A couple of months ago the Agriculture Department decided not to use the word “hunger” when describing people who can’t afford to put food on the table. To ensure that you don’t embarrass yourself in front of friends who have full stomachs and drinks in their hands, the official term now is that a person has “very low food security.” Someone issue those people food locks, quickly! Add this to the government’s recent adoption of surge (as in “we need a troop surge to beat the inSURGEnts”) and Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend’s description of our not capturing Osama bin Laden not as a failure but as “a success that hasn’t occurred yet.” Somewhere, George Orwell is smiling smugly.