Staggering high child poverty rate in the USA
By · CommentsA headline caught my eye. Made me stop everything else to read the article. The headline in my news update of Philanthropy Today says that 18% of children live in poverty.
Sure. Fair enough. We’ve all seen these kinds of meaningless statistics thrown out there for people to think about or not. But the reason for my instant interest was the fact that this stat applies to the USA.
That’s right. Nearly one in five children in the United States live in poverty. The richest country in the world has children living in poverty. Not only is the USA the richest country, or at least in the top ten, but it must rate as one of the more Christian focused countries too with a stated 40% of Americans maintaining they attend church regularly.
Comparing the poverty rate in India and in the USA is quite amazing. One always thinks of India as the poor country. Images of child beggars, even movies like Slumdog Millionaire confirming these images in ones mind.
However the USA has roughly 13 to 17% living below the federal poverty line and some 40% falling below the poverty line at some point within a 10 year time span. That compares to India’s 42% live below the international poverty line. They don’t look like worlds apart after all.
Somehow it doesn’t seem that horrific to think of a poor India. That doesn’t mean to say that one should condone the situation. It’s just that India is fighting fiercely to right this wrong. In 1975 65% of the population fell into the category. Now at 40% there’s been a fair drop since then.
But why would the USA have such high poverty rates? This is the land where the American dream is supposedly providing every person with the opportunity to make it. In other words they can make a living, improve their standard of living, build a future for their children. Even make it big.
How does an 18% child poverty rate fit into this picture? In my mind it just doesn’t at all. What is the USA doing about it? Not that much it seems as the figures have worsened in the last years. And let’s not blame the recession again. So convenient.
How can a mega-power like the USA allow it’s children to live in poverty? I don’t understand. Maybe somebody can explain it to me.
So the war in Iraq was supported by the UK because Blair, the then Prime Minister, was worried about the Weapons of Mass Destruction. Oh but there weren’t any to be found. Well then it was the hatred of tyranny and terror. Mmm, they didn’t find too much of that either. Sure, they finally found Saddam Hussein in his bolt hole.
There are some small murmurs every now and then questioning the reasons for the UK’s involvement in this war that lead to the death of 1.2 million people. So far. Most of those are innocent civilians. Johann Hari, one of my favourite journalists, has a good article on this in The Independent.
But one thing that is mostly overlooked is that the UK is a democracy and it has houses of Parliament where elected representatives sit earning nice little salaries. And in order to avoid having a Prime Minister go off pop and do something stupid like getting involved in a war that has no purpose whatsoever, these folk get to vote on issues. On issues for instance whether to send ones soldiers off to fight a war that is none of ones or their business.
After all there was no real threat to British safety from Saddam Hussein and his rather motley crew of ragamuffin army folk. But off they went to war regardless. Regardless even of UN disapproval.
The question has to be asked, why did so few people stand up to stop this idiotic action? Isn’t this what the Germans had to suffer after the war. The recrimination about not stopping Hitler, not stopping the Holocaust and not stopping the second World War.
So where are the recriminations this time around? Why is nobody pointing fingers at the British government, all those politicians still getting their pay, not having to be accountable for the deaths of 1.2 million people.
Surely it’s not just Blair. It’s a whole bunch of other folk who should be held accountable too. What did they do to the Germans after the war? They brought to court anybody they could find who had any kind of say with respect to the massacres at the holocaust. Is the Iraq war any different? And what on earth is everybody doing in Afghanistan?
Maybe it’s about Oil in Iraq and Opium in Afghanistan? The BIG money spinners… So then who was pulling the strings one wonders.
A reflection of how the folk think in Vietnam, maybe?
By · Comments
Traffic in Co Nhue, Hanoi
Anybody who has had the chance to visit Vietnam will get the chaos of the traffic. If you haven’t had the good fortune you will just have no idea. Unless seen, it is beyond being imagined. The pictures here just don’t do it justice.
Yet the way the traffic works in Vietnam is kind of how life seems to work here too. It could be a reflection of how society works.
Imagine yourself stuck in traffic on your motor bike. There is no room to move. So you squeeze yourself into a non existent gap. You overtake on the wrong side, you take advantage of a bare patch on the pavement, you duck around an obstacle which gets you into oncoming traffic. Eyes wide open while you drive straight into a swarm of motor bikes. They all part to make way for you. Huh?
Yet when it truly can’t move anymore, when you have absolutely exhausted all options then you sit quietly and wait for things to move. And you can wait for a fair time while nothing changes ahead of you and you can’t even see what’s up. And when you do get past whatever it was it is usually a very insignificant blockage. Nothing major. But because traffic flows so busily any small thing can cause a huge jam.
