Let Them Eat Turkey
Just in time for Thanksgiving, this year's "Turkey Award" goes to the politicians, bureaucrats, and other assorted fowl who brought us the 2006 USDA report on hunger in the U.S. As the Washington Post reported on Thursday, Nov. 16:
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security." Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year. 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." The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group. The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.
Next thing we know, George W. will be signing a presidential proclamation officially outlawing hunger in this country. We'd all be better off if Congress just banned turkeys in the White House. "Dishonorable Mention" goes to America's most wanted murderer and anti-hero, O.J. Simpson. As reported today in an article from Canada.com:
Amid intense controversey, News Corp. cancels O.J. Simpson book and TV special
NEW YORK -- After a firestorm of criticism, News. Corp. said Monday that it has cancelled the O.J. Simpson book and television special “If I Did It.” “I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. “We are sorry for any pain that his has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.” A dozen Fox affiliates had already said they would not air the two-part sweeps month special, planned for next week before the Nov. 30 publication of the book by ReganBooks. The publishing house is a HarperCollins imprint owned - like the Fox network - by News Corp. In the projects, Simpson speaks in hypothetical terms about how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Goldman. Judith Regan, publisher of “If I Did It,” said she considered the book to be Simpson’s confession.
Happy Thanksgiving, America.