(no subject)

[coldblossom.livejournal.com]

What Obama (and people like him) want to do to America, a living example:

Lunch lady slammed for food that is 'too good'

A talented head cook at a school in central Sweden has been told to stop baking fresh bread and to cut back on her wide-ranging veggie buffets because it was unfair that students at other schools didn't have access to the unusually tasty offerings.

Annika Eriksson, a lunch lady at school in Falun, was told that her cooking is just too good.

Pupils at the school have become accustomed to feasting on newly baked bread and an assortment of 15 vegetables at lunchtime, but now the good times are over.

The municipality has ordered Eriksson to bring it down a notch since other schools do not receive the same calibre of food - and that is "unfair".

[link]


Sounds like the USA now a days. If one person has it "too good," come after them because its better to lower them down to "average" or "mediocre" than to allow even one person's head to be higher than anyone else's. 

The article does state that this lady's offerings don't met with the school system's nutritional guidelines, but I fail to see how making a smorgasbord of fresh vegetables and homemade freshly-baked bread could possibly be less healthy than canned vegetables and factory-made preservative-laden bread. The Ms. Eriksson stated that her cuisine hasn't cost any extra money. I'm not sure why they don't just ask her for her methods and procedures and then adapt them to other schools to bring them up to her level, rather than dragging her down to theirs. 

Anyway, sounds like Obama's goals for making everyone the same, one-size-fits-all, nobody "better" than anyone else in terms of material wealth, etc. All of us equally average, nobody awesome. 

Comments

[kc-anathema.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds just like my high school. We have no football stadium. Our brats have to go to the neighboring (rival) high school and use theirs, 'cause apparently funding just dried up when it came to us. But then local businesses and families got together and pledged enough to cover our own stadium. The result? District told us it wouldn't be fair if schools could raise funds, 'cause the other schools might not be able to do the same.

Granted, we're in a wealthier part of town, but that also means we have no Title I extra funding, so we're unable to print more than 35 of something for class sets, barely have funds for ink (maybe--that's up in the air at the moment), can afford no new furniture, and our English department managed to get Promethean smartboards only by haggling with our book publishers. Before that, we had chalk and overheads and that's it. Not even cheap ditto machines.

Parity is a joke. I really hope they don't notice that our lunch ladies are pretty damn awesome even with substandard ingredients.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

We had to provide our own funding for football, not because we are in a wealthy neighborhood, but because we have a podunk town of only 10,000 people. We are still doing 5K walks and such so we can get smartboards, although I'm not sure they are a necessity because I grew up just fine with chalk and a chalkboard. The biggest problem with our school is that the state of Illinois owes us money, then the superintendent has managed to hire all of her friends and relatives for key positions in the school, like her husband was the do-nothing principal at the highschool until people complained, and he finally retired to get his knee injury fixed, instead of using his office as an all day easy chair.

That's crazy district just flat out told you that you couldn't have your own field. Insanity!

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

Smartboards don't really meaningfully improve education. Whatt they *do* do is improve the quality of life of teachers. Making at least the jump to dry-erase seems almost like basic human decency to me, given that the cost would only be $20 per classroom, since there's a paint that will stick to chalkboards and convert them to dry-erase.

[kc-anathema.livejournal.com]

Smartboards can easily become a crutch, but ford_prefect42 hit the nail on the head--the smartboard makes my life a lot easier. I can more easily have students demonstrate work, take notes, clarify points, go back and forth between concepts, etc. I don't have to spend oodles of money on transparencies but can rather just look things up online and use videos or pictures. What we have aren't actual smartboards, but projectors that attack to the computer and a promethean board that can work like a mouse with the right electric "pen." It's so vital that when I thought the lamp had burned to only showing yellow, I immediately ordered a new lamp myself. It's almost a hundred dollars, but it's too vital to leave to the district to get around to replacing. Fortunately it was just the vga cord having issues, which is a five dollar fix, but now I'll have a replacement lamp handy just in case.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

-Sounds reasonable. I'd rather the teachers have an easier time with smartboards than have money wasted hiring people's relatives. We have the superintendent's 400 pound son working in the schools as the guy who watches over kids in detention (he sits at the computer playing solitaire), yet we can't afford smartboards or aids for autistic kids. I'm not sure we even have dry erase. The excuse is that they want to hire people who want to live here in town, but what ends up happening is that losers who are related to people working in the schools go out into the wider world, are unable to find employment, then come back here and land a job in the schools. Few of them have special skills we need (like working with autistic kids), and we even had a controversy where they passed over a lot of senior teachers for a dean's position at the middle school, only to hire a relative of the secretary who was in his twenties and still a year away from getting his master's degree, which is a requirement for the position. They let him slide for that year while he got it.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Granted, we're in a wealthier part of town, but that also means we have no Title I extra funding, so we're unable to print more than 35 of something for class sets, barely have funds for ink (maybe--that's up in the air at the moment), can afford no new furniture, and our English department managed to get Promethean smartboards only by haggling with our book publishers. Before that, we had chalk and overheads and that's it. Not even cheap ditto machines.

