Interesting hunger perspective

Scanning over a list of top stories and articles I happened across statements from a woman in social services who says she has been released from her job because of a statement she made about alleviating hunger in school age children. At first I was reminded of how many people always blame someone else for their problems but she really wasn't doing that. She wasn't trying to get her job back or bad mouth anyone at all. She was simply being interviewed for her stand on childhood hunger in America.

Her stance: In schools across the country children are being fed, usually free of charge breakfast, lunch and, in some cases dinner. In her opinion all this free food is only encouraging people to use their, already quite generous resources for anything but food. She feels the school food programs are removing parental responsibility and weakening the family unit to the point of complete socialism or worse yet, communism. She pointed out that many people, children as well as adults that are supposed to be financially strapped are wearing designer clothes, using $200 cell phones and shoes, overweight almost to the point of obesity and sporting tattoos worth hundreds of dollars. Yet these same people are statistically among the underfed.

Her solution: When a child comes to school and uses the free breakfast, lunch or dinner program the parents should be contacted and interviewed to find out the reason they cannot feed their child those meals at home. If there is a rectifiable problem it should be dealt with. Otherwise, the use of food stamps, bridge cards and food pantry items should be strictly adhered to. If the parents are found to be using those gifts for other reasons and allowing their kids to go hungry, and don't change after repeated warnings: She feels the kids should be taken away from the neglectful parents as well as the accompanying government assistance and charitable gifts.

She said that apparently her views are not particularly welcome in an agency that thrives on the needs of those less fortunate as a means of control., encouraging, creating and maintaining a culture of "being needy". Agree or disagree she brings up food for thought doesn't she?

Poverty and lies

When I was a kid there was a joke going around about these two guys competing against each other on a TV show with the object being: who could tell the biggest lie in less than ten seconds? The first guy tells a lie about how his chocolate ice cream cone was actually a dark shade of vanilla. Everyone applauds. The next guy asks the MC if he's ever seen apples on trees in an orchard. The MC says yes, the contestant says, "They were all actually peaches!" The audience erupts in a standing ovation and the guy wins the prize for the biggest lie....................... Well, it was kinda funny when I was a kid.

I was reminded of that joke recently when a federal agency stated that 23% of all the children in the United States live in abject poverty and wake up every day not knowing if they will get enough to eat. That's not funny either is it? That same agency stated that 64% of all the children living in poverty fall under the term, "obese". Poverty is far from humorous but those two statements combined sort of lessened my ability to take either one seriously and the joke I just told you about came to mind.

Yesterday I brought up the subject of a body spray that is supposed to induce trust. I am thinking certain people, in certain agencies either need to get their figures straight or start pouring on the trust spray because with what they are throwing out there as fact I am seriously doubting and am most certainly not picking up what they are throwing down. My heart goes out to those people and their children who are truly in need. But, I also think that those folks who are being paid to watch over them should not use exaggerated or otherwise debatable figures to get more money to waste on unaffective services. True poverty needs no embellishment does it? It's not any funnier than that stupid old joke.