Um, well, we listened to aggressively cheerful music sung by people chosen for their ability to dance. Then we ate cookie dough, and talked about boys.

Giles ,'Get It Done'


Natter 65: Speed Limit Enforced by Aircraft  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, pandas, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Trudy Booth - Mar 26, 2010 4:43:46 pm PDT #18977 of 30001
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

what are the federal regs messing up Huntington?


Amy - Mar 26, 2010 4:44:56 pm PDT #18978 of 30001
Because books.

Maybe he's hoping that if he takes it to the citizen level, a call for changes to the federal level will be made.

I think he has good intentions, even if he's a bit naive about the budget and time limitations for school lunch programs. And I think he only chose Huntington because it showed up as statistically the most overweight city in the country. Either way, he's helping to educate some of the citizens there about what eating so much processed means.


sarameg - Mar 26, 2010 4:45:24 pm PDT #18979 of 30001

But it might be getting people to ask their local cafs to do the same. Pushback.

Honestly, the only time my mother eats in the caf is the once in a while when the caf ladies say fuck the guidelines and make enchiladas. It doesn't happen often, but it's a big day at the school. I remember them doing that in elementary too.


Jesse - Mar 26, 2010 4:45:58 pm PDT #18980 of 30001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Oh, and getting the kids to eat the food, and pay for it with the budget, and etc. It was definitely not easy. I haven't watched this show, because I imagined it was like that one, except with more OMG, WTF, and polar bears, due to being a US TV show.


Hil R. - Mar 26, 2010 4:47:07 pm PDT #18981 of 30001
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

what are the federal regs messing up Huntington?

The subsidies that make processed food cheaper than fresh food, the way that funding is distributed so that farm conglomerates are taking over local farms, and the way the school lunch program is funded and supplied so that they have to use processed foods and have to supply milk (usually chocolate milk for little kids) with each meal. He was also getting frustrated with the rule that required two carbohydrate servings with each lunch, and ended up having to add a hamburger roll to a meal that already included rice. But the person he was yelling at about this was the cafeteria worker who told him that his meal didn't obey the rules.


Hil R. - Mar 26, 2010 4:53:15 pm PDT #18982 of 30001
Sometimes I think I might just move up to Vermont, open a bookstore or a vegan restaurant. Adam Schlesinger, z''l

But it might be getting people to ask their local cafs to do the same. Pushback.

That's just not going to work. When my sister and I were in high school, my mom tried to get the cafeteria to have skim milk as an option, along with the whole, 2%, and chocolate. It took her months of phone calls up the administrative ladder, she had me report to her each day about whether there was skim milk available, and after doing this for a while, there was still skim milk only maybe two or three times a week. She was an upper-middle class stay at home mother who had a whole lot of experience working through bureaucracy, and she was just trying to get them to order skim milk from the dairy that they already bought milk from, and it took a ridiculous amount of her time and patience. The average public school parent is not going to be able to get a whole cafeteria to switch over to fresh food.

Seriously, getting changes to the curriculum was easier than getting changes to lunch.


Jesse - Mar 26, 2010 4:55:34 pm PDT #18983 of 30001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Well, there's this, anyway: [link]


sarameg - Mar 26, 2010 4:55:44 pm PDT #18984 of 30001

And here's my other ish: free/subsidized breakfast and lunch are a HUGE proportion of the students where I grew up. I knew a lot of kids for whom those two meals were their primary source of food. And if that is a lousy example and nutritionally bankrupt? Yeah, not so good. So I am perfectly happy with aiming the cannon scattershot if it at least raises awareness. Diabetes is a huge issue in my home(s) community. Access to decent grocery is also a huge issue in my current community. If you have to grocery shop at 7-11?


Steph L. - Mar 26, 2010 4:56:36 pm PDT #18985 of 30001
this mess was yours / now your mess is mine

I've actually been impressed at the produce section of the SuperWalmart in the far-out burbs of Birmingham where my brother lives.

Talk of the Nation on Thursday had a segment on "reconsidering Wal-Mart" -- not just because of the economy, but also because a lot of the stores sell local organic produce at really good prices. I had no idea. I still dislike Wal-Mart, but I do find the organic produce thing interesting.


sarameg - Mar 26, 2010 4:56:54 pm PDT #18986 of 30001

That's just not going to work.

I'm sorry, I just can't agree with that.