Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Hungrier and Hungrier

Not a good morning. Here I am worrying like a silly ass about a few tomato plants that probably got frozen last night all because I am trying to cheat Mother Nature and grow effing tomatoes in effing November and and what is almost the first thing I see this morning on the tiny TV in the elevator?

In 2007, the number of children who went hungry grew 50 percent over a year earlier.

Families with the highest rates of food insecurity were headed by single mothers.

The 2008 numbers are expected to show more hunger because of the economy.




WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some 691,000 children went hungry in America sometime in 2007, while close to one in eight Americans struggled to feed themselves adequately even before this year's sharp economic downturn, the Agriculture
Department reported Monday. The department's annual report on food
security showed that during 2007 the number of children who suffered a
substantial disruption in the amount of food they typically eat was more
than 50 percent above the 430,000 in 2006 and the largest figure since
716,000 in 1998. Overall, the 36.2 million adults and children who
struggled with hunger during the year was up slightly from 35.5 million in
2006. That was 12.2 percent of Americans who didn't have the money or
assistance to get enough food to maintain active, healthy lives. Almost
a third of those, 11.9 million adults and children, went hungry at some
point. That figure has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000. The
government says these people suffered a substantial disruption in their food
supply at some point and classifies them as having "very low food security."
Until the government rewrote its definitions two years ago, this group was
described as having "food insecurity with hunger."
Here we are giving away billions of dollars everyday to Wall Street fat cats and no one knows how much money to a secret cabal of who knows who and I am reading this in the effing elevator? How are we justifying giving tax breaks to banks to the tune of $140 billion on the sly and yet the number of American children going hungry keeps rising and will rise again this year? Am I just having a nightmare? Are we still spending $10 billion a month killing Iraqis and bombing Afghan weddings? Stop and think about it. This is Insanity with a capital I.

I'll tell you one thing and that is on January 21st, 2009 somebody better have a damn plan to end this once and for effing all. How much money was just spent electing a new American President? Not a good morning.

Oh! And one other thing....Stop calling it "food insecurity" for Goddess' sake it's hunger, it's starving, it's an empty stomach, it's going to bed in pain that will only be worse in the morning, it's not understanding why you're weak, it's not growing, it's not developing a good brain, it's slowly dying, it's destroying a life, it's something much worse that fucking "food insecurity'.



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