Why don't you change out your County Board of Education? That's who controls what funding for schools goes where in GA, so I assume it's the same elsewhere - funded straight out of property taxes. Next election, vote 'em out and vote in people who will change the policy.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a good idea. I can't believe people would stand for living in a wealthy part of town where property taxes are already ridiculous, then still not getting their football field when they go above and beyond to raise extra money. That's hanky panky someone needs to lose their job over. It almost is like someone has a chip on their shoulder over football. Then not being able to afford basic supplies usually points to nepotism or someone spending money on something equally as useless.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Here in DeKalb Co, GA, there were a ton of people skimming off the funds for their own personal use or to make sweetheart deals with people. There were even indictments and summary removals. Sadly, not much has changed; local politics here in this county are more of a machine than anything else and it doesn't matter who you vote for. So there's the Debbie Downer side to it all.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

We had shuffles in our area. Some of the more unqualified people who were hired for being relatives where transfered to the next town over, which also has a nepotism problem.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Nepotism and cronyism. Never seen a local government that wasn't rife with both.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

Too bad they couldn't live in a system where the good cook could set a new standard for all schools.

[ford-prefect42.livejournal.com]

or for that matter, where the good cook would be a boon to their community, and encourage people to transfer their residence and money to supporting that talent.

[brendala.livejournal.com]

Wow. Sane people would promote this woman to a position where she could teach other schools how to do things her way (especially since her way doesn't cost any more than the standard government system). But no. Instead the poor woman gets punished for making everyone else look bad by comparison.

And in what universe is standardized school lunch (which likely contains mostly pre-packaged, preservative laden food) considered more nutritious than fresh veggies and freshly baked bread?

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Equality at all costs. Everyone equally miserable.

Except, of course, those in charge.

[darth-firefly.livejournal.com]

You know, this ingenious lunch lady could 'tone it down a notch' by reducing the number of vegetables to fourteen.

Seriously - this makes no sense whatsoever. It's like the plan to monitor trash cans (http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/03/14199709-florida-school-district-considers-trash-cams-in-lunchrooms-to-study-wasted-food?lite)to see what the kids are throwing away here in the States. Wouldn't it make more sense to, I don't know, ASK THE KIDS what they want to see served in their cafeteria?

Making her bring it down to a lower level is just flat out stupid.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it make more sense to, I don't know, ASK THE KIDS what they want to see served in their cafeteria?

Absolutely not. Kids should not be consulted in any policy decision; children are there to be seen and not heard. You tell the kids what they will eat and they will eat it or they will starve. Frankly, neither I nor anyone else should hear anything but "Yes/no/how high, ma'am/sir." from the mouth of any kid until they are of age to vote.

[darth-firefly.livejournal.com]

True - but if the school can at least determine from asking kids what food is least likely to be thrown away - example: kids will more likely eat corn than they will cabbage - then they can work on forming a menu that benefits the students and won't see trash bags full of wasted food.

...or they could show the kids documentaries of starving children and then guilt them when they throw food away.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

I actually prefer the latter option, because it worked very for me as a child. I ate everything on my plate, even if it made me gag.

[darth-firefly.livejournal.com]

I'm half tempted to use the method on my nephews, who tend to turn up their noses at a lot of food served at family dinners.

...the trick is to always eat the stuff you dislike the most first.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Yep. Granted, I have a real hardass bent on the whole picky eating bit. It's one thing if there's an allergy, like one of my cousins has with nuts and one of my siblings with wheat. But you're not supposed to like everything you eat; you eat it because it's good for you. It's rather like employment. You don't have to like work...you just need to get paid. I think there are a lot of people today who don't understand necessity.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

LOL, yeah, if you ask a kid to choose between corn and cabbage, or between other healthy options. If you ask a kid in general what they'd eat, some might say hot pockets and Mt. Dew.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

If you ask a kid in general what they'd eat, some might say hot pockets and Mt. Dew.

Side note: This is why I do not endorse unschooling.

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

-Looks very chaotic. I wouldn't endorse it either.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

No, if you're going to homeschool, then HOMESCHOOL. Rigorous study, achievements that will be recognized by society at large and so on. Unschooling is just...crap.

[marycatelli]

Or possibly get them to offer to send it.

[muses-circle.livejournal.com]

Can't have kids eating fresh veggies and non-preservative-laden bread, now can we? /sarcasm

Schools today exemplify what Communism looks like: everyone equally mediocre - except those who are in charge.

[lazypadawan.livejournal.com]

#1 reason why I hate socialism; ultimately it lowers the excellent down to mediocrity.

[steamage.livejournal.com]

As much as it should be difficult to surprise me now, I literally cannot believe that this actually happened. It's like something out of a Monty Python sketch.

Bah, and the Moonbats -pretend- to be all about children's health. :S

They need a motto... "FAILURE IS EQUALITY! SUCCESS IS BIGOTRY! JOIN THE MOONBAT BAD-FOOD EGALITARIAN CAFETERIA ALLIANCE, COMRADES!" /s