Are we liberated by tech or does it enslave us?

I don't think anyone would disagree with the notion that all technology, be it digital, is bad. As we say, any thing in the world is not bad, if you use it right. Heck, as National Rifle Association (NRA) of America says, "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Undoubtedly, they are correct to an extent. After all people were being killed before the invention of gun powder or guns.

Any technology, be it the phone in your hand, or that tablet in your lap, or that laptop on your desk, or those video game boxes attached to your giant TV, or the latest gadgets in your car, or even those kitchen & household machines, are not bad, in themselves, but ultimately their usage defines their "villainous" ability. Their "unintended consequences" are ultimately dependent on the user.

For instance, a common complaint from parents, & healthcare professionals, is that childhood diabetes is increasing all over the world, because children are not spending time outdoors, but are always engrossed in their smartphones & video game boxes. True. But the problem is not to ban that tech, but to take children out to park & spend time with them outside of the house. That's the responsibility of the parents. However, parents themselves are busy spending time on those tech marvels, like sticking their smartphones on their faces 20 hours a day. Due to spending so much time engrossed in their phones, they don't have any time left for their loved ones, to enjoy life (instead of watching & showing off how their lives are, to others), or to do healthy activities themselves, like sleeping 6-8 hours at night.

That's the problem at a micro level. Let's take an example at a macro level; digital technology creating (or will be creating) mass unemployment at a national, or even an international, level. People study & spend a significant portion of their lives in a specific profession or industry. Then, they get the shock of their lives when they are laid off because their skills are not in demand anymore, because digital tech is replacing their skills. In these kinds of situations, governments & industry need to step in & jointly take control.

It's true that nobody can control the march of technology but the damaging effects, or the "unintended consequences" can be controlled, or perhaps, mitigated to some extent. For example, all those people who are laid off should be retrained at the expense of the government, & those companies, which have disrupted the industry through their technology, should also financially contribute in the retraining of those people. Those people can also be hired by those same companies, after their retraining. Because, those people are a financial, economic, & social burden on the governments and society, but they can be tax-paying, productive part of the citizenry, who would pay back the cost of their retraining, to the government, in the form of taxes. Governments can also look ahead in the future & see what professions should be promoted through educational institutes & the educational pipeline (schools, colleges, & universities) & connect the educational side (the supply of labour) with the industry (the demand of labour), so the public has an idea as to what should be studied now to earn its fruits later on.

Technology, in itself, is never bad. As the author says in the opinion piece that its "unintended consequences" can also never be predicted beforehand. But technology's bad consequences are often the bad practices of users. Users need to keep in mind how to properly use that technology, & how that technology is affecting others; be it their loved ones, their social circle, their professional circle, or their community at large, or even themselves.

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/09/are-we-liberated-by-tech-or-does-it-enslave-us

Technology is unruly. New innovations bring with them a host of unintended consequences, ranging from the troubling to the downright depressing. Social media makes us lonely. Too much screen-time makes teenagers fall behind their peers. And at the more feeble end of the spectrum, many of us have walked into an obstacle while texting. Whatever glorious vision animates the moguls of Silicon Valley, it surely can’t be this.

We’re much better at designing complex systems than we are at predicting their behaviour, argues the writer Edward Tenner. Even though unintended consequences are inevitable, Tenner thinks they can be powerful catalysts for progress. But even the notion of an “intended consequence” is problematic when it comes to tech. Evgeny Morazov points out that we tend to confuse the positive consequences of information technology with intended ones, downplaying the significance of other natural, but rather less noble, upshots like pornography, surveillance and authoritarian control.

Free time is a case in point. Technology makes us more productive, but it’s also accused of unreasonably extending the domain of work. So does tech liberate us, or enslave us? And what does it really “intend” to do?

Tech and ‘free time’: a confusing picture

In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that the most pressing concern of the man of the future would be “how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won for him.” It hasn’t quite turned out that way - but Keynes wasn’t entirely off the mark. When we consider the lot of the average labourer of the past, our complaints about work-life balance start to sound pretty peevish. And the rise of technology really has, it seems, given us more free time than ever. So why do we still feel harried?

It’s worth noting that modern leisure is just as tech-saturated as work. Americans who subscribe to Netflix spend more time on the site than they do eating and having sex combined, TDG research found. The average Briton spends 1 hour 20 minutes every day monitoring four social media accounts, according to research from the Global Web Index. But all this screen-time makes us uneasy. To co-opt David Foster Wallace’s description of attitudes to television in the 1990s, there’s a “weird hate-need-fear-6-hrs-daily gestalt” about the whole thing.

But technology doesn’t just offer us escape. It promises to transfigure our bodies, our minds and our very souls by making us fitter, happier, and more productive - but it does it by insinuating that we’re, well, a bit suboptimal as we are. “There’s an app for that” comes with a whispered aside: “You know you’re doing it wrong, right?”