And that’s kind of how it seems to work all round. There is a great patience in the people when nothing can be done. It’s an acceptance of fate or karma or whatever you want to call it. As an aside one can’t see too much road rage happening here.
At the same time there is a fully awake mind that is scheming to take advantage of any gap that could possibly present itself. Whether that is with respect to a business opportunity or traffic. It is the same kind of approach.
Getting to work in the morning, on the back of a motor bike!
Eagle eyed looking out for the gap, but at the same time patient enough to wait it out when there is just no gap to be seen. It could be a great philosophy to live by.
Is it possible to assess a nation’s characteristics in the way they navigate traffic? Ha, probably not, but it is certainly a lot of fun speculating about it when stuck on the back of a motor bike in traffic such as this. Thank goodness for face masks. A must when this kind of dense exhaust fume gets blasted into ones face. It’s certainly not something for the super health conscious people to experience. Black coated lungs anybody?
Temple of Literture, Hanoi
Does knowledge rub off one wonders. For young Vietnamese a visit to the Temple of Literature seems to do it for them. Walk down the aisles of the Turtle Steles and rub their heads. Those turtles represent the students who were successful at the imperial exams. Maybe their wisdom will literally rub off onto one.
Well let’s see if it works. I did my bit of rubbing turtle heads to see if at my venerable age I might still be able to acquire some wisdom. Never knock a tradition. You never know. In any event any belief system you have that you truly feel will bring you something – whether good or not – could just come about. Sending all those vibes into the Universe…
That’s the wonderful part about Asia. It is still a part of this world where the acquisition of knowledge is of utmost importance. Regrettably the West has kind of bastardised that a little. Sure, we send the kids to school, but we do that because we think a good education will get them a good job. By good job read loads of money to be earned.
In other words, knowledge becomes a ticket to wealth rather than something you acquire for yourself. Of course having said that, knowledge is of course acquired in Asia as well with one eye on a well paying job. However, it still seems to be a pursuit for wisdom itself as well.
Many years ago I asked a classics lecturer why one would want to study ancient Greek and Latin language and literature. And he said for the fun of it and because it’s interesting. Huh? That didn’t quite sit right for me. A University degree was a qualification. Classic Greek didn’t fit into that.
Of course nowadays with the internet at ones finger tips who needs to study anything anymore. I can use my online free software to translate any language to any language. And yes, sometimes the English that I’m trying to get to while translating from Vietnamese looks a bit strange at the end of the process. Still, mostly I can see what is meant.
So why learn anything? Why not just use the internet for ones hugely immense library (bring on Wikipedia) and spend the rest of the time on the beach or in front of a computer playing games?
Maybe we go back to the classics professor. For the sheer fun of it. That’s what learning should be all about.
Anyway, whatever your reasons for learning something new, pick up some wisdom if you ever visit Hanoi by taking a turn past the Temple of Literature. Take a bow, light a stick of incense to Confucius and his wise disciples maybe some of it will rub off on you. How does it go again? Confucius says…
Sometimes one can be so wrong
By · CommentsSometimes it takes a while. In this instance a couple of decades. I clung to this self-developed touch of logic for absolutely ages. Overpopulation seemed to me caused by the fact that developing countries had received the developed world medicine but had not taken on board the idea of birth control.
This meant that more people survived. Babies survived birth and the first few years and older folk had a longer life to look forward to. What was missing was the education with respect to birth control. Well, so I thought.
However, in a short ten minute talk on Ted, Hans Rosling managed to show up my errand ways. In fact he proves that in developing countries where the infant mortality rate has been reduced to minimum percentages the birth rate has plummeted.
More medicine, more health, more probability that your young one will survive and suddenly birth control becomes a welcome addition to life style and family values.
Who would have thought. I certainly didn’t. Maybe for many people this makes total sense. I always viewed it from the point of view that if you are a subsistence farmer, or tiny scale trader you can’t possibly take on the responsibility of feeding many mouths. In other words, reduce the family size.
But that wasn’t the point for poor families being able to feed the family. The point was more about having many young ones because inevitably some were going to die. You wanted to preserve the family in whatever way you could. Even if you couldn’t quite see how you were going to have enough food for everybody.
It is a fundamentally different way at looking at the situation. Because now all you need to do is spend money to improve the natal care to mothers to ensure that their children will survive and you no longer have to preach anything else. No longer is there the moral or any other issue around birth control. It just falls into place.
Watch this ten minute talk. Well worth it. You never know you might also have that AHA moment about high population numbers. One wonders whether there is some inherently wrong way that HIV/AIDS is being looked at too. Could a different perspective create the cure or at the least stop the spreading virus?
