Student homelessness in the US

Posted by on

A new report by the National Center for Homeless Education has found that the  number of homeless students in the US is the highest in over a decade.

The most recent data, recorded in 2017-18, shows that the figure of 680,000 homeless students reported in 2004-05 had more than doubled. The research measures the number of children in schools who report being homeless at some point during an academic year and as such does not show the total population of homeless young people in the US.

 The main suspects are insufficient income, unaffordable housing, domestic violence and, recently, the opioid crisis. 

       – Homelessness in the US is usually linked to the national housing crisis.   Millions of people spend more than half their income on housing, and many report that they understandably cannot afford to buy a house. Increasing rents and a housing shortage have forced thousands of people in California, for instance,  to live in caravans or inadequate housing.

       – Then there is the changing economy, with factories closing down, and the rise of the insecure, dire gig economy, which leaves parents and their children unable to pay for a roof over their heads. 

         – Thirdly, the opioid crisis (almost 2 million people are addicted to prescription drugs) has also caused some families to break up or children to be removed from their homes.

         –  A disproportionate number of homeless youth are LGBT, according to the University of California Williams Institute.  Nearly seven in 10 said that family rejection was a major cause of becoming homeless. Abuse at home is  another major problem .

And believe it or not, in a rich, advanced country, less than a third of homeless students were able to read adequately,  and scored even lower in mathematics and science.  

My take:   1,300.000 (approximately) homeless young people!   Can this be true?  How can society allow young people, inadequately educated, to be thrown onto the street?  I wonder at the dreadful level of education outside the cozy corner of elite schools in any case.  There is a scary lack of general knowledge which one encounters all too often. But not being able to read properly!  Did I read that correctly?  No wonder you find young men ( especially) looting shops when they get the opportunity.  They need the goods. We should hide our heads in shame.

Optimism (if you can manage some)

Posted by on

People with optimistic outlooks tend to live longer than their more negative peers, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine have found.

The study drew on data from two long-running studies of Americans aged over 60: one of 1,500 male war veterans, and one of 70,000 female nurses. At the start of both, the participants had completed questionnaires to gauge how optimistic they were, and had also been asked about other factors likely to influence their longevity, including diet, health and exercise.

Analysis of the data, adjusted to take account of these “confounders”, revealed that most optimistic participants lived 10% to 15% longer on average than the least optimistic ones, and that they were significantly more likely to live to the age of 85. “Healthier behaviours and lower levels of depression only partially explained our findings,” said lead researcher Dr Lewina Lee. “Initial evidence from other studies suggests that more optimistic people tend to have goals and the confidence to reach them, are more effective in problem-solving, and they may be better at regulating their emotions during stressful situations.”

The exciting possibility raised by the findings is that we may be able to “promote healthy and resilient ageing by cultivating psycho-social assets such as optimism” in people. (The Week,  7 September 2019)

My comment:  All fine and well, but in my opinion there are too many threats to human rights and freedoms, too many health and employment insecurities, too much power given to the super-rich,  not to mention too many foreign challenges, to talk about optimism.  Hope maybe, but only someone who ignores current events and lives in la-la land can feel happy and confident living in  either the US or the UK at this time.  Would someone reading this be kind enough to suggest reasons why I am being unduly gloomy, given that I advocate the humanistic and reassuring thoughts of Epicurus?

Happy to use email for any prolonged discussion.

 

Deep sadness

Posted by on

At 10.30 last night one or more helicopters were flying at low altitude over our house (I counted 15 passes).  Three rapid shots, sounding as if they came from an automatic gun of some kind, rang out on a nearby street.

Crowds have  apparently looted and destroyed shops in our neighborhood, including the two pharmacies upon which we depend (It is 8.20 a.m as I write, and I haven’t seen the damage).  On the local listserve a woman neighbor wrote early this morning: “I looked out of my window and there was antifa on the corner opposite the pharmacy” (sic).  Really?!  Were they advertising “antifa”in neón lights?

And this is America?!

 

 

Misleading figures on US annual flu deaths

Posted by on

At a White  House briefing in late February Donald Trump reassured the nation that there was little chance of the virus causing significant disruption, and that the flu kills from 25,000 people to 69,000 people a year. The coronavirus would be no worse than the flu, and who noticed flu deaths particularly? In April further comparisons with the flu persuaded people that, since the comparison with flu was apparently holding, the country should be reopened for business.

But it turns out to have been a massive misunderstanding.  The corona virus deaths are actual deaths of real people. The 25,000 to 69,000 numbers that Trump cited do not represent actual, counted flu deaths per year; they are estimates that the CDC produces by multiplying the number of flu death counts reported by various coefficients produced through complicated algorithms. These coefficients are based on assumptions of how many cases, hospitalizations, and deaths they believe went unreported. In the last six flu seasons, the CDCs reported number of actual confirmed flu deaths­ as between 3,448 to 15,620, far lower than the numbers commonly repeated by public officials and even public health experts.  Doctors simply don’t see the huge number of flu deaths claimed by CDC statistics.

There is, in short, little data to support the CDCs assumption that the number of people who die of flu each year is on average six times greater than the number of flu deaths that are actually confirmed. To make it worse, the CDC figures also include pneumonia deaths!  The objective is, no doubt, to encourage people to get flu shots, a reasonable thing to do, but the estimates should not be used in comparison to those of Covid 19 as a weapon to perilously open up the economy for political purposes, with the message that it is “just another flu”.

(Information from an article by Jeremy Samuel Faust in Scientific American, April 28, 2020.  Article edited for length by me)

 

 

 

Epicurus and the swerve

Posted by on

If you haven’t read it Stephen Greenblatt’s book, “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern”, do try to find time to do so.  It a very readable.  It introduces the modern reader to the most famous of Epicurean books, de rerum natura of Lucretius.  Greenblatt’s book, which won several prestigious awards, is contentious because it pictures a medieval Christianity mired in reaction and recounts how atomism and the swerve marked the end of feudalism.

The atom as described by Epicurus is obviously very different in fact from what we now know as an atom.  What would you expect?  Times, and technical knowledge, have moved on.  But despite the protests of modern christians, who panned the book as misleading, I maintain that the efforts of the early Epicureans to explain the universe in a rational manner laid the foundation for a modern society free of obscurantism and the deadening hand of centuries of medieval religious dogmatism.  We haven’t quite got there yet, or abandoned outdated things like celibate priests (with some accompanying disgusting behavior) but young people are voting with their feet, and good for them.

Now we have to ensure that those youngsters are brought up with a humanist , Epicurean regard, care and consideration for others.