Everyone’s a bit of a Luddite

Criticisms of tech can sound shrill, but it’s not antediluvian to notice the impossible desires technology breeds. Our devices present us with simulacra of beautiful, fit, fulfilled people pursuing their dreams and falling in love, and none of them are browsing the web at 11pm on a Saturday night - unlike us. We click and swipe our woebegone way through a vibrant world where nobody who is anybody spends their free time in front of a glowing screen, painfully aware that our only access to that world is through that very glowing screen.

But we’re no fools. We know that nothing on the web as it seems. We long to detach ourselves from the whole circus for once and for all - and so we turn once again to the internet to research digital detoxes and vent our tech-related spleen. The web has a way of dancing around us, knowingly and self-referentially and maddeningly deflecting every attempt we make to express our unease.

Is ‘free time’ a misnomer?

But prying our free time from the clutches of technology isn’t necessarily the answer. The German philosopher Theodor Adorno argued that “free time” is an artificial concept – and it’s anything but free. For Adorno, free time is the very propogation of work: it is “nothing more than a shadowy continuation of labour”.

Today’s tech-saturated leisure trade – to say nothing of the trillion-dollar behemoth that is the “wellness industry” – is an integral part of a world in which we are treated as consumers first and citizens second. Talk of reclaiming free time is missing the point. What we need is control of the time we already have.

But in yet another twist, this is just what Paul Mason thinks information technology might allow us to do. For Mason, the “sharing economy” contains within it the glimmer of a genuine alternative – a post-capitalist society structured around liberty instead of economics. If Mason is right, tech might free us from the need for “free time” entirely. But how does this complex narrative fit into the storybook of “unintended consequences”?

The myth of ‘unintended consequences’

Well, it doesn’t. Unintended consequences are a myth, because anticipating the effects of even the simplest innovation is a fool’s errand. Forget about information technology, or calculus, or Linear B: even the toaster would be a challenge.

Tech innovators frequently profess aspirations to improve the lot of mankind. Such aspirations are admirable, but we shouldn’t forget that there’s one rather more concrete intention they share: to make money. They’re vendors, we’re consumers: it’s as simple as that. Still, it’s a huge leap from there to the claim that tech is, in Foster Wallace’s words, a “diabolical corrupter of personal agency and community gumption”.

But even if tech companies aren’t really trying to enslave us, or to make us feel inadequate, that doesn’t mean that the current situation is a case of good intentions gone awry. There’s no more reason to think that tech is intrinsically good, but occasionally getting it wrong, than there is to think that it’s a remarkably successful villain.

We love to praise tech, and we love to condemn it. We equate it with chaos, power, love, hate; with democracy, with tyranny, with progress and regress - we laud it as our salvation, while lamenting it as our scourge. Like any technology that has come before it, digital technology is all of these things. But it’s essentially none of them.

How Pakistani-Americans are entering interfaith & interracial marriages — & making them work

In this story, published in a Pakistani newspaper, there were 3 stories of Pakistanis marrying someone non-Pakistani or even non-Muslims. I am ok with Pakistanis marrying someone other than Pakistanis. Here, I will take up the issue with one of those 3 stories. I also have an issue with a Pakistani newspaper glorifying the married lives of a Muslim woman with a Jewish man.

Firstly, Islam prefers people of the same religion marrying within the same religion. It is emphasized so much so in the Quran that "even a female Muslim slave girl is better [to become a wife of a Muslim man] than a beautiful rich non-Muslim girl." The reason is that the off-springs of that marriage, their children, will grow up to be completely confused in their religious views & may end up following no religion at all or some kind of a neo-religion, which is a mix of their parents' religions & coming up with something completely new.

This we can see in the case in the story below that the daughter of Chaudhry and Kravitz think of herself as "a quarter Muslim, quarter Jewish, & half Christian." So, the Islam is already relegated to 25% & eventually, it will be very likely completely lost when she grows & ends up marrying someone for love from another religion. They are also raising their daughter by introducing her to their respective faith traditions and "observe all holidays" including "Passover, the Jewish High Holidays ... the Eid services." Top it all of, the family also "celebrate Christmas each year" & "there’s a tree & ... presents.” The young girl is learning that that's what a Muslim is all about; celebrate Eid, Passover, Christmas, Easter. Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him) said that Muslims who will follow other non-Muslims will end up being raised on the Judgement Day with those non-Muslims.

Secondly, Islam prohibits a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man. The reason for this is that, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or race, the woman / wife usually ends up acquiescing to man / husband's wishes in major decision related to the family & household matters. So, children born in that family will end up with either the father's religion or no religion at all, since they will never know what being a Muslim is really about.

