For The Children

“Four legs good! Two legs Better!” bleated the sheep near the end of Orwell’s Animal Farm.

And so it goes these days.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

The short story expresses the author’s disappointment with the Soviet Union during the age of Stalin, and the gradual death of the egalitarian ideals which informed the Russian revolution at its start. Over time, the Romanovs were replaced by another elite ruling class, who like the Royal family, lived lives far more comfortable than the average Ivan and Irina.

And there were rules for the masses, and there were rules for the connected, known as the nomenklatura.

And this structure is not necessarily limited to socialism. It is a creation of human nature.

Which is why stories like this bother me.

I know I seem to be obsessed with school lunches, but the Healthy and Hunger Free Kids provides a simple example of this dual standard.

Your kid can’t get enough to eat, and what he or she is allowed to be served at lunch eliminates many favorites.

And will this program live up to its name?

Well, it may make them healthy (though that’s debatable), but it certainly won’t make them hunger-free, as volumes of posts on Twitter and YouTube have made clear.

We’re less than a week from the election.

Let’s vote the suckers out.

For the children.