Click to see

Click to see
Obama countdown

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Meme: children are hungry in America

  UPDATE, and oh so timely: Hey, who could have guessed there's no such thing as a food desert?  
  Last weekend, the Food Network had a show on hunger in America, hosted by Jeff Bridges. It's hard to define how absolutely nauseating this show was, which showed numerous people (often overweight) complaining they didn't have enough to eat.
  There's a reminder here. 45 million people are on food stamps, now known as SNAP. The federal government offered financial incentives for states to enroll more and more people on the food stamp rolls. In fact, there's such loose oversight of SNAP that some unscrupulous (and obviously not hungry) people trade their food stamps for stuff like cash or guns.
  From Heritage Foundation:
And it’s [SNAP] been growing, recession or not. Since 2000, as the report points out, participation rates have skyrocketed from just 17.2 million to 44.7 million in 2011—an increase of roughly 260 percent. Naturally, this means that the federal government has “successfully” increased the program’s cost—in fact, more than tripled it—from approximately $20 billion in 2000 to a whopping $72 billion in fiscal year 2011.
   Anyway, throughout this Food Network show on hunger, solemn voices intoned solemn messages about hungry children.
  Solemn voice: "Look around. One in six children is hungry."
  Solemn voice: "Look around. One in five children is hungry."
  Solemn voice: "Look around. One in four children is hungry."
  FWIW, on the radio, the solemn voice intoned that 1 in 7 children is hungry.
  Even Bridges in uncertain of the number, which seems to be drawn from a deep dark place, since he cites 1 in 5 or 1 in 4. Like, which is it?
  So 25% of children in this country are hungry.
  So Bridges says this isn't a partisan issue; then they interview, like, 5 Democrats about how everyone should be solemn and recognize that children (pick your number) are hungry in America.
  They've been "let down by the American Dream," Bridges complains. We should be ashamed! It's devastating!
  Then we are treated to heart warming videos of children being fed in their elementary classroom by the federal government, who can meet all needs for all people all the time!
 
I mean, seriously, get it together, Americans?
Is this who we really are? Come out of the dark and into the light!
  It's really just so quintessentially American that a channel that talks all day about food, how to fix it, how to store it, how to mix it up with other foods, would have a show on people who apparently can't figure out how to get it, in spite of all the government programs and the 45 million people who are already on it.

No comments:

Post a Comment