"Please help! Bring back better food!" - Van Nuys High School student to Principal Judith Vanderbok
When Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House he proposed a capitol showing of the Hollywood classic Boy's Town as a means to gin up support for his proposed boot camps for troubled teens. The Left retorted that if Newt did a Boy's Town showing, they would counterattack with a showing of Dicken's Oliver Twist. Newt promptly dropped the idea, but in this exchange the Left demonstrated that they believe Oliver Twist is a hero after their own ideology.
Now, Oliver Twist paid dearly for his temerity in asking a work house elder, 'Please sir, may I have some more?" of the runny, grey, porridge the work house boys were forced to swallow.
Oliver would have been far better off to adopt the methods of deprived teens in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Confronted with a Michelle Obama endorsed and promoted lunch diet officially adopted by the District this past fall term - a diet featuring such yummy selections as vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles. - the kids are rebelling (participation in the District's lunch program has plummeted to just 13%). At Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, Frida Duarte, 16 described the fare as "Like dog food". Many have struck up a thriving black market in lunch items for teens crave. If only Oliver had thought of that.
Meanwhile the Los Angeles Unified School District Cafeteria Fund has imploded to a $20 million deficit catalyzed by the aforementioned collapse in student participation, a 1000% increase in budget for fresh produce the kids won't eat, and the gift of a gold-plated health-benefit package for part-time cafeteria workers, many who stand idle as kids scramble for black market, back-alley lunches.
All told, Michelle Obama's crusade against obesity seems to be having about as much success as Obama's crusade to tranform America into a booming green economy. Wasn't it Leftist Lincoln Steffens in 1919 who said of the newly comprised Soviet Union, "I have seen the future and it works."
Sources for this post include:
1.) "L.A. schools' healthful lunch menu panned by students", Los Angeles Times, December 17. 2011; http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-food-lausd-20111218,0,2593733.story
2.) "Michelle Obama’s Unsavory School Lunch Flop" http://frontpagemag.com/2011/12/21/michelle-obamas-unsavory-school-lunch-flop/
3.) Wikipedia, Lincoln Steffens
Posts