Thirdly, I have an issue with a Pakistani newspaper glorifying this marriage union in a Pakistani newspaper. I don't have an issue people, regardless of their religion or race, marrying whoever they want. I don't have an issue when self-proclaimed Muslims marry whoever they want, however they want, but I do have an issue when that marriage union is being publicized, by a newspaper in an Islamic country, to give legitimacy to such unreligious unions. We Pakistanis have an obsession with anything non-Pakistani & a majority of the Pakistani youths (in Pakistan & abroad) are being influenced with the neo-liberal narrative of Islam that Islam is so backward & undeveloped religion that they are willing to marry anyone, but a Pakistani & a Muslim, & some specifically reject such marriage proposals from Muslim Pakistanis.

Since, the skin colour cannot be changed, young Pakistanis are willing to do anything in their power they can do to change the circumstances to not look like Pakistani or Muslim. This thought that as long as a person is a good human, he / she is a good Muslim is a wrong thought in itself. Nobody knows the definition of "a good human". Islam teaches that whoever follows its teachings is a good human. Christians think they are good humans. Jews, Hindus, Buddhist; they all believe that they are good humans & better than the other.

If young Muslims think that Islam is a backward religion & it should be more like Christianity or Judaism, then Islam is not going to change, but yes, those young Muslims are more than welcome to become an ex-Muslim. There is no compulsion in the religion. Believe in it or don't. But don't be a hypocrite. Don't cherry-pick things from the religion & believe in something & reject the other. If you are so ashamed being a Muslim, then better to get out of it. If you want to marry a non-Muslim & celebrate every holiday of every non-Muslim & Muslim, then so be it, but better to get out of Islam & follow whatever you want to believe in. As I quoted Prophet Mohammad (P.B.U.H.) earlier that people who will follow others, will be resurrected on the Judgement Day, with those people. So, those "Muslims" won't be resurrected with other Muslims, but with Christians & Jews. After all, Christians & Jews are not celebrating Eids like Muslims, or Hindus are not celebrating Eid to return the actions of Muslims celebrating Holi, Christmas, Easter, Passover etc. Remember, when we try to copy others, we forget ourselves in the process & usually end up neither here nor there.

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https://www.dawn.com/news/1334329/how-pakistani-americans-are-entering-interfaith-and-interracial-marriages-and-making-them-work

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A Muslim-Jewish marriage

When Amara Chaudhry’s parents emigrated from Lahore over four decades ago, they settled in a small American town in Appalachian Virginia. This is where Chaudhry was born and brought up.

“There were very few South Asian immigrants in town; they mostly came later in the 80s,” she says. Being different she, “experienced and witnessed a lot of discrimination from childhood through adulthood”.

She believes these experiences have informed her career choice. “That’s why I became a civil rights lawyer, and even within that I focused on criminal justice for so long, because I think that’s how racism is perpetrated primarily in the United States,” the Philadelphia-based attorney says.

She met her husband, John Kravitz when she initially came to Pennsylvania to interview for a legal job. Like many cinematic meet cutes, Kravitz and Chaudhry’s first interaction was on an elevator.

“It’s funny because I’m actually claustrophobic,” she says. But to avoid getting lost in the maze-like office building she avoided taking the stairs and met her future husband on her way up.

This was back in 2003, the couple finally tied the knot in 2013.

We ask Chaudhry if the differences in their cultures and religions was ever a concern for her parents.

“It was not something that my family ever mentioned to me,” she says. She adds that, “I have always felt as though John's extended family had a harder time with it.”

Chaudhry says that some in Kravitz’s family still seems “somewhat uncomfortable” with her and with their daughter, Laila.

She also feels that the South Asian Muslim community has been more accepting of Kravitz than the Jewish community is of her.

“John has accompanied me to several social events in the Muslim community, and I have done the same with him. My perception is that the Muslim community is very open and engaging towards John in these settings, but when I'm at a Jewish event, I feel like a get strange looks and people generally try to keep their distance. Of course, that could just be my perception.”

Chaudhry believes that even though America today is more diverse than the America she grew up in, it is still far from “post-racial”.

She sees this in her daughter’s interactions with some classmates. “My child actually attends a school that is incredibly diverse. Yet, there are still issues… She still gets teased for being darker than other Americans,” she says. This is despite Laila being “extremely light-skinned”.

Chaudhry and Kravitz are raising their daughter by introducing her to their respective faith traditions and more. “We try to observe all holidays. We observe Passover, the Jewish High Holidays... and Laila also attends the Eid services in our local mosque. But then since Christianity sort of permeates culture in the United States… we celebrate Christmas each year at my parents house; we stay overnight, there’s a tree, in the morning Laila opens presents.”

By introducing Laila to different schools of thought, Chaudhry and Kravitz have given their daughter the liberty to actively choose how she identifies. “Laila has boldly declared each holiday season that she’s a quarter Muslim, quarter Jewish and half Christian. Now mathematically that doesn’t work... But I think that’s an interesting thing because she wants to have Christmas and she wants to have Easter, so that’s how she declared it.”
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Criminal Minds, S1E19 Quote

How a single-gender environment can lead girls to choose a STEM career

I believe I read an article in 2015 that co-ed education does not help either genders. Boys & girls learn in different ways because their brains are structured differently. But, in co-education system, & since most teachers end up being females, boys are treated the same as girls. This adversely affects the learning abilities of boys, so much so, that post-secondary education institutes in North America are reporting more female enrollment than males.

