About five years ago, I wrote the following in response to a Houston Chronicle editorial lamenting the failure of my school district to run a "free feed" program for children in the school district during part of the summer.

Maybe the editorial is right. Children need to be fed year-round, and parents are clearly not up to the task.

But what about other school breaks and holidays? These children should not be left to fend for themselves for a week or two at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Spring Break! Clearly, the cafeterias must remain open during those times off as well.

And what about the irresponsible practice of sending children home on Friday afternoon and closing the cafeterias over the weekend? It seems absurd that we would expect children to survive through a Saturday and a Sunday without a hot breakfast and lunch. School districts need to keep the cafeterias open on the weekend as well, to avoid subjecting our nation's children to two whole days without nutrition.

I've also got a solution to what I see as the "dinner problem". By extending the school day by two or three hours, we can make sure that each student gets a hot dinner, ensuring three square meals a day. The interim time could be devoted to additional instructional time, though I certainly see the objections of those who see the extra classroom time as educators over-emphasizing academics.

But what I've not managed to solve is how to guarantee that every child gets a bowl of ice cream and a kiss on the forehead before bed. What do you think -- are parents up to such a task?

I was in my best sarcastic form, satirizing the position of the ever-bleeding heats at the local rag. After all, no one in their right mind would ever suggest making schools responsible for feeding kids over the weekend, would they?

My words immediately jumped back into my head today when I received an email from a friend linking to this editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal. It seems that Rep. Dina Titus wants to do precisely that.

[W]hat if Americans come to realize the giant jobs program they're financing under the rubric of the "public schools" is no longer mostly about "schooling," at all, but has instead morphed into a huge archipelago of food banks and full-service welfare agencies?

More than 19 million American schoolchildren are already provided free or reduced-cost meals during the week when they're at school, according to Feeding America, a national network of charities. In Clark County, roughly 148,000 children qualify for the free or tax-subsidized meals -- not because they are all necessarily poor, but because they live in areas where a certain percentage of the populace is statistically "poor," and no one wants to embarrass a child by making him or her assert individual poverty in order to qualify.

But that's not enough, according to Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who introduced a bill Tuesday that would allow the schoolchildren to head back to their schools on the weekends to pick up tax-funded food handouts, as well -- or else carry home backpacks full of canned meats and fruits on Fridays.

The Weekends Without Hunger Act would allocate $10 million per year for a five-year federal "pilot program," giving away food for schools and local anti-hunger groups to distribute.

"With 45 percent of Clark County schoolchildren relying on the free and reduced-price lunch program, more than 140,000 students in Southern Nevada are facing hunger at home, and many depend on school meals as their main source of food throughout the week," Rep. Titus said.

I'm astounded. What was once beyond the realm of serious consideration now appears to be just a partisan floor vote away from becoming the law of the land. Will wonders never cease? There really are people who believe that, after feeding kids free meals for 10 out of the 21 meals ordinarily eaten in a normal week, schools ought to be the source of at least four more during the non-school days of the week. Can the "free/reduced dinner" program I sarcastically proposed above be far behind?

I guess that in the era of Hope'N'Change, parental responsibility for meeting even the most basic needs for children will be subsumed by yet another comprehensive government program. How long until someone proposes making all public schools year-round residential facilities for all children between the ages of 4 and 18?