Let’s vaccinate our kids…

Yesterday when I was bored, I was thinking about provincial things people say that I find really attractive in certain context like, “Let’s go hang out with the homeless,” “I did laundry,” “Pie?,” or “read that analysis of Census data?” I’m kidding a bit, but only a bit that laundry one, man. However, if my partner and I were thinking about having kids, “Let’s vaccinate our kids” would be the sexiest thing you could say to me because the anti-vaccination truthers are out and measles is a thing again. Like we don’t have enough to worry about with that Polio like disease killing kids that isn’t Polio?

At first I thought this whole thing was kind of a joke. Something a few privileged people were doing, but because of the limited funds the majority of people have nothing we should worry about because people who can’t afford crazy hospital bills will vaccinate their kids. But then Jenny McCarthy linked autism and vaccinations, and here we are. We have disease outbreaks all over the place of diseases that weren’t supposed to be a thing anymore.

The problem really is that the anti-vaccination movement is spreading false information, pretending it is fact, and not vaccinating enough kids that outbreaks are happening all over the place. Real SCIENCE say the correlation is anecdotal and evidence doesn’t back up assertions that a raise in vaccinations has led to an increase in autism. The fear surrounding autism may have led to the increased skepticism around vaccination. But again there is no evidence of this. There have been a lot of write ups about the anti-vaccine crowds, but I read the one over at Policy Mic by Matt Essert. 

Finally, I’d really love the anti-choice crowd to turn on these fools, because the anti-vaccine crowd cries choice when they are approached about the damage they are doing to society. Of course they have the right not to vaccinate their kids, but then society has the right to be protected from these children.

 

Below is a map by the Council on Foreign Relations documenting all the outbreaks since 2006.

The problem with talking about Farrow and Allen

I wasn’t going to really write about this because, who really knows, but then a labor journalist I really like decided to weigh in and I just wanted him to shut up. Let’s just go over the facts briefly, and then we’ll get into everything wrong with this.

• Dylan Farrow accused Woody Allen of molesting and raping her as a seven year old.
• Mia Farrow and Woody Allen had an awful divorce, and Allen married their adopted daughter.
• A criminal cause was never pursued, but according to my understanding that was the decision made to protect the alleged victim, not because there was no evidence.

 Allen is an excellent filmmaker, though I’m not a huge fan of his work. And because he’s super famous and talented, he gets to not have to take accusations like this seriously. In fact everyone just kind of ignores them. We’re never going to know. But we do know a little about history, child abuse, power, and the discrediting of witnesses.

First, the 80s was a different time. I don’t know much about it, but there was a rash of therapists convincing their patients that the patients’ fathers had molested them. Many of these accusations were untrue, lives were ruined, and the profession learned more about how to and how not to interview children. That said, some of these accusations were true.

Second, child abuse is an issue as is sexual abuse. One of the reasons children make such easy targets for preferential offenders is that they often don’t know what the relationship between themselves and the offender is supposed to look like. So a kid might not like the way the offender touches them, but without someone sitting the kid down and saying “don’t let anyone touch your genitalia” then the kid might not realize the problem is bigger than discomfort. We live in a puritanical society, and because of these we don’t talk to our children about sex or abuse.

Third, power, people with it exploit it over others. There are many studies documenting how normal, average people will abuse others when they have the authority to. No, all sexual predators aren’t in power, but often sexual assaults are about power. Additionally, the powerful don’t really have to pay for their crimes. When taken into account that most rapists never do either, we’re looking at a small group of people who actually are punished for the abuses they commit.

Fourth, it is amazing how you can never believe a sexual assault survivor. I noted this last week with the Oberst case. Apparently, all women (overwhelmingly) are hysterical nut jobs just trying to ruin famous men. I’m not even talking about Mia, who is regularly painted as a vindictive manipulative parent, but poor Dylan who has been brainwashed. We do all see that right? That the women in these cases are always painted as hysterical and the alleged perpetrators as victims.

Ok, so now let’s talk about the Tweet of issue by Mike Elk. See below. 

