With regard to my "snarky" and "elitist" final graf of the previous post, it strikes me that maybe it's a good idea to look at certain measures of social health on a comparative basis, examining regions of the US and other countries in the world. Maybe we'll do this on an ongoing basis.
Let's start with one obvious index of social well being, infant mortality rates. The international numbers below are from the UN Population Division, the state numbers from the Kaiser Foundation.
As the map on the Kaiser link above shows you, the highest rates in the US are straight across the states of the Bible Belt: Mississippi, 10.6 deaths per 1,000 live births; Louisiana, 10.0; Alabama, 9.1; South Carolina, 9.0; Tennessee, 8.7; North Carolina, 8.5. The other states at 8 or higher are Oklahoma, Arkansas and oddly, Indiana.
Of the 14 states below 6, 11 are nice, blue, liberal-leaning states: New York, California, Minnesota, Massachusetts and so forth.
Okay, so let's look at some world numbers. At 10.6, like Mississippi: Thailand. Around 10.0: Latvia, Barbados, Costa Rica. Keeping Bammy and South Kerlanah company are Guam, Belarus and Malaysia. Chile, Slovakia and Guadalupe easily outpace the states of the south. Cuba, at 5.1, veritably mocks them, and puts to shame the US itself, which overall ranks 33rd at 6.3. Obviously, however, if the Civil War had ended differently, shall we say,the US would not be burdened with those lamentable southern numbers and would rank much higher, while the CSA would rank somewhere in the 50s.
By the way, appleseed, West Virginia is 7.6. Not great, but not Alabama. Go stand in the corner.
This is fun. Perhaps we'll do more of this.
