Tag Archives: Kids”

Unemployment Among Young High School Grads Is…Pretty Much Normal These Days

by ChadwickBowman Posted on May 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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From the New York Times today on the grim job prospects of high school grads with no college:

Only 10 percent of 17- to 24-year-olds have a college or advanced degree, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute, although many more of them will eventually graduate.

And for young high school graduates, the unemployment rate is disturbingly high: 17.8 percent….“It’s improved since the recession, but it’s still pretty poor,” said Elise Gould, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, who noted the average hourly wage for high school graduates had declined since 2000 despite increases in the minimum wage in some places.

Ms. Gould is part of a growing chorus of economists, employers and educators who argue more effort needs to be put into improving job prospects for people without college degrees.

Is it unreasonable to expect reporters to hop over to FRED for five minutes and check this stuff out? I don’t know how EPI measures unemployment, but the federal government measures it in a consistent way every single month. For young high school grads, the average unemployment rate during the expansion of the aughts was around 11 percent. Today it’s 11.2 percent. In other words, it’s not “pretty poor,” it’s completely normal. And there’s no need to be grudging about how much it’s improved since the recession. It’s down by more than ten points since its peak.

It’s true that young high school grads have seen their incomes drop over the past decade: their cash earnings have declined about 7 percent since before the recession. But that’s also true of every other age and education cohort.

When it comes to both employment and earnings, young high school grads are doing about the same as everyone else. Maybe we should put more effort into improving their job prospects, but we don’t need to wildly misstate the data in order to make the case.

Source – 

Unemployment Among Young High School Grads Is…Pretty Much Normal These Days

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It’s Looking Like Another Trump Blowout in Indiana

by TamikaMordaunt4 Posted on May 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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There’s not much more to say about the Republican primary. The polls now show Donald Trump with a commanding lead in tomorrow’s primary in Indiana, and he’s got a big lead in California too. It’s all over but the shouting.

Original article – 

It’s Looking Like Another Trump Blowout in Indiana

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Childhood Obesity Is Still Going Up, Up, Up

by JonahMilliner Posted on May 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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Hey, do you remember that breathless CDC study from a couple of years ago showing a dramatic drop in obesity among 2-5-year-olds? I was pretty skeptical about it, and today I learn that I was right to be. I basically figured that it was a noisy sample that didn’t make sense, but according to a new look at the data it’s worse than that: the data is noisy, and that allowed the CDC researchers to cherry pick a starting point that made it look like there was a huge drop.

Roberto Ferdman provides a new chart based on the new study. Take a look. If you start in 2003, as the CDC study did, it looks like there’s a big drop. The prevalence of obesity among girls goes down 2.1 percentage points, and among boys it goes down a whopping 6.1 percentage points.

But if you include data going back to 1999, which is the true beginning of this data series, the improvement is distinctly more modest: a drop of 1.1 percentage points for girls and 1.7 percentage points for boys. And those drops aren’t even statistically significant.

The original study was always suspect because the alleged drop for 2-5-year-olds wasn’t matched in any other age group. And sure enough, a fresh look at the rest of the data continues to show rising obesity for every other age group. Suddenly the results for 2-5-year-olds look perfectly in sync.

It’s one thing if this newer study shows different results because it includes 2013-14 data. But deliberately excluding the starting point of the data series is the real culprit, and that’s inexcusable. The authors of the original study have some explaining to do.

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Childhood Obesity Is Still Going Up, Up, Up

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The Residents of Flint Need to Know the Truth About Lead Poisoning

by JanineKinser Posted on May 1, 2016

Mother Jones

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This article about Flint is heartbreaking, but not quite for the obvious reason:

Health care workers are scrambling to help the people here cope with what many fear will be chronic consequences of the city’s water contamination crisis: profound stress, worry, depression and guilt.

