Riehl World View

Superintendent Touts Schools As Food "Re-education" Camps

Sort of an interesting insight as to how schools function more like re-education camps, than purely institutions of education today. There was a time in America when subjecting individuals to compulsory "re-education" in a mandated setting would have been frowned upon. But that time has past.

"I can't say enough for what it does for the kids to have the junk out of the machines," says Patricia Gray, who as former principal of San Francisco's Balboa High School oversaw a switch to healthier snacks.

"It was not an easy task," says Gray, now an assistant superintendent with the district, "it was a re-education process."

Efforts to get empty calories out of students' hands are being made in almost every state, according to the Centers for Disease Control. A 2008 School Health Profiles Survey found that fewer secondary schools were selling less nutritious snacks compared with two years before.

Here Comes The Food Czar

We are all vegetarians, now. You're just a dummy who eats whatever they put in front of you. The real tell is in where they place the blame. It isn't the consumer, it's the food manufacturers and restaurants.

You'll pry my taste buds from my cold, dead tongue, or something like that.

As far as salt goes, the newly suggested reductions are possible, but they won’t happen overnight. “We need time for product reformulations, and this also gives people time to change their taste for sodium,” she says. “The problem is not the salt shaker, it is the food manufacturers and restaurants."

Specifically, the newly proposed guidelines suggest reducing sodium intake from 2,300 milligrams to 1,500 milligrams per day and stress a vegetarian-style diet rich in vegetables, cooked dry beans and peas, fruits, whole grains, nuts, and seeds with only moderate amounts of lean meats, poultry, and eggs.

"We have had the same dietary recommendations for 30 years and every year, we update the science but our diets are the same,” says Margo G. Wootan, PhD, the nutrition policy director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group based in Washington, D.C.

Now “we look beyond wagging fingers and saying ‘eat more fruits and vegetables’ and look at barriers and call for a national strategy to help people follow the recommendations,” she says.

“We need a fundamental shift in the food environment,” she tells WebMD. “The majority of choices at restaurants are unhealthy, but it needs to be the opposite where the majority of choices are healthy and there are a couple of splurge options for special occasions,” she says.

Sebelius Launches Anti-Childhood Campaign

This headline just strikes me as wrong, somehow.

Sebelius stumps for anti-childhood obesity plan

But the real kicker is in the "making healthy food more available and affordable" line. Parks and farmers markets don't just grow up from the ground. And whether it's those, or the food itself, they aren't content to stop at giving good advice. They're intent on rigging the economic scales in favor of what they think people should eat. And that's where all this high-minded talk crosses over the line into an incursion on individual liberty. And it irritates that they use tax dollars to do it, especially given the deficits we're running.

Obama addressed the conference by video, saying mayors "know how to develop effective solutions" and can "spur action at the grassroots unlike anyone else."

Sebelius said local leaders can help by building parks, supporting farmers markets and bringing healthier foods into schools.

Obama's program, launched in February 2009, is aimed at solving the childhood obesity problem in a generation, so children born today can reach adulthood at a healthy weight. It has four components: helping parents make better food choices, serving healthier food in school vending machines and lunch lines, making healthy food more available and affordable, and encouraging children to exercise more.

Steak Rape

h/t Sissy Willis on Twitter. Filed under food and drink, otherwise, I got no category for this.

An 18-year-old Indonesian man says he was seduced by a cow, and that's why he was having sex with it. "He was caught by one of the residents standing naked while holding the back of the cow," village chief Embang Ida Bagus Legawa said in the newspaper.

Alit said he didn't see an animal, he saw a beautiful young woman. "She called my name and seduced me, so I had sex with her," the man told the newspaper.

Alit underwent a cleansing ritual. The village chief gave the owner of the cow the equivalent of $562. The cow was reportedly drowned in the sea to rid the village of bad luck.

Dr. Helen: "Some call them odd, I call them comrades"

By guest blogger Sissy Willis of sisu

"Does the news upset you to the point where you feel it's hard to watch or read anymore?" Dr. Helen asked her readers the other day in "How do you keep from cracking?":

… when my anger and frustration get to be too much, this is when I decide to pursue more positive activities for a while until my mental state goes back to neutral and I can think more clearly.

I think feeling that you have some control over your own life despite all that goes on in the world is important. How do you manage to make your own life better, freer or more fun, despite the problems going on in the world?

Do you have hobbies, interests or pursuits that lead you to a more positive place? If so, share them with me (us), and maybe we can learn something.

For us it's cooking, cat therapy, capturing beauty in unexpected places on "film," Friday WSJ crossword-puzzle dates and the elusive meeting of minds we seek through blogging and twittering. As we wrote in Dr. Helen's comments:

Mainly I blog, which requires keeping up with "the news." Making sense of it all by shaping one's thoughts into a coherent essay and sending the thing out into cyberspace with a click of the "publish" button can produce a certain catharsis and sense of control.

We were touched by reader Topher's true confession:

What you can do — post it on the blog, with commentary or without, and come back later and count the comments. Lots of men don't have an in-person place to talk about it (lest we be "not real men"), so just the fact you give us a place to discuss this stuff without harsh judgment should give you a good feeling you are doing something.