Now, here's an article highlighting the research how an all-girls education system provides positive role models & peers, which help more girls in learning & accepting that they can also achieve a successful career in STEM (science, tech, engineering, math) fields.

So, all this new research in 21st century is saying that co-education has worse outcomes for both genders. Didn't old religions also practice that thousands of years ago? I don't know about other religions whether they ever dealt with co-education issue, but Islam specifically said to keep the genders separate. Now, Islam's gender separation has a much bigger scope in society than only mixed gender schooling but schooling is a huge part of a student's life.

Western countries ridiculed the separate gender schooling system of the Islamic countries for hundreds of years. They systematically broke that system down in the guise of gender equality in education, even when, gender equality can still be achieved with separate education system. Islamic countries instituted co-education system in the name of modern & Western education system. Now, the research from Western education institutes is coming out to affirm the benefits of single-gender education system.

Western countries, & their public, are like those stubborn & rebellious children that when they are told by their parents not to do something, they will still do it, & when they suffer because of their actions, then they learn the benefits what their parents said, based on their knowledge & wisdom. Except, the difference in a child doing something wrong & then learning from it, & countries changing their social, educational, & political systems to follow certain other countries, & then learning that they might've made a mistake is not the same. Turning around such social, educational, & political systems take decades & decades, & affect generations after generations.

So the hard lesson here is, & especially for Muslims, that blindly following the West will only lead you to disaster. Critically analyse what & why something is positive & negative in the light of modern science of the time & religion, & then implement it if it seems beneficial.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/how-a-single-gender-environment-can-leads-girls-to-choose-a-stem-career/article26498295/

It's a call heard from academia to business: More women are needed in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering & math. But how best to encourage girls to consider careers in STEM?

It turns out simply encouraging them to take risks & be the best they can in any subject leads many to consider STEM fields.

This is the strategy of many all-girls' schools.

For St. Clement’s School principal Martha Perry, simply ensuring that her pupils receive a well-rounded education is the focus of the school.

“Our emphasis is girls learning, and if girls are interested and keen on a STEM subject then we’re going to make sure we support them and we are going to make sure that they have access to the best possible instruction, the best possible facilities and the best possible experience to be learning,” she says.

Not that she has to be overly concerned. Of the Toronto all-girls school’s most recent graduating class, roughly one third of the 64 students were going on to study STEM subjects at the post-secondary level.

Studying at a single-sex school may have a bearing on that. According to a study by Goodman Research Group, which evaluates programs, graduates of girls’ schools are six times more likely to consider majoring in math, science & technology at the postsecondary level compared with their peers at co-ed schools.

A similar study undertaken by the University of California, Los Angeles, commissioned by the U.S.-based National Coalition of Girls’ Schools, suggests that girls’ school graduates are three times more likely than their co-ed independent-school peers to consider engineering careers.

From Ms. Perry’s perspective, the nurturing surroundings of an all-girls school play an important part in their development. St. Clement’s doesn’t put an overarching emphasis on STEM subjects, believing instead that the school’s best role is to give its students the opportunity to believe that they have the capacity to make a difference in anything they do.

“I think a girls-only environment actually allows girls to explore their own passions and their own interests and affords us the opportunity to provide them with a wealth of different options to explore,” she says.

The reasons for this vary. According to Megan Murphy, the executive director of the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools (NCGS) in Virginia, two of the biggest are peer role models & overcoming a media message that too often portrays women as being less capable than their male counterparts in STEM subjects. In addition, she says, historically the majority of science teachers at girls’ schools were women, too.

“Whether it’s from a faculty perspective, a graduate perspective, or a peer perspective, girls at girls schools have a wealth of role models and I think that’s probably the key factor as to why we see so many more girls at girls’ schools pursuing STEM subjects as undergraduates,” she says.

In addition, she explains, being around peer role models who love science & math helps deflect some of the media or popular culture messages that portray women as less capable of successfully studying STEM subjects than men.

Being among peers doing the same thing, whether in a physics club or a science Olympiad, helps build girls’ confidence that they can thrive in STEM subjects. That confidence is key to a long-term commitment to a field of study. For instance, the UCLA study suggests that 47.7% of women entering postsecondary education from single-sex schools felt well prepared in math, compared to 36.6% entering college from co-ed schools.

“When you check out of Algebra 1, even in a little way, that’s a critical building block for every single science or technology class that comes after that,” Ms. Murphy says. “So if you lose them in the pipeline as middle schoolers, it’s really hard to get them back.”
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Much like St. Clement’s, Elmwood School in Ottawa doesn’t put a direct emphasis on teaching STEM subjects, but helps its students build what headmistress Cheryl Boughton refers to as “balanced brains,” based on a concept explored by American educator & psychologist Dr. JoAnn Deak.