….Diane Breckenridge, Genesee Health’s liaison to local hospitals, said she had seen “people come into the hospitals directly related to breakdowns, nervous breakdowns, if you will….Most of it’s been depression or suicidal ideation directly linked to what’s going on with their children,” she added. “They just feel like they can’t even let their children take a bath.” Children, too, are traumatized, said Dexter Clarke, a supervisor at Genesee Health, not least because they constantly hear frightening things on television about the lead crisis, including breathless advertisements by personal injury lawyers seeking clients.

….Too often now, Nicole Lewis cannot sleep….To help her nerves, she recently installed a home water filtration system, paying $42.50 a month for the service on her main water supply line. She also bought a blender to make her sons smoothies with lead-leaching vegetables, like spinach and kale.

But still her mind races, especially late at night. Her 7-year-old was just found to have attention deficit disorder, she said. Her 2-year-old is already showing athletic promise, but she wonders whether lead exposure will affect his ability to play sports.

These people desperately need to be told the truth:

What happened in Flint was a horrible, inexcusable tragedy.
Residents have every right to be furious with government at all levels.
But the health effects are, in fact, pretty minimal. With a few rare exceptions, the level of lead contamination caused by Flint’s water won’t cause any noticeable cognitive problems in children. It will not lower IQs or increase crime rates 20 years from now. It will not cause ADHD. It will not affect anyone’s ability to play sports. It will not cause anyone’s hair to fall out. It will not cause cancer. And “lead leaching” vegetables don’t work.

For two years, about 5 percent of the children in Flint recorded blood lead levels greater than 5 m/d. This is a very moderate level for a short period of time. In every single year before 2010, Flint was above this number; usually far, far above.

The choices here are sickening. On the one hand, nobody wants to downplay the effects of lead poisoning, or even be viewed as downplaying them. On the other hand, feeding the hysteria surrounding Flint has real consequences. The residents of Flint should not be tormented about what’s going on. They should not be flocking to therapists. They should not be gulping Xanax.

Of course, at this point Flint residents probably don’t believe anything the government tells them, and for understandable reasons. So maybe it’s time for someone they trust a little more to begin telling them the truth. I’m looking at you, Rachel Maddow.

Source article:  

The Residents of Flint Need to Know the Truth About Lead Poisoning

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Shia Mob in Iraq Demands More Technocrats

by GroverDingle Posted on April 30, 2016

Mother Jones

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Protesters stormed the Iraqi parliament today:

Baghdad Operations Command declared a state of emergency and said all roads into the capital had been closed….Iraq is in the grip of a political crisis, with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi attempting to reshuffle his cabinet and meet the demands of the demonstrators, who have been spurred on by the powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. But Abadi has been hampered by chaotic parliament sessions, where lawmakers have thrown water bottles and punches at one another.

Oddly, the “firebrand cleric” Sadr (remember when that practically used to be his first name in news reports?) is demanding that…the current hacks running government ministries be replaced with nonpartisan technocrats. “More bean counters in the cabinet!” isn’t the usual rallying cry of a populist uprising, but there you have it.

Needless to say, the sectarian hacks currently in charge have been resisting this change for the past month. In the meantime, Iraq is in chaos. Again.

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Shia Mob in Iraq Demands More Technocrats

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Friday Fundraising and Cat Blogging – 29 April 2016

by MattKetner Posted on April 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Why do we beg you for money three times a year? Clara and Monika explain:

Remember when Chris Hughes put The New Republic up for sale earlier this year? His letter to TNR staff subtly blamed the very same people it was addressed to: “I will be the first to admit that when I took on this challenge nearly four years ago, I underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate.”

Bullshit. “Transitioning” was not The New Republic’s main challenge. Refusing to work on, with, and for the internet was once a pervasive problem in news organizations, but while vestiges of that still linger, it is no longer what keeps publications from succeeding financially.

What keeps them from making money now is that online advertising pays pennies….From the very beginning, 40 years ago this year, our newsroom has been built on the belief that journalism needs to be untethered from corporate interests or deep-pocketed funders—that the only way a free press can be paid for is by its readers. This can take a few different forms: subscriptions, donations, micropayments, all of which we’re experimenting with. It can be something the audience is forced to do (via the paywalls you’ll find at the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal) or something they choose to do, as in public radio.

