Flutterby™! : Breaking the cycles of poverty

The Daily Show: — Diane Ravitch: "I don't think America is overrun by bad teachers, I think America is overrun by too much poverty...". This is why we need to keep funding Planned Parenthood (even if they're on my shitlist right now because of the way they treat their benefactors...), and why we need to make sure that poor women have contraception options, and that they don't feel like kids are a way to keep the men around.

And then this is why we, individually (because government cannot fill the role of actually caring about what happens to individuals), need to be working with poor kids to give them more opportunities and a wider outlook of what's possible.

Relatedly, Rafe had a link and commentary on a study which shows that rich and well educated people live longer. In Canada, where, presumably, everyone has their health care needs met (and, yes, snark about this will be tolerated if you can give me statistics about how many rich Canadians really do come to the U.S. for major medical treatments). He's referencing Ezra Klein's comments on Health Affairs: Lesson From Canada’s Universal Care: Socially Disadvantaged Patients Use More Health Services, Still Have Poorer Health, David A. Alter, Therese Stukel, Alice Chong and David Henry.