There is so much wrong with this. Elk is perfectly in his right to, well I’m not really sure. He isn’t exactly defending Allen, but he is definitely sympathetic to Allen due to personal experiences (see how I’m noting he has reasons and not calling him hysterical because of events in his childhood? Yeah, that’s how you do it because he isn’t hysterical this is just his perception and interpretation of the situation). However, this analogy between Emmett Till’s accuser, Carolyn Bryant, and Dylan Farrow is way out of line. For a lot of reasons.

First, Till wasn’t accused of rape. But I imagine Till’s specific case isn’t the point here, and maybe the Scottsboro Boys would have been a better example. I think Elk is trying to draw parallels between false rape accusations and the Farrow-Allen drama. Yes, false rape accusations happen (estimates are between 2 and 8 percent of all accusations with the majority of people never reporting). They were presumably more frequent when race was a factor because racists love few things more than protecting white women’s honor. There were many black men murdered for showing interest in white women…or more likely just because racists could. Allen is not a black man in the south during the Civil Rights Era. This offends me to my core. These situations are not the same.

Second, while the accused should get the benefit of doubt in court, this is never going to go to court. No one is arguing that Allen is locked up. I’m not going to watch his movies because as I said before I’m not really a fan, and I do think he has sexually abused children. I don’t think Dylan was the only one. I view his marriage as suspect. The accusers should also get the benefit of being believed. And that is what is missing here. See the phrasing here equates Bryant and Farrow, and that is unfair to Farrow. Sure there is no evidence Allen raped a seven year old, but there is no evidence that Dylan and Mia Farrow are making it up either. So equating her with a woman who stood by as a teenager was murdered is pretty extreme, but I suspect Elk was trying to compare Farrow to a liar who made false rape accusations against black me. 

In the end I trust women so I trust Dylan. Have an opinion, but let’s not pretend that opinion is unbiased. In what can only be described as white guy fashion, Elk apologized for confusing the facts surrounding Till's denial of due process and offending anyone. At no point that I've seen has Elk apologized for asserting Farrow to be a liar on par with those who fabricated sexual assaults rooted in racism.

Tennessee is trying really hard to end welfare

I don’t know why I read ThinkProgress; it only makes me sad. So this week in things that causes my depression: Tennessee advances legislation that ties welfare to children’s grades by Travis Waldron. So this came out on Monday, and I ranted about it for a minute, and then decided to red something else and mock a friend.

Two Republican Tennessee lawmakers introduced legislation that ties welfare assistance under TANF to the educational performance of students who benefit from it. The legislation was approved by the state House and Senate last week. Better hope you’re not poor and low-performing, which totally isn’t linked to food and shelter insecurity, oh wait it is.

Under the proposed legislation, a student who doesn’t make “satisfactory progress” in school could cost his/her family up to 30% of its welfare assistance. The Knoxville News and Sentinel reported:

“The bill is sponsored by Sen. Stacy Campfield, R-Knoxville, and Rep. Vance Dennis, R-Savannah. It calls for a 30 percent reduction in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families benefits to parents whose children are not making satisfactory progress in school.

“As amended, it would not apply when a child has a handicap or learning disability or when the parent takes steps to try improving the youngster’s school performances—such as signing up for a ‘parenting class,’ arranging a tutoring program or attending a parent-teacher conference.”

Campfield introduced the legislation back in January, saying parent have “gotten away with doing absolutely nothing to help their children” in school. Adding, “That’s child abuse to me.” So you know because all poor people are bad parents. Tennessee ties welfare to education by mandating a20 percent cut in benefits if students don’t meet attendance standards. But this would change that and place the burden of maintaining benefits on the children if they don’t keep up in school.

All the while, TANF is a failure. Welfare reform resulted in the stratifying of the poor. Welfare can only help the destitute now, and after you’re time limit you’re shit out of luck. You can see how it failed because of the Great Recession. Poverty, SNAP, and unemployment saw increases while 35 states cut their welfare rolls. The maximum benefit in Tennessee is $185, which hasn’t changed since 1996. So, everyone who knows anything about TANF knows this policy is going to hurt children and their families.

