CSotD: Pizza and mushrooms
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Over at Daily Kos, Jen Sorensen riffs on what happened when our children stepped into the crossfire between — among — those who care about them and the hordes of science haters, Obama haters, radical anarchists and lobbyists.
Poor little mushrooms just popped up and got mowed down. Never had a chance.
For those who missed it, this was Congress handing a defeat to our kids and Michelle Obama. Each First Lady, as we all know, picks some positive, hopefully non-partisan social issue to make her own.
Granted, Hilary Clinton's whack at health care was a bad choice. The idea that we were getting a two-for-one was cute on the campaign trail but untenable in practice.
But nobody told Nancy Reagan that, dammit, kids should be able to make their own decisions about shooting heroin! And they didn't tell Barbara Bush that illiterate kids have just as bright a future as those little bookworms she was trying to turn out.
So you would think that an attempt to counter childhood obesity and sloth would be clear sailing for Michelle Obama, and it probably would be if her husband hadn't been born in Kenya and if she wasn't challenging some well-entrenched lobbyists.
FLOTUS has planted a vegetable garden at the White House and periodically brings school children out to see it and sample a few things. She convened a gathering of chefs and school cafeteria people to brainstorm ways to make good food more available and appetizing in our schools, and she has partnered with the NFL and others to encourage kids to get outside and be active.
And one of the major victories in her efforts came when the USDA authorization included new restrictions on junk food in schools. This included cutting back on how often schools could hold bake sales, since they compete with lunch, how often they could serve fatty, sodium-rich foods like pizza and french fries and a ban on selling candy and sodas.
Of course, any school district that felt strongly about these restrictions was free to decline federal aid for their lunch program and open a McDonalds on the premises. But for all the squealing and gnashing of teeth that went on, none of the Ayn Rand advocates of freedom and self-reliance wanted to assert their independence to the extent of giving up their place at the public funding trough.
And there was indeed plenty of squealing and gnashing and charges of "Food Cops" from people who are swayed by the rhetoric of the self-reliance extremists, that heartless wing of the American Taliban who pray, "I thank thee, Lord, that Thou hast not made me like this publican."
Now they have had a partial victory over the forces of common sense and decency, as Congress has overturned at least some of those rules, to help keep the fat and grease and salt in our children's school lunches. Instead of a half-cup of tomato paste per serving, it only takes two tablespoons and you can call a dish a "vegetable," even if you stirred those two tablespoons into a bowl of lard.
The fools who welcome this kowtowing to industry lobbyists as a demonstration of "freedom," and who insist it is up to parents to teach their children to make healthy choices, are apparently incapable of comprehending that we would all be delighted if, faced with the choice between a Ding Dong and an apple, the kids would reach for the apple.
We'd also be delighted if our health system were not burdened with the cost of treating diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, but apparently these older people whose parents raised them right and who didn't by-gawd need food cops when they were in school somehow have managed over the years to select the Ding Dongs instead of the apples at a rate which is not only statistically but also economically significant.
I suppose it is not surprising that a people who would rather build and maintain prisons than fund schools would also rather pay for an expansion of Medicaid and Medicare expenses than make sure that our kids get at least one healthy meal a day.
But I wish they would then shut up about the cost of Medicaid and Medicare.
The war on vegetables — the war on our children — is only one example of the heartless, selfish absurdity of those who will today begin their annual bawling about the importance of keeping Christ in Christmas, while for the other 364 days of the year they willingly play the role of Ebenezer Scrooge, complaining that there are plenty of prisons and work houses and that therefore the welfare of the poor is not their concern.
In the absence of ghosts to remind them of where they came from, to show to them the truth of the world they live in and to warn them of the future they are creating, let us be grateful, this Thanksgiving, for the cartoonists, for the clergy, for demonstrators, for volunteers everywhere, for courageous, outnumbered politicians, for those who question and those who offer alternatives and those who won't shut up in the face of power and money.
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