We're not hungry, we have "low food security"
Here's a little something that went around the bloggo-sphere about the time I took a break from here. I saved the link in my pile of links that I may blog on sometime.
It states that our Federal Government (specifically the USDA or United States Department of Agriculture) decided it would be a good idea to stop referring to people who don't have enough to eat as 'hungry' and start referring to them as folks who have 'very low food security'. Here's a little quote from them.
Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
Ummmm, WTF?!?!? I don't get it. Hungry people do have varying degrees of hunger, I think I've written on this before. It's one thing to skip a meal because you're busy or just can't get to food right now, it's a whole different thing to have skipped so many meals recently that you begin to experience malnourishment, difficulty functioning, weakness and lethargy, and your vision starts to blur. Having experienced various shades of hunger myself, I'm going to say that 'hungry' is a much better descriptor for what I was going through than 'low food security'. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that anyone else who has been in similar circumstances would agree with me.
So what the heck? Why would the USGA decide after years and years of calling hungry people 'hungry' would they suddenly change terminology? (Keep in mind that I'm intentionally skipping a number of puns that leap to mind here, mostly because I don't think going hungry is funny. But I did THINK that the new term would be more 'palatable' to some people, but it really 'sticks in my craw')
Eventually, I did figure it out. This was about the same time as the mid-term elections! Ah yes. Partisan politics once again mucks with national affairs, and with the Republican majority in jeopardy (and lost, which did NOT come as any surprise to me, as the ruling party has ALWAYS lost the majority during a time of war mid-term election, EVERY SINGLE TIME), someone decided to help their own cause. The final paragraph of the article mentions this.
The agency usually releases the report in the fall, for reasons that "have nothing to do with politics," Nord said.
This year, when the report failed to appear in October as it usually does, Democrats accused the Bush administration of delaying its release until after the midterm elections. Nord denied the contention, saying, "This is a schedule that was set several months ago."
Ug. Ok, now I'm getting angry. There's an old saying from the 60's that states, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Now I've been paying attention since high-school, but I didn't get outraged until the current administration came into power. EVEN THEN I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and some time to prove themselves, because I was impressed with the amount of experience and integrity that his original cabinet possessed (principally Colin Powell, but there were others who I respected as well. I didn't always agree with them, but I respected their integrity).
Well, here we are, 6 years later, and the proof is in the pudding as I like to say. I had hoped he would listen to the more moderate folks on his staff in terms of policy making, but the opposite seems to have happened, and here we are as a nation today. We've had more and more hungry people every year, and the best way our administration knows to deal with it is to call them something else.
I close this with a final quote from the article, keep in mind that this USDA report came out EVERY YEAR IN OCTOBER.
In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.
"I'm sure there are some people in my state who are hungry," Bush said. "I don't believe 5 percent are hungry."
Bush said he believed that the statistics were aimed at his candidacy. "Yeah, I'm surprised a report floats out of Washington when I'm running a presidential campaign," he said.
It states that our Federal Government (specifically the USDA or United States Department of Agriculture) decided it would be a good idea to stop referring to people who don't have enough to eat as 'hungry' and start referring to them as folks who have 'very low food security'. Here's a little quote from them.
Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
Ummmm, WTF?!?!? I don't get it. Hungry people do have varying degrees of hunger, I think I've written on this before. It's one thing to skip a meal because you're busy or just can't get to food right now, it's a whole different thing to have skipped so many meals recently that you begin to experience malnourishment, difficulty functioning, weakness and lethargy, and your vision starts to blur. Having experienced various shades of hunger myself, I'm going to say that 'hungry' is a much better descriptor for what I was going through than 'low food security'. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say that anyone else who has been in similar circumstances would agree with me.
So what the heck? Why would the USGA decide after years and years of calling hungry people 'hungry' would they suddenly change terminology? (Keep in mind that I'm intentionally skipping a number of puns that leap to mind here, mostly because I don't think going hungry is funny. But I did THINK that the new term would be more 'palatable' to some people, but it really 'sticks in my craw')
Eventually, I did figure it out. This was about the same time as the mid-term elections! Ah yes. Partisan politics once again mucks with national affairs, and with the Republican majority in jeopardy (and lost, which did NOT come as any surprise to me, as the ruling party has ALWAYS lost the majority during a time of war mid-term election, EVERY SINGLE TIME), someone decided to help their own cause. The final paragraph of the article mentions this.
The agency usually releases the report in the fall, for reasons that "have nothing to do with politics," Nord said.
This year, when the report failed to appear in October as it usually does, Democrats accused the Bush administration of delaying its release until after the midterm elections. Nord denied the contention, saying, "This is a schedule that was set several months ago."
Ug. Ok, now I'm getting angry. There's an old saying from the 60's that states, "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Now I've been paying attention since high-school, but I didn't get outraged until the current administration came into power. EVEN THEN I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and some time to prove themselves, because I was impressed with the amount of experience and integrity that his original cabinet possessed (principally Colin Powell, but there were others who I respected as well. I didn't always agree with them, but I respected their integrity).
Well, here we are, 6 years later, and the proof is in the pudding as I like to say. I had hoped he would listen to the more moderate folks on his staff in terms of policy making, but the opposite seems to have happened, and here we are as a nation today. We've had more and more hungry people every year, and the best way our administration knows to deal with it is to call them something else.
I close this with a final quote from the article, keep in mind that this USDA report came out EVERY YEAR IN OCTOBER.
In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.
"I'm sure there are some people in my state who are hungry," Bush said. "I don't believe 5 percent are hungry."
Bush said he believed that the statistics were aimed at his candidacy. "Yeah, I'm surprised a report floats out of Washington when I'm running a presidential campaign," he said.
Comments
Politically speaking, the older I get the more moderate (and liberal)I become. AND the more I distrust the government.
Furthermore, I distrust government officials who point to government conspiracies instead of fixing the problem. Even if the 5% statistic is bloated, even if there are only 5 people total who are hungry, that is not ok. Right? Leave noone behind? Is that not what the bible talks about? In cities of sin, even if there was only one believer, the city would be spared from distruction. (I don't know the verses.)
I'm finding I distrust the government in different amounts, depending on the collective actions of that government. Some seem to have a little more heart, some to have a little less head. The circle of life continues.
I agree with the hungry problem though. I read in an article in the New Yorker where some economists plotted out what could happen if the top 10% of wealth earners in the US donated a portion of their earnings, WORLD hunger could be virtually eliminated in 10 years.
Oh, and your Bible reference is from the last part of Genesis chapter 18, and it was 10 righteous people (Abraham bartered God down from 50). Interesting story. After Lot and his daughters escaped at the only righteous people left in the city, Lot's daughters got him drunk and slept with him in order to get pregnant. Bet you didn't hear about THAT little incident in Sunday School! :)
We ended up learning together that the "food" could be any manner of thing we hunger for. I really hadn't look at it that way before.