PunditMom

My new morning indulgence after dropping Rachel off at school is to swing by the local coffee shop for half an hour to read the newspaper. No, not Starbucks or Quartermaines — a REAL little mom and pop coffee shop where you can actually get coffee, eggs, toast and bacon for under $5!

This morning, as I was perusing the paper over my decaf, my jaw dropped open at the following article in the Washington Post:

Some Americans Lack Food, But USDA Won’t Call Them Hungry.

According to the clever people at the Department of Agriculture, it’s just too hard to figure out if someone is hungry! Such a word, to them, is “conceptually unsound” because how can one determine if a lack of eating leads to the symptoms of hunger?

So, just one week before our nationally sanctioned November food fest, our wonderfully sensitive Republican administration has come up with a phrase it believes more accurately reflects the situation that 35 million Americans don’t have enough food.

Are you ready? Here it is — these Americans aren’t hungry, they have “very low food security.”

Now there’s a quick and easy way to make the rest of us not feel guilty on Thanksgiving about whether millions in our own country will have enough food — just wipe out hunger with one turn of a phrase! No more hungry people in this country! Just millions who are concerned about low food security!

I may be jumping the gun, but in light of how things are going for the Prez and his people on other things in the news, can the following extreme political vocabulary adjustments be far off?

1. The war in Iraq, I’m guessing, will soon be referred to as “that extreme social and governmental disagreement in close proximity to our good friends in Saudi Arabia.”

2. Governmental corruption and political bribery, a la Jack Abramoff and his pals, is sure to be called something like “a compromised sense of ethics that we are working diligently to improve.”

3. And as for a recession? I’m sure they’ll come up with something like, “a short breather needed to energize an otherwise robust economy.” (Though, I sort of like how they substituted the word bagel for recession on the West Wing, so they wouldn’t jinx themselves into bringing one on by using the actual word in the White House!)

I feel so much better now that when I’m enjoying my scambled eggs and decaf tomorrow morning or cooking the 20 pound bird next Thursday, I won’t have to worry about whether I’ve made a big enough contribution to the local food bank or given enough for the school’s canned good drive. Because, as of today, our government has proclaimed that “hungry” people no longer exist in our country.

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