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Shadowseer_Kim wrote:
2 incidents happened recently, one where one boy was beaten and sexually assaulted by 3 other boys in the shower. What did the school do? Report the incident to the police? Nope. They sat the children down in the same room together, conducted a "investigation" internally, basically asked the boys to shake hands and apologize, then gave the 3 boys who committed a serious crime a few days suspension.

Another incident happened where a young girl, 11 I beleive was attacked by a few other girls who were ages 12 and 13 while standing at her locker. They all punched her multiple times, and there was a teacher who witnessed it. Did the school call the police to report that an assault had occurred? Nope. Once again the school did an "investigation" internally, and gave the girls who committed a serious crime of assault a few days suspension.

Then the state should make the schools report all such matters to the police. Your government is elected and it is their job to ensure that public services are well run.

Melissia wrote:The Irish Potato Famine happened because of monocultured crops. It wasn't "institutionalized" so much as it was an example of "ignorance on a national level having devastating results".

Actually sourclams gave very accurate description of the deeper causes to the issue which are historical facts. Unless the "ignorance" you are referring to is a stand in for "racism" and the national level is England as the clear dominant and repressive political entity in the very fractured "United" Kingdom.


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There a pretty good reason the most rabid classical liberals were Irish.

IcyCool wrote:I'm a bit unclear as to where your argument is headed. Rather than poke about in the dark as we go back and forth for several pages, let's try and get at the "meat" of the issue. I'm saying that a school is responsible for serving healthy food, because they are, at least in part, responsible for the health and well being of the students in their care. You seem to be of the opinion that the school should instead serve the children whatever they like, because eating a full meal (whether it is healthy for you or not), is better than eating a partial meal.

I'm saying that the school's objective (if schools are responsible for a child's nutrition) should not be to serve healthy food, but rather for the kids to have proper nutrition. Serving food that the kids don't eat is no better than serving nothing at all. I'm not sure how you can get any more "realist" than that.

IcyCool wrote:I mean, if your ultimate point here is that you think that schools shouldn't provide the children in their care healthy meals when the parents of those children provide unhealthy meals, then why not drive straight at that point? It is, at the very least, more defensible (and, at least in part, reasonable) than your current argument of "lots of bad food is better than a little good food".

Well, my personal position is that schools don't have the authority to override a parent's wishes - whether that's dietary, religious, or otherwise - unless the parent's activity rises to the level of abuse.

But that's not the point I'm making here. The point I'm making is that when schools serve unpalatable meals they're not advancing the goals of improving children's nutrition.

If your position is that all a school needs to do is serve a healthy meal (and deny the child the home packed meal) but that the school has no obligation to ensure that the child has proper nutrition, then you're impinging on parental authority without any actual benefit.

IcyCool wrote:I guess I should ask you this: If a parent serves their child nothing but soda and twinkies, do you think that constitutes abuse or neglect for that child's well being?

I don't think that this activity rises to the level of abuse.

If a parent serves their child nothing but soda and twinkies for lunch, do you think the kid should be taken away from the parents? Because that's the case you're making - that by not serving the child what the school thinks they should eat, the parent is being abusive.

DIDM wrote:IF I ever have kids I will have to home school, or send them to a Montessori or similar school. No way would I let these people try and "raise" my kids better than me

Now see. What this school is trying to do is(along their lines of thinking atleast) protect kids from bad parenting. parents who just dont care and stuff a can of coke chips and a twinkie for them.

AustonT wrote:

Melissia wrote:The Irish Potato Famine happened because of monocultured crops. It wasn't "institutionalized" so much as it was an example of "ignorance on a national level having devastating results".

Actually sourclams gave very accurate description of the deeper causes to the issue which are historical facts. Unless the "ignorance" you are referring to is a stand in for "racism" and the national level is England as the clear dominant and repressive political entity in the very fractured "United" Kingdom.

No, I was using "ignorance" to indicate "ignorance of genetics and how disease effects monoculured plants", where a properly organized and educated society would have planted more than just a single highly vulnerable crop.