Consequently, the responsibility charged to Ms. Boughton & the rest of the faculty is to ensure that by the time the girls graduate from Elmwood, they are well versed in all areas of academia & not just the subjects in which they are particularly strong.
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"Testing Stress" by Nate Beeler

"Testing Stress" - Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, OH, US

Majority of UK children in poverty from working families – report

The article is pretty much self-explanatory. Most poor families are / have become poor in the developed world due to rising unemployment levels & stagnant or less-than-living wages.

Governments, on top of widespread unemployment & low wages, are cutting social programs in the name of austerity. However, incomes of ministers & taxes are not decreasing. Heck, in some cases, they are actually increasing.

Rich, on the other hand, are becoming richer, by the minute. Governments, which by the way, are controlled by these industrialist elites, are afraid of increasing taxes on the rich. Companies also try to find the best way to lower their tax burden through some legal loop holes. So, the only part of the whole country, who is left propping up the country's finances, are the poor people, who diligently pay taxes, while their incomes don't even go up. Their living expenses, on the other hand, keep going up.

So, of course, what else to expect when these families are bringing up children in poverty-ridden conditions. Of course then, as I blogged previously, most of these children will have a hard time in securing good jobs, housing, & perhaps, even good quality education. Then, they will end up either on the welfare list or the criminal list of the government, since they will still want to provide a good lifestyle to their own descendants.

The primary sources of this problem of increasing poverty across the developed world is the government being controlled by the business & political elites, & they all want to see their bank balances increase, even if it spreads misery all across their own countries & regions. Governments are trying to increase taxes or fines or services fees on the poor, decrease taxes or creating loopholes for the rich to avoid taxes altogether, not creating jobs at all ("governments can't meddle in free markets"), fighting unions (which were the reason that baby boomers enjoyed such high incomes & good lifestyle), & becoming parts of secretive trade pacts which will further destroy the labour conditions for the poor.

But, hey, we have democracy & freedoms, right !!! (sarcasm) If Westerners love freedom & democracy so much, then why are they so enthusiastically moving to Middle East (UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia), Asian & South East Asian countries, where, there are no such things as democracy & freedom of speech, but good enough living wage (for a Western-educated graduate) & a good lifestyle.
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https://www.rt.com/uk/310026-children-in-poverty/

The majority of children living in poverty in the UK come from working families, a leading think tank’s report reveals.

The report, titled ‘Living standards, poverty and inequality in the UK: 2015’, was published ... by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS). It was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust.

The study examined key factors driving changes in incomes & poverty across the UK.

Figures from the report show that the number of children living in absolute poverty remained unchanged between 2009-10 & 2013-14. However, the proportion of kids living in poverty whose parents work rose by 9% over this period.

The IFS says this dramatic rise in what has been described as Britain’s working poor is a result of increased unemployment levels & a steady decline in workers’ real wages.

Despite the promise of a new living wage, benefit cuts made by the new Conservative government are likely to put pressure on poor families, the report said. It argued the effects of further government cuts make a greater impact than this marginal pay rise for those who are struggling financially.

"Material deprivation" was one of the main issues for those living in rented properties, single parents & disabled people.

The report noted many such families are unable to afford more luxurious goods & are more exposed to deprivation than home owners.

“Among families with children, social renters with incomes (after housing costs) around the median are at least as likely to be materially deprived as the lowest-income owner-occupiers," the report said.

"This illustrates the importance of looking at more than just current income to understand low living standards.”

Research Economist at the IFS Chris Belfield, who co-authored the report, said absolute poverty levels among children obscure “important and offsetting trends.”

“Since 2009–10, a fall in the number of workless families has acted to reduce poverty, but this has been offset by a substantial rise in in-work poverty," he said.

"This largely reflects the wider nature of the labour market since the recession: robust employment and weak earnings.”

Senior Research Economist at the IFS Robert Joyce, who also authored the report, added that the government needs to do more to combat the root causes of poverty.

“The government has recently emphasized worklessness as a cause of poverty," he said.

"This makes sense, but tackling low living standards will be difficult without improvements for working families too.”

Chief Executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation Julia Unwin said in-work poverty is a growing concern.

“A strong economy and rising employment have masked the growing problem of in-work poverty, as years of below-inflation wage rises have taken their toll on people’s incomes,” she said.

“The upcoming minimum wage rise will help, but many low-income working families will still find themselves worse off due to tax credit changes. Boosting productivity and creating more jobs which offer progression at work is vital to make work a reliable route out of poverty.”

Nearly 40% of African-American children living in poverty – study

This article is linked to my previous blog post. As the article mentions that the poverty rate of African-American & Latino children is so high partly because of employment status & income levels of their parents, I will expand on it in this blog.

