Thursday, February 15, 2007

Open Thread - Thursday

NPR related comments welcomed.
Posted by Mytwords at 5:25 AM
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been out of touch from NPR the last few days (a good thing for my blood pressure), so I don't know if they did any coverage of that bombshell UN report on children's wellbeing (Linked here):
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/thelede/posts/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

The results show the US and UK dead last, while the welfare-statist Scandinavians, Netherlands and Spain were all at the top. (I absolutely love Amsterdam, BTW).

What, if anything did NPR say?

2/15/07, 11:50 AM
Anonymous said...

Sorry the link was too long to show in one line. Here it is again:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/
images/blogs/thelede/
posts/ChildPovertyReport.pdf

2/15/07, 11:51 AM
Anonymous said...

Mr. Taco, NPR had this:


http://tinyurl.com/3b7xyz

There was one "rebuttal":

It's not that developed welfare states necessarily have happier children, says David Parker of UNICEF.

"I think what we know from history in the U.S.," Parker says, "is that it's not necessarily how the welfare is provided but the nature of the support. One of the key things is that the role of government is important, but the entire society must have at its heart the idea of improving child well-being."

Overall, the story was fair, imo. But it wasn't in-depth at all.

2/15/07, 11:59 AM
Anonymous said...

Thanks, Kevan. And semi-kudos to Rob Gifford (must remember to follow his byline in the future). The report was skimpy, as you say. But at least it was mentioned. The New York Times has yet to give this story an inch. As someone who works in public health, I just want to throw up my hands and say, "What's the use?" We Americans love to preach about how "children are our future" and "no child left behind". Then when we get a report measuring just how poorly we're doing as compared to our peer countries, what do we hear from our newspaper of record?...crickets. Grrrrrr!!

2/15/07, 2:15 PM
Anonymous said...

In 1960 I spent 4th grade in the Netherlands (outside Lewiden). We didn't have the same level of comfort as in the US, but it was really my happiest childhood year. No TV, didn't miss it a bit. All the kids were rambunxious, we rode bikes everywhere, all the kids had pocket knives, with which we played at school, for which you'd get a police record here. In the most densly populated country on earth, it you were screwing up, some old woman would scream out of an upstairs window: You kids cut that out! It was truly a wonderful place to be a child.

2/16/07, 8:40 AM

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