Well, played Tennessee. I guess you felt ignored because North Dakota is looking like the worst place to live right now. Keep trying. Kansas is with their attempts to quarantine AIDS patients. #IHateEverything.

Homelessness, still a problem, and it is going to get worse.

It almost feels like I can’t go a couple of days without talking about the homeless. Fairfax County’s public schools are likely to see more than 2,500 homeless students by the end of this school year. This is an impressive number for Fairfax County, which contains some affluent communities. T. Rees Sharpiro wrote an article on it for the Washington Post over the weekend.

Experts claim the increase in homelessness among students from kindergarten to high school is the after effects of the recession. Fun numbers fact, this year’s total of 2,500 students is 10 times the number of homeless students in Fairfax 15 years ago. Sharpiro says, “At least 400 of those students are ‘unaccompanied youths’ who live without parents or guardians, another record, school officials say.” 

Personally, that sounds low to me, but I supposed they get to drop any kids who drop out from the official count. Naturally, the schools are having trouble keeping up with the challenges from the communities.

As previously mentioned, the Washington, DC area is home to some of the nation’s most wealthy and most impoverished communities. Montgomery County has 825 homeless students enrolled in public schools last year. DC had 2,946 homeless students in their public and charter schools last year.

Of course Fairfax County starkly demonstrates the inequity with a median household income of more than $100,000 and more than 47,000 students eligible for free and reduced lunches (this is being used as a measure of poverty). That is an increase of 38% since 20008. Bananas.

According to Project HOPE Virginia, the number of homeless students in Virginia grew by 58% between 2005 and 2011. Patricia Popp, the state coordinator for Project HOPE Virginia says, “The numbers in Virginia have consistently gone up, and they show no signs of slowing down. This really is a serious, serious concern for schools and families.”

Sharpiro includes some quotes from homeless students traveling from shelter to shelter with families. All of these are seriously depressing with a shout out to low-wage non-union employment, holler Target.

Fairfax public schools have a homeless student liaison, Kathi Sheffel. Her office aims to provide parents with transportation options to help get children to school when families have moved into shelters or other temporary homes. Sheffel says, “We recognize that for families with housing problems, school may be the only stable thing for these kids. We’re sure that getting homeless kids a good education will keep them from becoming homeless adults.”

That’s optimistic. The Department of Education estimates there are more than 1 million homeless students nationwide. This is attributed to, like the rise in homelessness across the board, to the Great Recession and the housing crisis. Michigan was hit hard, and the homeless student population grew by 64% between 2008 and 2011 according to the National Center for Homeless Education. The federal government spends about $60 million on programs for homeless students.

Fairfax County provides access to organizations like Alternative House, which provides supplemental assistance for homeless teenagers without guardians. Judith Dittman, the executive director of the Vienna-based Alternative House says, “We were finding an increasing number of these kids who couldn’t work enough hours to keep a roof over their heads, so they dropped out of school. Nobody wants to see these kids sleeping on the street. No matter how bad the economy is, we don’t want to see 17-year-olds sleeping in the doorways at libraries.”

To be honest, I’m not convinced that the collective “we” doesn’t want homeless kids sleeping in doorways. The conservative right panic last week that programs to help the poor received increased funding during the last four years should indicate exactly what we think about the poor. Or actually, don’t think about the poor.

Imagine my surprise when Mittens threw out that “more women in poverty” line about President Obama. Well, yeah. More people are in poverty now than since the Great Depression. But these women must be the deserving poor because they can’t be those violence encouraging single mothers. Oh, I know how you can tell the difference, skin tone. Mittens and the conservatives are pushing the same old garbage myths about the “welfare queen,” poor black mothers are bad and expose their children to violence.

Essentially, when you subscribe to the religion of self-reliance the way so many US citizens buy into it you get homeless kids. Actually, you get homeless people. There shouldn’t be homeless children, but there shouldn’t be homeless people either. We have the resources to help them, but we choose not to.