Interesting that so many of us — both women and men — keep coming back to Dr. Helen for psychological refreshment. Is it because we are introverts like the good doctor herself? This from her latest post "What are the best places for the avoidant?":

At this point, if you are an introvert like I am, you totally get what I just said. If you tend more towards extroversion, you will write me off as a kook. Fair enough. I have talked to numerous introverts that go to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night, grocery shop at odd hours and basically avoid people like the plague. Some call them odd, I call them comrades. There are other experts who say that being an introvert is a positive thing. I agree.

Crossposted at sisu and Liberty Pundits.

"Dan's not here so I can say anything. Muwahaha …"

By Sissy Willis

"When I guest blog, I try to emulate the voice of the webmaster," writes co-Riehl-World-View guest blogger Melissa Clouthier:

So, expect foul language, polemic rhetoric and fire breathing. P.S. Dan's not here so I can say anything. Muwahaha …

And here we were going to be so good, too, knowing of our host's ailurophobia. When the dog's away, the cats will play? Uh, oh. The cats are invading the Holy See:

Time for some gratuitous cuteness. It's bad karma to keep Rachel Maddow at the top of your blog too long, even if it DOES elicit a Michelle Malkin "Buzzworthy" link. Above, Earl Grey hurries off on his rounds after a quick nip on the front porch. He had stood in the open doorway as if to enter the house. After focussed high-level talks, he agreed to stay outside in exchange for a spot of the weed.

While Earl snorted and chawed, Sweet Tiny Pea sat mysteriously nearby amidst the lower branchlings of the privet and lilacs — a heraldic lioness in a William-Morris-inspired tapestry — her studied indifference acting on her lover like another dose of catnip. Drawn irresistibly to her side, he paused to drink in her fragrance and mark her bower with his scent.

Note large fur clump along Earl's lower midsection halfway between the two white paws. At first we'd thought it was just a grooming issue, what with his luxuriantly fluffy coat, but no. Looking more closely, we realized he had sustained a battle wound, the fur having been apparently ripped right off his hide. Seems to be healing okay. Not much we can do, given that he's unapproachable beyond an occasional nose meep to our outstretched hand. Like Dan Riehl, Chelsea Cats are tough.

Crossposted at sisu: "Far from the Maddow crowd: Karmic relief."

Instapundit's Racist Post

Andy must be asleep at the keyboard to have missed it today. That, or something else is going on - as Instapundit even put up this clue for him to follow - linking back to his earlier racist post. 

THIS MAY EXPLAIN WHAT’S GOING ON WITH CERTAIN BLOGGERS:

Why, there's even a reference to Obama's middle name. Now, just look at the color of that beer! It's raaaacism, I tell you! I'd bet Reynolds drinks Dixie beer when the camera's not looking, just never in honor of Obama.

Yeah, it’s not a great pic, but the point is made.

Come on, Andy! Get with it! You're letting a terrific conspiracy go to waste!

School Snow Days Leave Maryland's Children To Starve

If one assumes this AP report is accurate, it implies a portion of Maryland's public school system now functions as much as a food bank, as it does an institution of learning - perhaps, even more so, in some cases. No one wants any child to starve. But the school system was never intended to operate as a food distribution center. Something is very wrong with this picture.

The two snowstorms that pummeled the region, leaving more than 3 feet of snow in some areas, deprived tens of thousands of children from Virginia to Pennsylvania of the free or reduced-price school lunch that may be their only nutritious meal of the day. The nonprofits that try to meet the need when school is not in session also closed their doors for much of the week, leaving many families looking at bare cupboards. And many parents working hourly jobs were unable to earn any money during the week, as the snow forced businesses to close.

Caplon is a food services supervisor for Montgomery County Public Schools, where about 43,000 children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Some also get breakfast, dinner and bags of staple foods to take home for the weekend. The snow days meant children would get none of that until Tuesday, because schools are closed Monday for Presidents Day.

"We've been bothered by this all week," Caplon said.

So Caplon arranged for Manna Food Center, a local food bank whose board she chairs, to bring boxes of food Friday to two still-closed elementary schools. Officials used the school district's automated phone system to notify parents of the distribution.

Docs Push Back On Soda Tax: Lard Azz Gate?

We learn something new everyday as to the way science was manipulated to inflame concerns over AGW. Is the same thing now happening with regard to obesity and so-called obseity taxes?

In the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, other readers offered their own critiques.

Dr. Michael G. Kaplan (no relation to the writer) of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn also noticed that the clinical trials cited all failed to produce the hoped-for results:

Before assigning blame for the obesity epidemic, we should have clinical evidence that an intervention to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages is effective in achieving this goal, is either more effective or additive to the effect of other proven dietary therapies, and will reduce the long-term propensity for obesity.

Dr. Michael Keane of Casey Hospital in Australia said the soda tax advocates are pursuing a noble goal but said such a paternalistic approach is unwarranted:

In attempting to restrict peoples’ liberty, the onus is on the authors to convincingly show that the vast majority of the population has no concept that consuming junk food (including soda) in excess has the potential for adverse health effects. Yet, their article includes data showing that a majority of people support a tax on health grounds, which undermines the argument that some sort of market failure has made it impossible for consumers to be aware of the dangers of drinking too much soda.

The Key To Safe Hamburger

Contrary to the experts on Larry King, I only eat safe hamburger. I always use a condiment - and Bacon, of course.

The Big Nanny bureaucrats will have to pry the Sonic Bacon Cheeseburger from my cold, dead hands…