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Link Biscuits: 11.27.09

Submitted by Shawn Fremstad on Fri, 11/27/2009 - 10:07
  • Erik Eckholm, Trying to Explain a Drop in Infant Mortality: "Here in Dane County, Wis., which includes Madison, the implausible has happened: the rate of infant deaths among blacks plummeted between the 1990s and the current decade, from an average of 19 deaths per thousand births to, in recent years, fewer than 5. The steep decline, reaching parity with whites, is particularly intriguing, experts say, because obstetrical services for low-income women in the county have not changed that much. ... Without a simple medical explanation, health officials say, the decline appears to support the theory that links infant mortality to the well-being of mothers from the time they were in the womb themselves, including physical and mental health; personal behaviors; exposure to stresses, like racism; and their social ties."
  • Ta-Nehisi Coates, Feed Me Hip-Hop and I Start Trembling: "In my memoir, I talk about a buddy who, whenever he was about to get jumped, use to recite the last half of Rakim's Microphone Fiend. It was like armor for his nerves. I think about that whenever I hear society mocking the mask which young black boys don in urban America. We manufacture the conditions, and then rail at kids for creating a code of survival in response. In my time, hip-hop was an art-form based on that code. If you were a kid living in a city, and thus acclimated to the rules of that city, if you spent time trying to understand which blocks were off-limits, if you ever assembled friends, in the manner of land-lords assembling vassals, if you never went to see your girlfriend solo, if, in other words, you lived with the threat of random violence, then hip-hop was the language of your life. "
  • Paul Rosenberg, Shadow of Food Insecurity Looms: "... by every relevant measure, those states that voted for Obama did a better job of ensuring that families were food secure, that they lived without fear of going hungry. In braod terms, this is very good indication of what it means to vote Democratic at the presidential level. It is not that McCain voters are heartless. Nothing said about such large groups of people can reflect necessarily on any individual. But the group pattern is unmistakable. Now what is needed is national-level policies that reflect this underlying reality. Food insecurity is incompatible with the purpose proclaimed in the Preamble of the Constitution. It is, quite simply, un-American. It's time to call for its abolition--and more importantly, time to institute policies that will bring that about."