Danielle Levy

A UNICEF report ranking children’s well-being puts the U.S. in 26th place, and found that there does not appear to be a relationship between how wealthy a nation is, that is how high its per capita GDP is, and overall child well-being. The Netherlands was in the lead followed by Norway, Iceland, Finland and Sweden. At the bottom were Lithuania, Latvia and Romania. Two recent NYT’s stories by revealing our hidden values about children’s rights seem to give some explanation as to why this might be. As we may know there is now more policemen in schools, and that seems to translate as more children in court. “The most striking impact of school police officers so far,” says Erik Eckholm’s article, “…has been a surge in arrests or misdemeanor charges for essentially nonviolent behavior—including scuffles, truancy and cursing at teachers—that sends children into the criminal courts,” offenses that used to be handled in the principal’s office. The other article by Sonia Nazario who’s often written about the plight of immigrants and their children is about undocumented children who end up in court alone often without representation, since undocumented immigrants do not have right to a public defender. These children, she writes, “some as young as 2 years old—have no one to help them make the case that they should not be deported.” It’s not about the ranking, or being best, it’s just about valuing children and making the necessary changes to bring that about.

13% of Americans believe that President Obama is the anti-Christ. It’s an arresting fact, not that it would exist but that it would be that high. It partially explains anti Obama sentiment. When seen in context of other facts collected by Public Policy Polling, however, it paints a portrait of an electorate that looks to be without much real knowledge, and with a lot of superstition and inability to think critically. Accordingly 4% of those polled think that shape shifting reptilians control the world by taking on human form. 11% aren’t quite sure that Osama Bin Laden isn’t still out there and 28% believe that a secretive power elite with globalist agenda is conspiring to rule the world through an authoritarian world government. I felt alarmed at first, but then I read that according to a survey done for MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” 60% said that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be more strict, and 59% said they would support legislation banning the sale of assault weapons. As long as those with a degree of sanity can win the day, the kooks and the ignorant can believe what they like.

The very thing that made China a success story is inviting criticism of India—how their prosperity has, or in the case of India has not, lifted people out of poverty. In China about 13% of the population subsists on $1.25 a day or less. In India a third of the population lives on that amount. The prosperity has gone to the rich and to some extent the middle class. The level of poverty in certain regions such as that of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh is equivalent to that of the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the poorest countries in the world (if rich in resources) and one plagued by many years of civil way. For most people in India social mobility is only a dream. But Oxford University’s poverty and human development initiative which is using a new approach to measuring human deprivation found that some of the most impoverished countries in the world have seen a decrease in the number of the extremely poor in several nations and thinks that such extreme poverty could be eradicated within 20 years. Rwanda, Nepal and Bangladesh head that list. Close behind are reduction in extreme poverty in Ghana, Tanzania, Cambodia and Bolivia. In between the example of China and the findings of the Oxford’s study, those of us who hate poverty hope that India can take heed and work harder on reducing its poverty.