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"      It&amp;#039;s a strange country, America, and not just because of the Honey Boo Boo wedding\u2014although that&amp;#039;s part of it. Look at the obesity problem. There are a lot of fat kids out there, and most of us probably think we know why. Their parents buy them junk. Companies who make junk market it to kids. Kids themselves buy junk with their allowances because it tastes good. Nobody cares. It&amp;#039;s an endless cycle. All true. But America is a strange country because while we have those things, we also have a classic American paradox: In addition to one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the world, we also have an alarming\u2014and I mean unbelievably alarming\u2014rate of childhood hunger. And often it&amp;#039;s the same kids. This is a confusing and frustrating and enraging problem, because in the United States of America we spend $20 billion a year on agricultural subsidies and have more food than we know what to do with, and it is illuminated with authority and compassion in the essential new documentary film A Place At The Table. (It opened this spring in a few theaters and will roll out into more in the coming weeks, and the DVD comes out at the end of June.) It is an astonishing piece of journalism\u2014in its breadth, in its reporting, and in its humanity.  In 84 minutes\u2014that will piss you of\u2014we see a young girl in rural Colorado who is so malnourished that she has trouble concentrating at school. Her mother makes $120 every two weeks at a diner, and the food they get from the local food bank is basically processed shit. (&amp;quot;Sometimes we run out of food, so we try to figure out something. We probably ask friends for food. We get really hungry and our tummies just growl, and sometimes I feel like I&amp;#039;m gonna barf. I don&amp;#039;t really know what to do.&amp;quot;) We see a single mother in Philadelphia weep because she doesn&amp;#039;t know what the hell else she is supposed to give her two kids for dinner besides Hot Pockets. She finally got a full-time job and no longer qualifies for food stamps\u2014but has less money now than when she did.  So it&amp;#039;s a little depressing. But at the end, you&amp;#039;re filled with rage and a desire to do something. That&amp;#039;s the thing about the problem of hunger in America: It seems like it should be easy to fix, because the fact that it even exists makes no sense. It goes against everything we supposedly stand for. The movie charges you with initiative and hope. The basis for that hope is that in America, big unsolvable problems sometimes get solved, and sometimes the solution starts with a movie. America is a strange country that way. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/a18577/place-at-the-table/?click=news>