One of the major problems causing this stark differences in poverty & why African-American & Latino kids are poor is because of high levels of discrimination. This discrimination, or racism, not only exists in employment but also perpetuates in society through criminal legal system.

As my previous blog explained that prisoners, who are mostly African-Americans & Latinos, not only are incarcerated at a much higher rate than their Caucasian counterparts, but those incarcerations adversely affect their lives. One mistake, however small it is, stays with them all their lives.

Now, we can say that why those people have to commit crimes in the first place. Right on!! But, the question also arises then that what a parent is supposed to do when he/she is unable to find enough income to feed his/her children properly, save enough to send them to school, & provide them enough to help them live a proper life (housing, clothing etc.) Many commit crimes to help them earn enough income to help them properly raise their kids. So, it's sort of becomes a case of catch-22.

As I explained in my previous blog, governments & other institutions (profit & non-profit alike) are supposed to work together to decrease the exorbitantly high costs of housing & education for the people to thrive. If these two essential things are cheaper, then even poor people will be able to live & educate themselves & their kids. These two things should also be without any gentrification or division based on discrimination that poor people are pushed into dirty, polluted, unhealthy, unsafe living areas & the schools in their areas also suffer in the same way; incompetent teachers with the education system not in favour of poor people. Costs of post-secondary education also needs to be reduced a lot, just so children of poor people are not afraid of going to school because then they will have to take on high levels of debts, which in itself, is a major problem, since non-payment of student debt can land one in prison, which goes back to the incarceration problem I explained above.

Every parent wants the best for their children & will do anything he/she can to see their kids thrive in life. But the laws of the country can heavily affect what that parent can or cannot do, which in turn, could (& usually does) adversely affect their whole generation. That's why, governments have to take proper action to resolve this problem, but the rising poverty rates of children only shows how governments of the Western developed world have forgotten their essential responsibilities.
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https://www.rt.com/usa/273970-african-american-children-poverty/

A new study found the percentage of American children living in poverty has declined slightly since 2010 as the economy has improved, but the rate for African-American children remains extremely high, at nearly 40%.

More than 45.3 million people are considered to be living in poverty in the US, given a poverty line of $24,000 for a family of four. Some 14.7 million of these, or 20%, are children.

While that figure has declined from 16.3 million in 2010, it still comprises one-fifth of the total number of American children under 18, & one-third of Americans living in poverty, according to Pew Research Center analysis of Census data.

Pew said that for the first time since the US Census starting collecting data in 1974, the number of African-American children living in poverty outnumbers the number of white children. Poverty rates declined for white children from 4.9 million in 2010 to 4.1 million in 2013, but for African-American children it only decreased from 4.4 million in 2010 to 4.2 million in 2013.

While Pew said the difference is not statistically significant, it is still notable since white children outnumber African-American children by three to one, with two out of five African-American children living in families with total income below the poverty line.

There are also stark differences for Latinos. In 2013, one out of three Latino children, or 30.4% of the 18 million Hispanic children in the country, was living in poverty, compared to 1 out of 10 white & Asian children, according to Pew.

The poverty rate for African-American children can be explained, in part, by the employment status & level of income of their parents, according to Mark Hugo Lopez, the director of Hispanic research at the Pew Research Center. Blacks are more likely to be unemployed & earn less than people of other races.
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Last month, the Department of Labor said the unemployment rate for African-Americans was 9.5%, compared to 6.6% for Hispanics, 4.6% for whites & 3.8% for Asians.
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World entering era of global food insecurity with malnutrition & obesity side by side within countries

A good article but it left a big reason why a majority of the poorer households in UK, & around the world, won't have access to healthy & nutritious food. One of the big reasons is social inequality, which in turn, is caused by, in major part, by huge disparity in income & wealth.

There are political & business elites -- the 1-percenters -- who live in their own little world. But the other 99% of the world populations are trying to survive on low income. They don't earn enough to buy healthy & nutritious food in the stores. That majority will always buy the cheap food, which is usually not grown organically & full of calories. Those people know that what they are buying is not healthy for their families but they don't have a choice.

At the same time, the government pays millions in grants & subsidies to companies in military-industrial complex to make new & advanced weaponry, but don't make effective agricultural policies to incentivize scientists & farmers to come up with new & efficient means to grow healthy & nutritious food, all the while limiting the use of fertilizers & harmful chemicals.

At the end of the day, majority of the families know which food is healthy & which one isn't. They would love to buy healthy & nutritious food but are constrained by their income level. If the government wants their public to become healthy, then one major change would be to increase minimum wages & taxes on wealthy individuals. Poor families would readily buy healthy & nutritious food with their increase in income.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-entering-era-of-global-food-insecurity-with-malnutrition-and-obesity-side-by-side-within-10382877.html

The world is entering an era of global food insecurity which is already leading to the “double burden” of both obesity & malnutrition occurring side by side within countries & even within the same families, a leading food expert has warned.

