The link between poverty and (mis)education

When it comes to economic inequality, and the cycle of poverty, I have been researching at my internship (New Haven Reads) how the lack of proper education contributes to the cycle of poverty.

Specifically, the lack of suitable education, or education at all, provided for women creates a cycle of illiteracy, which results in the inability to gain tools necessary to make an income.

Nearly two-thirds of illiterate adults worldwide are women, it is estimated that 496 million women 15 years of age and older are illiterate. The cycle of poverty is parallel to illiteracy rates. While efforts have been put in globally and nationally to improve the quality of education among women, those who missed out on the proper education early on in their formative years still feel the effects today. It is estimated that if a student is not reading proficiently by the 4^th grade, that student has a 78 percebt chance of never catching up.

This is a factor to the wealth inequality and income inequality rampant in our country. While the statistics provide information globally, improper education among America’s youth definitely serve as a catalyst to perpetuate the income gap the nation faces.

By Sarah DeMatteis

And so we come to another glorious pause…

…I am stepping away from Dating Jesus (again, I know) to focus my attentions elsewhere. I have done this before (many times, actually, and usually so I can focus on other writing). This is one of those times, and I just may return, but for all that feels important these days, driving traffic to a blog doesn’t rank very high on the list.

My only concern is that I’ll lose touch with the little community we’ve built here. So please. I’m at slcampbell417@gmail.com. Don’t be a stranger. I will be cropping elsewhere, I promise.

4.1 Miles

This documentary, by Daphne Matziaraki, was nominated for a 2017 Academy Award. Here’s more.

And thanks, Leftover, for the link.

99 ways to fight Trump

Right here. Every day, do that one thing.

And thanks, Jan and Susan, for the link.

Dear Christian,

You don’t know me, and I won’t pretend to know you, but we are at a critical juncture in our country and in our respective faiths and it’s important that we act and act quickly.

On Friday, the Republican president signed an ethically, legally, and morally questionable executive order that restricted immigration from seven nations — none of which have given birth to terrorists who have killed Americans, and you can read that in no less a source than The Daily Caller, which may be the only time I ever link to that woe-begotten publication.

The worldwide reaction has been predictably to the negative, and we, as believers, can do no less than to work our hardest against this man. If you voted for this man, you can no longer shrug that you voted for a racist. If you continue to support him, you are a racist, yourself, and racism has precisely no place in your Book. No amount of tweaking will change this — particularly when Pres. Bannon just last night fired the acting attorney general who refused to enforce his benighted ban.

WWJD? Stand up. Fight back. Swords up.

Go to @TrumpHotels and tell them your favorite travel memory.

The changing face of American immigrants

So Pew Research Center has looked at where this country’s immigrants have come from in the last 40 or so years. Interestingly, last fiscal year, most of our immigrants came from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Come talk to your Muslim neighbors

The CT Council for Interreligious Understanding(CCIU), Muslim Coalition of CT (MCCT),  and Hartford Seminary will host another in the series, “Honest Conversations with Muslim Neighbors.”

Date: 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 31 
Place: Congregation Beth Israel
Address: 701 Farmington Ave., West Hartford

Phew, what a weekend!

As I write this, protests have gone on and are being planned all over the country (including one scheduled by CAIR at  Bradley International Airport here in Connecticut) over an executive order signed by the Republican president on Friday night. (This is an old hat trick used by despots everywhere — do  your dirty work when newsrooms already decimated by corporate ownership are even more sparsely inhabited.)

The order banned immigrants from seven countries, none of which have any business ties with the Republican president. Here are some of the countries with whom the Republican president does have business ties — and studies show, says the New York Daily News:

…that nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by citizens from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in the same time period — with the bulk of those killed being victims of the 9/11 attacks. Yet, people from those three countries are still welcome to apply for U.S. visas and travel permits.

Even more interestingly, people from the seven countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen — according to the Cato Institute — yes, the conservative Cato Institute:

…have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015. 

Late on Saturday, federal Judge Ann M. Donnelly issued a temporary stay. And so the fight begins. ‘Murica!

Oh, and because this is a snarky blog masquerading as a religion blog, here’s your scriptural reference:

America first. The Netherlands, second?

And thanks, Leftover, for sharing this. I guess the rest of the world sees our new president precisely for what he is.