With 478.7 diagnoses per 100,000 population, Louisiana has the third highest cancer rate in the nation.

The data, released by 24/7 Wall St., a digital business news website which publishes more than 30 news articles per day, only last week released a report showing Louisiana as the fourth-worst education state in the nation.

The news doesn’t get any better with the state ranking 4^th highest in the rate of cancer deaths per 100,000 population (186.1), 10^th highest in lung cancer deaths per 100,000 population (68.8) and 7^th highest in the number of adults who currently smoke (21.9 percent).

The only hint of good news, if one could call it that, was the breast cancer diagnoses per 100,000, (19^th lowest) which was the most common incidence of cancer for the nation and for all but Louisiana and Mississippi.

Only Delaware (488.1) and Kentucky (513.7) had higher cancer rates than Louisiana. Delaware had the 5^th highest rate of breast cancer diagnoses (136.9).

But Kentucky, in addition to having the highest overall cancer rate, also was highest in cancer deaths per 100,000 (199.1), lung cancer deaths per 100,000 (91.4) and in the number of adults who smoke (25.9 percent). Kentucky is also the 5^th worst educated state

West Virginia, rated as the worst-educated state last week, had the 13^th highest overall cancer rate, but was second in cancer death rate, lung cancer death rate and in the number of adult smokers.

And then there’s Mississippi, coming in last week as the second-worst educated state, right behind West Virginia with the 12^th highest overall cancer rate, 3^rd highest cancer death rate, and 4^th highest in both lung cancer death rate and in the number of adult smokers.

Arkansas, the 3^rd worst educated state, while only 17^th in overall cancer rate, was 6^th in overall cancer death rate, 3^rd in both lung cancer death rate and the number of adult smokers.

In addition to having high cancer rates, low educational attainment, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and West Virginia are also among the poorest states in the nation.

Throw in Alabama, with its low educational ranking and high poverty figures (its cancer rates were somewhat better than its neighboring states) and there definitely appears to be a correlation between smoking-related cancer rates and poverty.

And there’s another statistic that goes right along with that: incarceration rates.

Louisiana, of course, leads the civilized world with 1,420 prisoners per 100,000 population but right behind Louisiana are Oklahoma (1,300), Mississippi (1,270), Alabama (1,230) Georgia (1,220), Texas (1,130) Arizona (1,090) and Arkansas (1,010).

Isn’t it funny how the same states keep popping up in these surveys?

Yet the politicians in each of these states—not to mention congress and whoever may happen to be president—continue to ignore the real problems while appeasing campaign contributors and pandering to the latest hot button political issue, be it immigration, crime, drugs, border walls, a minimum age for strippers, kneeling during the national anthem, the latest quick fix for education, open carry legislation, or ramping up the next non-winnable war.

Yet they somehow manage to overlook the root cause of most of our problems: poverty.

Where there’s poverty, there’s crime; where there’s poverty, there’s unemployment; where there’s poverty, there’s low educational achievement; where there’s poverty, there’re major health issues.

Do you think it mere coincidence that Hammond and Monroe rank as the 4^th and 6^th most dangerous cities, respectively, in America, according to 24/7 Wall Street? Or that Monroe (11^th) and Hammond (32^nd) are among the poorest cities in the U.S., according to the same source?

Is anyone embarrassed by the fact that also ranked among the poorest cities in the nation were Shreveport-Bossier City (9^th), Lake Charles (28^th), Houma-Thibodaux (25^th) and Lafayette (36^th)?

And where it can be found anywhere, it seems that political corruption thrives best in an environment of abject poverty. Where there is an atmosphere of poverty and desperation, where people care only about where their next meal is coming from and little else, corruption is free to breed.

Nursing homes prosper when their beds are full of old people. Nursing home operators contribute generously to political campaigns and bills to encourage home care for the elderly stall.

Sheriffs and private prisons rake in the dollars that prison labor brings through the door. Businesses get cheap prison labor via work release, plus a $2,000 tax credit for each prisoner they work. Consequently, the war on drugs continues so we can keep our prisons and jails filled to maximum capacity. It’s all about the penalties for drug use, not the treatment for the problem. That doesn’t fill the jails.

Rather than address the core problem of crime, we arm our police to the teeth with military weapons meant for war and mass destruction.

Yes, I am keenly aware of what happened in Las Vegas, but did all that military firepower accessible to law enforcement there prevent the attack?

Might tighter gun control laws governing the purchase of the kind of weapons the killer had at his disposal have made it a little more difficult for him to have executed 59 people with such ease? We’ll never know. Lawmakers refuse to address the issue because they quake in the presence of the NRA and they grovel for NRA campaign cash. They’re the NRA’s bitches.

Arming the 22,000 concert goers, would, in all likelihood, have produced far more casualties but that’s the approach of lawmakers and the NRA: more guns for everyone!

“Poverty? What poverty? Where? We don’t need to increase the minimum wage. Anyone can feed a family on $7.75 an hour.”

Only trouble is, that’s being said by those who don’t have to and never had to.