It's a common problem in the agg industry throughout history... monocultures are genetically identical, which means that if a disease/fungus/etc hits one plant it'll hit the entire batch. Apples have the same problems whenever they'e trying to just grow one type of apple (most apple varieties are bitter and they mostly want to sell the sweet ones).

edit: I'm not trying to undercut the racism inherent in the system, as it were, but it's very much true that people were ignorant of this during the ~1800s.

As an actual update:

The school has released a statement indicating what happened was an error, and by "error", not a mistake in judgement, but an actual error - a teacher told the child she should go to the cafeteria and get a milk to add to her lunch, and the child thought she meant to get a whole new lunch.

The North Carolina Pre-Kindergarten is a state-run enrichment program to help 4-year-olds at risk of starting school lagging behind their peers. Ninety percent of the children qualify for free or reduced lunch.

The program has 1,100 sites serving 25,000 children and is required to supply a healthful lunch. The U.S. Agriculture Department defines that as a serving of milk, two servings of fruits or vegetables, one serving of grain, and one serving of meat or protein.

They also have apologized to the parents for the misunderstanding.

Now I see why most people in a America are overweight. Because they think chicken nuggets are HEALTHY!....

The pieces are falling into place.

Grakmar wrote:
"Organic" actually means that the molecule is made up of a string of Carbon atoms (that's why Organic Chemistry is all about C molecules). So, things like plastic (polyethylene is -CH2-CH2- repeating) are organic, whereas things like water (H2O, notice the lack of C) are inorganic. So, food is mostly inorganic (it contains a lot of water).

Yes, I took high school AP Chem, I know this.

I should have been more specific (I apologize, I had been woken up to finish someone else's work.) in that I was thinking politically, and no empirically.

I agree with you.

Grakmar wrote:
And, all food is 100% natural. Natural means existing in nature. Man is a product of nature, therefor anything we create is also a product of nature.

We agree, and because I make that argument all the time.


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ParatrooperSimon wrote:Now I see why most people in a America are overweight. Because they think chicken nuggets are HEALTHY!....

You know that "healthy" really only means "things I can consume often" right?

And even then, you could eat chicken nuggets everyday so long as you understand what they are.

Its understanding, and access to variety, that cause problems.

Melissia wrote:

AustonT wrote:

Melissia wrote:The Irish Potato Famine happened because of monocultured crops. It wasn't "institutionalized" so much as it was an example of "ignorance on a national level having devastating results".

Actually sourclams gave very accurate description of the deeper causes to the issue which are historical facts. Unless the "ignorance" you are referring to is a stand in for "racism" and the national level is England as the clear dominant and repressive political entity in the very fractured "United" Kingdom.

No, I was using "ignorance" to indicate "ignorance of genetics and how disease effects monoculured plants", where a properly organized and educated society would have planted more than just a single highly vulnerable crop.

It's a common problem in the agg industry throughout history... monocultures are genetically identical, which means that if a disease/fungus/etc hits one plant it'll hit the entire batch. Apples have the same problems whenever they'e trying to just grow one type of apple (most apple varieties are bitter and they mostly want to sell the sweet ones).

edit: I'm not trying to undercut the racism inherent in the system, as it were, but it's very much true that people were ignorant of this during the ~1800s.

I think both sides can come to some clear middle ground:

1) The direct cause of the Irish Potato Famine was that the vast majority of Irish farmers were relying on the same potato plant to feed them. When a fungus appeared that attacked this potato plant, the majority of the country's crops were destroyed and widespread starvation occurred.

2) The reason why the majority of crops were the same potato plant was because the Irish farmer was in a terrible spot, economically, in a large part due to English landholders exacting a crippling demand on them, and they were forced to grow the one crop that could support their family on the small plot of land they were allotted.

3) In retrospect, this entire terrible episode should have been avoided, and could have easily been avoided had the Irish farmer diversified crops more. But to do this, he would have needed more economic freedom from the landholders.

Also the fact that the UK still demanded exports from Ireland during the second famine shouldn't be discounted.

Melissia wrote:Also the fact that the UK still demanded exports from Ireland during the second famine shouldn't be discounted.

Yes, hence "institutionalized famine". Ireland was producing enough revenue/GDP through every year but the last most dire ones to feed itself, it was simply being extorted away by the structure of governance.

Blaming 'monoculture' for the Irish famine is like blaming "the dice" when your out-of-cover Terminator dies to 3 DE Ravagers.