At Mother Jones, we’ve gone the latter route: Our mission is to make our journalism accessible to as many people as possible. Instead of requiring you to pay, we bet on trust: We trust you’ll recognize the value of the reporting and pitch in what you can. And you trust us to put that money to work—by going out there and kicking ass.

So please help us out! This is my final pitch for the spring fundraiser, and it includes more options than ever before. You can donate via PayPal or credit card, as usual, or you can sign up to make a monthly donation. If enough of you do this, maybe we can cut back on the fundraising begs? Maybe.

Click here to donate via PayPal.
Click here to donate via credit card.

And with that out of the way, it’s finally time for catblogging. Hopper’s new favorite place lately is…me. When I settle down on the sofa these days, she comes right over and flops down on my stomach. After a good tummy rub, she snoozes while I peruse the news on my tablet. It works out pretty well for everyone.

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Friday Fundraising and Cat Blogging – 29 April 2016

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Trey Gowdy Still Tracking Down Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

by MilagroAdamson Posted on April 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Via Steve Benen, I see that the Pentagon is finally getting a little fed up with Trey Gowdy’s Benghazi investigation:

Gowdy’s “nonpartisan” investigators are apparently still obsessed with tracking down idiotic conspiracy theories that originate in Facebook posts, radio shows, and other corners of the right-wing fever swamp. They seem to be convinced, even now, that the military deliberately chose not to respond to the Benghazi attacks even though they could have. Why would they do this? Who knows. Because they were acting under orders from the Secretary of State, to whom they had sworn a secret blood oath? It’s just the kind of thing Hillary would do, isn’t it? And by God, the truth is out there. Eventually Trey Gowdy will get to it.

Source:

Trey Gowdy Still Tracking Down Benghazi Conspiracy Theories

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Hillary Clinton Wants All Millennials to Feel Free to Use Her Lawn

by evurlgvvc Posted on April 27, 2016

Mother Jones

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I guess I’m finally curious enough about something to write a post about it. The subject is The Kids Today. Here are a couple of recent posts from Atrios:

I know I keep returning this subject, and I probably don’t have anything especially new to say about it, but I guess support for Bernie by The Kids Today has brought a lot of it out recently. I’m increasingly amazed that The Kids Today seems to include anyone under 40, and that the olds (#notallolds) hate them with white hot passion. The Kids Today are Generation Screwed, and the Old Economy Steves of the world really should shut their pie holes.

And:

Hope to be wrong, but suspect that team Clinton (very broadly defined) will still be talking about Berniebros in September. I’m quite happy for Hillary Clinton to be the nominee, as I always thought she would be. I’m not happy with the months of “we would have won it easy if not for these meddling kids who won’t vote in November” rhetoric. Better figure out how to appeal to them. Stop calling them immature and stupid. The goal is to win, not to make early excuses for why you’re going to lose.

I realize that our personal takes on this subject are strongly influenced by which blogs/tweets/etc. we happen to read, and Atrios and I are probably reading different stuff. But I still wonder where this is coming from. Do older folks really hate millennials with a white hot passion? Is Team Clinton obsessed with Berniebros? I just don’t see it. What I’ve seen is a competitive primary where both sides have been sniping at the other, just like 2008. And now that it’s over, the sniping will fade away. Just speaking personally, my Twitter feed and general reading list has been about equally full of rancor aimed at both sides. The youngs are starry-eyed idealists’ the olds are corrupt sellouts. Berniebros are disgusting; Hillarybots are cutthroat. Bernie is clueless about how to get things done; Hillary is a warmonger. Etc.

If you yourself are a millennial, I suppose it’s only natural to pay special attention to every single op-ed ever written on the subject of millennials. But I don’t think this particular genre is any more prevalent today than op-eds about young Gen Xers a couple of decades ago or op-eds about young boomers back when I was graduating from college. They’re no more critical, either. Just the same old stuff about middle-aged folks trying to understand younger folks, sometimes with sympathy and sometimes without.

