Friday, November 16, 2007

Children in many states live with hunger

"One of every four children in New Mexico and Texas and one of every five in a dozen other states, live in households that struggle to provide enough food at some point during the year, a report released Thursday says." So opens a report in USA Today entitled "Study tracks hunger among children." I cannot help but wonder how in a nation like this one people can so casually allow this to happen. All those billions of dollars spent on a questionable war abroad while children are allowed to live with insecurity about where the next meal might come from. Add to this the price in gasoline that continues to rise as well as the cost of food, and this is not bound to get better. As I often ask, is there a magic number? Is there a moment when people in this nation will look at their own children, finally say that a single child going hungry is wrong and immoral? And when they do so, will they finally vote for people who will work towards ending such a problem here at home?

Here in Texas, it does not look good either. "In Texas, [Jan] Pruitt [chief executive officer of the North Texas Food Bank in Dallas] says, demand for food has steadily risen in recent years as working poor families struggle to pay for gas and housing."

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