In 1947, a year and a half after the Second World War ended, life in Japan was still pretty grim. Tokyo district court judge Yamaguchi Yoshitada vowed that he would eat nothing but what was provided by official rationing.
In November of that year, he starved to death.
Ted Kulongoski isn’t facing starvation. But his food situation — at least for this week — isn’t pretty.
This week, Oregon governor Kulongoski took the challenge to eat on $21 a week — that’s how much the average food stamp recipient in the state has.
In a time when the Federal Government would rather remove the very word “hunger” from its reports on the subject than admit that there are, in fact, people going hungry in the wealthiest nation in the world, Governor Kulongoski deserves a lot of kudos for stepping up and reminding people that this problem exists. And seeing for himself exactly what it feels like.