Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - Re: [Homestead] Our shameful infant mortality rate

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Our shameful infant mortality rate
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2005 19:36:15 -0500





James, did a fat person fall on you when you were a small child? Did your
parents threaten you with a fat person sitting on you?

There weren't all that many fat people when I was a small child. Do you understand the significance of that statement? Widespread obesity is a very recent phenomenonl.


So, using your theory, then the 24.7 mortality rate of Lake County, TN would
be because all those mothers were fat?

ALL? Do you want to engage in such absolutism? Any time you make an observation, are we free to put the quantifier "All" with it and say it represents your views?

I'm thinking perhaps you should be ranting about cigerette smoking

Of the direct behaviors that cause a person's death, cigarette smoking is still number one but only by a very slim margin. The thing is that it generally need not be mentioned because now of days everyone recognizes that it compromises one's health and they also recognize that it is a choice. The direct behavior that is second leading cause of death is obesity due to overeating and under-exercising. The difference between that and smoking is that the recent epidemic of obesity is dismissed. When was the last time you heard an obese person say frankly that their physical condition was due to their choices? It's always genetics, rare disease, the drugs they are on, etc. etc. Let me remind you of my first observation in this post, when I was a child, obesity was quite rare. Our human genes have changed that much in 50 years?


AND, state rankings in education aren't based on spending UNLESS you go the
specific chart based on spending. *Most* rankings are by test scores for
reading and math.

They absolutely are not. There are no test scores for reading and math that can be compared because all states do not administer the same tests. Not many years ago there was a list of official statements from state departments of education in which every one of the 50 states said that standardized tests showed their children above the national average in reading and math ...... of course this is a mathematical impossibility. The phenomenon occurs because states have no motivation to purchase expensive tests that are going to show their students are below average. So test publishers sell a specific version of their test to each state normed in such a way to ensure that the students in that particular states score above average by those norms. This state (Tennessee) is ranked as 46th in education and yet the recently published standardized tests results showed the state as a whole almost exactly at the 50th percentile (ranging from 47th to 53rd from system to system). This would mean that there are only 4 states that could possibly be below the 50th percentile if the 46th mean anything ..... which is doesn't. It is only the per capita spending that is 46th.


James





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page