It will become increasingly common to see obese parents in some developing countries raising underweight & stunted children because high-calorie food is cheaper & more readily available than the nutritious food needed for healthy growth, said Alan Dangour of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

“We are certainly looking at a period of increased instability in the supply of food, and also the diversity and types of food that are available are going to change,” said Dr Dangour, who is to lead a major study into global food insecurity & its impact on health.

“A result of this is called the ‘double burden’ of malnutrition,” he added. “Under-nutrition causes starvation and stunting in children, whereas obesity and over-weight in adults is another form of malnutrition, caused by eating the wrong type of food.

“The double burden exists in countries, or indeed in households, where you get a stunted child and an overweight mother. And that happens in many countries around the world as a result of the wrong diets being eaten [by adults] and the wrong diets being given to children,” he said.

“It’s not the fault of the mother, it’s the fault of the food system where the mother cannot afford to buy nutritious food such as dairy, eggs and fruit and is predominantly feeding her child a diet that is rich in calories, such as oil and cereal-based carbohydrates,” Dr Dangour said. “That diet will not be sufficient for the child to grow. It will stop the child from being hungry but it will also stop the child from growing properly,” he said.
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“We know that at the end of this century it’s going to be very difficult to grow crops in certain parts of the world because of increasing temperatures,” Dr Dangour said. “In other parts of the world there is going to be increasing productivity because warmer temperatures will mean longer growing seasons.”

He said no single prediction on food insecurity could tell the whole story because climate change will affect different crops differently in different parts of the world: “For the UK, we could imagine a scenario in which changing food availability globally leads to changes in the availability of and the access to that food in the UK.

“For example, cereals may not be affected but fruit and vegetables, critical to a healthy diet, may become much more expensive. As people are responsive to food prices, it may lead to a reduction in consumption of those foods in the poorer population, which may lead to increased health inequality in the UK.”

In the past, policy-makers & planners have concentrated on producing enough food based on calorie content, often to the detriment of more nutritious food, such as pulses & fruit, that are required for healthy growth. This has helped to fuel an epidemic of obesity and diabetes, Dr Dangour explained.

“It’s happened over the past 10 years or so & it’s hugely important. It means policy-making is an enormous challenge, because you think: ‘It’s about just increasing the amount of food we produce.’ Well, no: you need to think about the types of food you are producing and about the access to those foods.

“As food availability globally changes, we could see both of those things happening. We could see under-nutrition and we are already seeing enormous increases in chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes,” he added.

Laurie Scott calls for Ontario task force to protect sex slavery victims

These kinds of news stories don't usually make the front news. The general public in the Western world is oblivious to these kinds of stories & thinks that these kinds of things, i.e. sexual violence against vulnerable women & sex slavery only happens in law less countries like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cambodia, & other African & Latin American countries. And these girls & women who unfortunately fall victims to these are not adults or illegal migrants but born-&-bred Canadians & even as young as 11 years old.

Furthermore, this is happening right here in the largest Canadian city; Toronto. But this is not happening only in Toronto or Canada, but happening all over the Western world; US, UK, & other Western European countries.

People who are involved in the rehabilitation of these victims are saying that this problem is not dying down, but actually exploding in major urban areas of North America & Europe. What the heck is going on?

Well, the problem is borne out of multiple factors:

1. Decreasing role of parents: Western philosophy on family, rightly or wrongly, changed in the last few decades that everyone is responsible for their own lives. Parents can, but actively discouraged, to meddle into their daughters' affairs. Heck, the society even gave that kind of parenting a derogatory name, "helicopter parenting."

Girls were taught from schools to general society that you are your own person & should make your own decision. That's all ok when that young lady is old enough (at least in university) to understand her world around her & see what's going on, but telling that to a teen girl is simply wrong. Mix that "independence" teaching with the love-hate relationship a teen has for his/her parents, & you are only going to get a problem.

2. Broken homes: In the latter half of 20th century, more & more homes start to break up. Every one on their own. Parents, when living separately, got more expenses, & hence, working more & more to bring that extra cash. When single parents are working more & more, & looking less & less after their kids, the kids got the free leash on whatever they can do. Well, from dabbling into drugs to coming into contact with the wrong crowd through those drugs to selling their bodies to get those drugs (when out of money) leads these girls to a life of prostitution & sex slavery.

3. Media's objectification of women: Media is an expert in manipulating social values & thinking. People in 21st century have being programmed for the past few decades that women are sexual objects. Of course, internet & easy accessibility to porn only escalated that problem, but media didn't stop there, too. Men & boys are bombarded day & night that women should be used for sexual purposes & then discarded like used tissues.

Movies & TV shows all show women whimpering after men to take them & use them as they please. Young men are being heavily influenced by latest rap & hip hop music videos & these videos don't exactly show men respecting women. Then, on top of that, we got the Kardashian clan, which, ironically, is the young female generation's idol. That idol is effectively teaching young females to rise to the top of social hierarchy through sex.

