About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

-- Herbert Hoover


There are people in this world who are hungry tonight. People whose children cry because their mother’s milk lacks enough nutrients to satisfy their tiny stomachs. Good people who work hard, but cannot make ends meet.

How do we help them? We evict them from the places they live, ticket them for driving without insurance, fine them for expired license tags, garnish their meager wages and then point our fingers at how they are failing.

It is so easy to say they could make it if they really wanted to. I know they want to. Minimum wage jobs do not pay a living wage and if you have no skills, that is all you can do. And there are more people who need them than there are jobs. And if you get one of these jobs, how do you get to work without a car, or gas, or money for the bus, assuming a bus line runs out there? How long must you walk before starting a grueling day on your feet?

There are children who do not eat until they get to school and are fed breakfast and lunch there. These children don’t throw away those dried out baloney sandwiches and little tubs of applesauce. They know they will not eat again until tomorrow morning. When they put their little clothespin on the snack basket, they gaze longingly at the food some children turn their noses up at.

There are so many excuses, but the bottom line is that while some of us get fat, others are starving.

What is wrong with this world?