Yesterday, the local CBS affiliate, Ch. 13, in Portland, Maine ran a piece about elementary-school children in the Portland area who are starving and how the schools are trying to avert that, pushing fruits and veggies as snacks, and providng breakfast. And about how the schools are not getting enough of the help they need, from government or private sources, to keep this going.

From the piece, the program administrator:

"It’s heartbreaking when the little ones ask for seconds on Monday morning because they haven’t had anything to eat all weekend."

Since the Great Depression, one of the central though unstated tenets of United States policy has been "Keep their bellies full." That policy has been obeyed without question or exception since.

Prudent politicians recognize that when people are hungry – or worse, their kids are going hungry – they will go in for anything which holds out even the dimmest prospect of alleviating that hunger. There was a lot of hunger during the Depression, and I’ve seen a lot of people (myself included) getting skinnier as the current Bush Depression continues. Nor am I the only one noticing.

So, Obama, hunger is stalking the land, hand in hand with the revolutionary movement that is Palin’s crazies. What are you going to do about it?