And how 'monoculture' somehow becomes an argument against modern agricultural commercial practices, I have no idea. We don't have monoculture today. Modern producers employ crop rotations based on sophisticated systems including soil analysis, yield projections, break-even analysis, weather forecasting and old fashioned common sense. Last year represented a severe drought (not sure how severe historically, but certainly worst in 20 years) and US corn yields are still expected to top 12.5 billion bushels.

Now a second parent has come forward saying their poor innocent lunches have been molested as well.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/exclusive-2nd-n-c-mother-says-daughters-school-lunch-replaced-for-not-being-healthy-enough/

I like this part:

Barnes confirmed there was an agent from Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education at the school Jan. 30 who examined six student lunches and determined one did not make the nutritional cut — presumably the first little girl whose story made news.

An...agent? An unknown agent, veritably a secret agent....

Without getting into some of the glaringly wrong things being said in this thread about food and nutrition I just want to express bewilderment at national outrage over a preschooler eating chicken nuggets instead of a sammich.

Also, if I had made a list of things that would end up being discussed in this thread before I read it I don't think that the Irish Potato Famine would have been in the top 6,000 items.

Vegetarian healthy food?

Come at my Vegetables!

Alexzandvar wrote:Vegetarian healthy food?

Come at my Vegetables!

Most disturbing part: his meat suit has a tail.

AustonT wrote:

Alexzandvar wrote:Vegetarian healthy food?

Come at my Vegetables!

Most disturbing part: his meat suit has a tail.

...but no wiener.

biccat wrote:I'm saying that the school's objective (if schools are responsible for a child's nutrition) should not be to serve healthy food, but rather for the kids to have proper nutrition. Serving food that the kids don't eat is no better than serving nothing at all.

Perhaps I didn't make my viewpoint clear, but I do not think that your position is a realistic one at all. I've come to this opinion, because I cannot currently conceive of a way that the school can force a student to eat, at least from a legal standpoint. Given that limitation, I do think the best they can shoot for is to offer healthy food. Obviously, the goal would be for the students to actually eat the healthy food, but how do you ensure that?

Do you have a viable solution to that problem biccat? I'm genuinely curious. If you did, I could certainly see how you came to your conclusion, but currently I'm at an impasse here. Keep in mind that I already mentioned that making the healthy food as tasty and enticing as possible is obvious, but it still doesn't solve the problem of the student choosing not to eat it.

biccat wrote:Well, my personal position is that schools don't have the authority to override a parent's wishes - whether that's dietary, religious, or otherwise - unless the parent's activity rises to the level of abuse.

I agree completely with you here.

biccat wrote:But that's not the point I'm making here. The point I'm making is that when schools serve unpalatable meals they're not advancing the goals of improving children's nutrition.

If your position is that all a school needs to do is serve a healthy meal (and deny the child the home packed meal) but that the school has no obligation to ensure that the child has proper nutrition, then you're impinging on parental authority without any actual benefit.

To a certain extent, yes. I've mentioned before that I prefer the "observe and report" concept. I'm less comfortable with the "take away unhealthy food" approach, but I'm not sure what else the school can do. As I see it, the best the school can do, as far as I understand, to ensure proper nutrition is to offer nutritious food, educate the students on proper nutrition, and monitor food consumption to provide data for determining if a child is being harmed by a parent's neglect.

biccat wrote:I don't think that this activity rises to the level of abuse.

If a parent serves their child nothing but soda and twinkies for lunch, do you think the kid should be taken away from the parents? Because that's the case you're making - that by not serving the child what the school thinks they should eat, the parent is being abusive.

As I said earlier, I think such information and behavior should be noted. If this body of evidence is found to be a record of abusive behavior, then removal of the child may be necessary. Obviously, if the occasional unhealthy meal is the only sign of neglect during the student's time at the school, that's hardly a basis for making a case of abuse against the parent. But having that information is an important part of being able to make a good, informed decision. I don't know how detrimental to your child's health routinely feeding them unhealthy food is. It's probably not anywhere near enough to qualify as abuse bad enough to have the child removed. But that sort of neglect, coupled with little Jimmy coming to school with a few oddly placed bruises on more than one occasion does build a strong pattern of behavior against the parent.