page, which describes Clarkston, Ga., in detail. You'll note that it states that the population was 7,231 at the 2000 Census. I had taken issue with the New York Times' population estimate for the town.

While the census may, indeed, be closer to the Times' estimate than the 15,000 or so people I had in my mind, I'd like to point out that again that:

1) The article is still a mischaracterization of the area, seeing as how it's a 1.1 square-mile-area of land we're talking about - and a lot of people squeeze in that small area - in a largely urban environment. That's like taking just the downtown Augusta area and calling it pastoral because there are a couple of parks in the vicinity;

2) The racial and ethnic cross-section is a larger issue in the story, and there is nothing to dispute the fact that the Census estimated the city was 55% African-American, 9.61% mixed race, and 4.61% Latino (which is a notoriously undercounted population when you consider the number of illegal immigrants in Georgia);

3) The Times still got the damn number wrong.

But, hey, here's to a healthy debate. Disagreements can exist without people being disagreeable.