child poverty in "perspective"
so someone emailed the kirkland-list a few minutes ago outraged/shocked by this unicef report that just came out titled "Child poverty in perspective: An overview of child well-being in rich countries."
most of his outcry seemed to be aimed at the dearth of coverage of this report in U.S. journalism as opposed to its common-as-juju-bees coverage in the U.K. while absurd, this is by no means surprising. just take a few minutes to compare BBC news with NY Times. do it. NOW. or. else. you. will. continue. to. be. brainwashed. by. the. oh. so. objective. and. accurate. mainstream. press.
my initial reaction was " damn! this country is fucked up and something needs to be done about that a. s. a. p." but then a few minutes later, this initial fervor had subsided...and i've since been blogging on Blogger - another amazing digital technology brought to you by GOOGLE! GOOGILY EYES! YIPPEE!
this report is near-scandalous, but i predict that most americans will regard it with apathy. again, it's absurd but not surprising news and the reoccuring pattern in this country is that the people who are in the best position to do something for the better about this issue will likely not care enough to do anything about it besides symbolically toss out some spare change. likewise, the people - underserved children and advocacy groups - struggling to raise awareness of these issues are already stretched so thin by actively working for the cause of helping children that they don't have the time, energy, and resources to do much more than they are already doing; it doesn't matter whether or not they can or cannot anything about it.
and most everyone else is either too caught up in their own battles and/or too obsessed with maintaining/pursuing above-average super-comfortable lifestyles to in short, care.
i care, but to me, this report is still largely a red herring. you really can't put child poverty into perspective without including child poor-being in poor, poorer, and the poorest countries.
most of his outcry seemed to be aimed at the dearth of coverage of this report in U.S. journalism as opposed to its common-as-juju-bees coverage in the U.K. while absurd, this is by no means surprising. just take a few minutes to compare BBC news with NY Times. do it. NOW. or. else. you. will. continue. to. be. brainwashed. by. the. oh. so. objective. and. accurate. mainstream. press.
my initial reaction was " damn! this country is fucked up and something needs to be done about that a. s. a. p." but then a few minutes later, this initial fervor had subsided...and i've since been blogging on Blogger - another amazing digital technology brought to you by GOOGLE! GOOGILY EYES! YIPPEE!
this report is near-scandalous, but i predict that most americans will regard it with apathy. again, it's absurd but not surprising news and the reoccuring pattern in this country is that the people who are in the best position to do something for the better about this issue will likely not care enough to do anything about it besides symbolically toss out some spare change. likewise, the people - underserved children and advocacy groups - struggling to raise awareness of these issues are already stretched so thin by actively working for the cause of helping children that they don't have the time, energy, and resources to do much more than they are already doing; it doesn't matter whether or not they can or cannot anything about it.
and most everyone else is either too caught up in their own battles and/or too obsessed with maintaining/pursuing above-average super-comfortable lifestyles to in short, care.
i care, but to me, this report is still largely a red herring. you really can't put child poverty into perspective without including child poor-being in poor, poorer, and the poorest countries.
posted by zoomair at 4:24 PM
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