4. Female dresses: Yes, inevitably, this topic will be breached. Female dresses is pretty much becoming non-existent in the Western world. Men are wearing more & more clothes, while girls & women are encouraged to take it all off ... in the name of latest fashion. Latest fashion trends from the Kardashians is pretty much showing as much as flesh in the public as a female can. Miley Cyrus is showing young females in the West, & effectively, the whole world, that wearing a few strips of clothes, literally, is enough. Heck, we got stories coming out of Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, & New York, US, that women are publicly strolling around in the nude (after all, what's the point of those strips, too?)

So, what we can then expect from young impressionable girls, when they are being taught from a young age that do whatever you what to do & it's your body, & nobody in the home is teaching them any proper morals & values, & their celebrity idols are prancing around on the worldwide stages in the nude, & they are seeing that their celebrity idols got their fame & fortunes by baring it all?

They definitely are not going to learn to study hard, don't do drugs, wear proper clothes to school, make good friends, & of course, have good role models in their lives. They are learning, & hence, then actively practicing, with not very good end results, to get what they want by using their bodies as a collateral.

Of course, these factors is not the comprehensive list of all that is causing this problem of prostitution. There are lot more factors. These are just the tip of iceberg. But what I'm trying to say is that this "exploding" problem of prostitution is not so easily resolved by a special vice squad or the close collaboration of a few law enforcement agencies. It may just take the problem underground, which is even more dangerous for the victims. This problem is just a symptom of several other social problems & unless, & until, those problems are handled effectively, this problem of prostitution will not go away.
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http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/18/laurie-scott-urges-ontario-task-force-to-protecting-sex-slavery-victims.html

Ontario is in the grips of homegrown human trafficking, says a veteran Tory MPP, who is calling for the creation of a provincial task force on sex slavery.

Laurie Scott, the member for Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, says women & girls as young as 11 years old are being forced into prostitution here & they are not newcomers from the former Eastern Bloc looking for a better life — they are Canadian-born.

“I’ve heard stories of girls being targeted at the mall food court, the parking lot at their high school or a house party they attended with friends,” she told the legislature last week.

“This province is home to the largest number of domestic human trafficking cases, where victims are born & raised right here in Ontario,” said Scott, who presented a non-binding motion calling on the government to form a special team dedicated to rooting out human trafficking.

It would be similar to the existing guns & gangs unit, in which police officers, Crown prosecutors & social workers work together as a team from beginning to end of an investigation.

“Through this combination of expertise, the task force achieves the dual purpose of apprehending criminals & assisting victims,” Scott said in the introduction to her motion, which passed with all-party support.

Asked whether the passage of the non-binding motion meant a task force would be established, a spokeswoman for Community Safety Minister Yasir Naqvi said the government would continue to work with its partners “to combat this very serious issue.”

Scott said it’s also important to co-ordinate support for women & girls escaping exploitation.

“One aspect where a provincial task force would be immeasurable would be its ability to help facilitate the creation of safe houses solely for the purpose of sheltering human trafficking victims,” she said.

MPPs were told how pimps frequently move prostitutes up & down the Highway 401 corridor both to meet demand & to make police detection much more difficult.

“Young women are lured through personal relationships, systemically isolated from the family & friends, psychologically & physically abused by those who they trusted & in some cases loved,” said Scott.

Human trafficking was recently front & centre at a legislative select committee on sexual violence & harassment against women. Scott is a member of that committee.

Among those that appeared before the committee was Katarina MacLeod, a former prostitute whose agency, Rising Angels, deals with women trying to escape that life. She said modern-day slavery is out of control.

“From what I see working on the front lines it is getting worse … it is really exploding,” MacLeod told the Star, adding many of the women she sees are under 18.

She said she is hearing of more & more women moving from hotel to hotel, in many cases not even knowing what city they are in.

MacLeod agreed a specialized team in the justice system “fighting for these girls” is needed.

Several police services across the province have vice squads that deal with human trafficking & informally share information.

York Regional Police is recognized for its progressive work on human smuggling, especially in dealing with sex trade workers. Det. Sgt. Peter Casey said the force has not arrested a woman on solicitation charges in the past 7 years — but it does throw pimps in jail.

The people behind the smuggling range from organized crime to teenage boys pimping out girls in their schools because there is “huge” money to be made, said Casey.

“Let’s put it this way, if you are a drug dealer … you can only sell that kilo of cocaine once, but if you are a pimp & have a number of young vulnerable women you are exploiting, you can exploit them over & over & over again, day after day.”

Experts said a woman working in the sex trade can generate revenues of $280,000 a year. And that often goes straight into a pimp’s pocket.
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The Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services says it has provided about $1.4 million in funding since 2003 to 11 projects under the Proceeds of Crime–Front Line Policing Grant, to help police combat human trafficking in Ontario.