I guess I’m doing that annoying oldster thing where I use my personal experience to shrug off what’s happening today as just more of the same. But honest, I wouldn’t do it if I saw endless streams of criticism of Bernie and Bernie supporters—and millennials in general—that truly seemed way out of proportion to what I’ve seen before. But I just haven’t.

As for Hillary, I can guarantee that the only thing she and her team want from millennials is their support. That’s been crystal clear from the start, and the fact that there are some assholes on her side doesn’t change that. There are always assholes on all sides. But Team Hillary itself, even broadly defined, has no greater desire than to prove itself to millennials and get their votes in November. Just wait and see.

From – 

Hillary Clinton Wants All Millennials to Feel Free to Use Her Lawn

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Bernie Is Turning Millennials More Liberal—Maybe

by MariGaffney Posted on April 25, 2016

Mother Jones

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According to the latest Harvard IOP poll, young folks are becoming increasingly liberal:

Polling director John Della Volpe thinks this is all due to the Bernie Sanders effect:

“He’s not moving a party to the left. He’s moving a generation to the left,” Della Volpe said of the senator from Vermont. “Whether or not he’s winning or losing, it’s really that he’s impacting the way in which a generation — the largest generation in the history of America — thinks about politics.”

….It’s rare, Della Volpe said, for young people’s attitudes to change much from year to year in Harvard’s polling, and even more remarkable for so many of these measures to shift in the same direction at the same time.

Maybe! But young voters have been trending more liberal and more Democratic ever since the Bush presidency. It may be rare for Harvard to see young voters turn more liberal on so many issues at once in a single year, but I’ll bet it’s also rare for their poll to be done right smack in the middle of a presidential campaign focused on precisely these issues. Bottom line: I know I’m an innately cautious guy, but even so I’d hold off on the “moving a generation to the left” cheerleading until we get at least a few years of steady progress in these numbers.

In other Harvard IOP news, young voters prefer Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump by a huge margin. I don’t think anyone is going to argue about that.

Link – 

Bernie Is Turning Millennials More Liberal—Maybe

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Every Time You Use a Paper Towel, Think of This

by FXKTessaqyjlpif Posted on April 22, 2016

Many of us carry out similar routines at restaurants, stores or an establishment with a public restroom. After using the facilities, we thoroughly wash our hands with soap and water, grab a bunch of paper towels, crumple them into balls, quickly dry our hands and toss the resulting garbage in the trash can on our way out.

We complete the process quickly and without thought, never to think of our paper towel encounter again or what happens to it after it gets picked up and taken to the landfill.

Its difficult to imagine something as simple as paper towel waste could have such a serious and devastating environmental impact, but the facts cant be ignored. As many as 51,000 trees per day are required to replace the number of paper towels used in the same amount of time. Globally, this amounts to 254 million tons of trash each year. Thats a lot of waste that ends up directly in our landfill.

While its been easy for my family of four to cut down on our paper towel usage in our home, we struggle when were outside the home to minimize our impact. I usually have my hands filled with either shopping bags or one of my children and the thought of limiting my paper towel usage is not on the forefront of my mind.

Then I learned through an engaging TEDx talk held in Portland, Oregon that there is a smarter and easier technique for drying my hands that doesnt require handfuls of paper towel or any more time and trouble.

Through his quick and fun video, Joe Smith demonstrates the technique he created: the shake and fold. It sounds like a silly dance routine but is actually a remarkably simple and efficient way to reduce the effect paper towel waste has on our environment.

Instead of grabbing a handful of paper towels, simply shake your hands twelve times, and then use a single, folded sheet to dab off the remaining moisture.

According to Smith, if everyone decided to dry off their hands with just one sheet, that would use 571 million less pounds of paper every year. That’s equivalent to nearly 5 million trees, which is something we can all breathe easy about.

I was unsure at first, so I decided to put Smiths method to the ultimate test. Could I successfully complete the shake and fold while managing the kids and my things?

His method not only passed with flying colors, but beat out my multiple paper towel ball clumping method! See for yourself and save a tree while you are at it!

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Every Time You Use a Paper Towel, Think of This

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