Today's Ramble - 10/14/06

A year or so ago, I volunteered some time at the Oregon Food Bank. I took a tour of the wonderful facility, and learned from the program coordinator that a large number of the families that receive food from the food bank affiliates CHOOSE to go hungry. Yes, that's correct. They choose to pay their cable bills and car payments before buying food for their families. This point of fact dumbfounded me. How could we let our values get so far away from what used to be the obvious choice? When keeping up with the Jones' out-weighs the need to provide nutritious food to our brood, things are very very wrong. Can we afford to continue to support these kind of poor choices by doing nothing? As more and more families make these choices, our society as a whole suffers.