Categories
education and schooling national politics & policies responsibility

Sack Lunch

On the face of it, the idea that the federal government should be involved in school lunches is . . . weird.

And yet Congress and a long line of presidents have pushed the notion of federally funded and controlled lunches; recently the First Lady, Michelle Obama, made a big deal about revamping the federal school lunch program. But as Baylen Linnekin explains, “Whatever past successes [the national school lunch] program may point to, by any objective measure, the USDA’s school lunch program has since earned a failing grade.”

Instead of going through another alleged upgrade, maybe the best idea would be to, as Linnekin puts it, “Separate School Lunch and State.”

And this isn’t an oddball, contrarian proposal. As Linnekin relates, “More than 1,400 school districts have opted out of the USDA School Lunch Program since 2010.”

Linnekin tells the tale of Meghan Hellrood, a high school student in Wisconsin who leveraged Facebook to hold a one-day protest boycott of her school’s lunch. “It’s not actually giving us healthy foods,” she said.

Maybe Hellrood’s protest strategy should become the norm. Brown bag it, America. Declare your independence!

Parents can make a sack lunch. Older kids can pack their own. And as Adam Carolla, king of the podcasters, has so often opined, even the poor can afford to make their kids a bean sandwich. We can do this.

Reform of public schools might best begin with lunchtime. Locally. With parents regaining some control and responsibility.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

November 18

On November 18, 1307, William Tell shot a crossbow bolt to pierce an apple, toppling it off his son’s head. He was forced to do this by the local Austrian authority, whose hat hung on a pole in the Altdorf town square Tell had refused to bow to when entering the village. Tell is an enduring Swiss folk hero, and the subject of a famous opera by Rossini.

In 1926, George Bernard Shaw formally refused to accept the money for his Nobel Prize, saying, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.”

Categories
national politics & policies

Who Needs Canada (or Oil)?

What has Canada done for us lately, eh?

Sure, Canadians invented peanut butter and the egg carton. But hey: peanut allergies . . . and loose eggs in a grocery sack will do.

Canada also gave us the Wonderbra, Trivial Pursuits and Instant Replay. But put those all together and what have you got?

A country where it snows too much. That’s what.

But what about oil?

The U.S. House of Representatives voted last week to build the Keystone XL pipeline to bring that Canadian oil down to our Gulf Coast refineries. The Senate is set to vote on similar legislation tomorrow.

But our President sports a veto pen, and refuses to allow a bunch of peanut-butter-eating, Wonderbra-wearing Canadians to invade America with all their dirty crude.

“I have to constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone Pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States or is somehow lowering gas prices,” an exasperated Obama complained. “Understand what this project is. It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.”

Well, if the 40,000-plus jobs from the pipeline’s construction are discounted . . . well, then, those jobs don’t count.

And to suggest that increasing the supply of petroleum might lower prices because of the law of supply and demand? Surely, an executive order trumps economic law.

The Daily Beast’s Jack Holmes also minimizes Keystone’s benefits, noting it amounts only to “a few billion dollars kicked the U.S. economy’s way.”

Yeah, who needs a “few billion dollars” or some construction jobs or more oil or our northern neighbors . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Today

November 17

On November 17, 1777, the Articles of Confederation were submitted to the states for ratification.

On that date in 1800, the United States Congress held its first session in Washington, D.C.

Categories
Thought

P. J. O’Rourke

One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it’s remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver’s license.

Categories
links

Townhall: Justice Vision

Helping juries decide tough cases can solve more than just that: it can prevent social discord and promote civic order and social peace. Go to Townhall and read this weekend’s Common Sense column . . . before you riot in the streets.

And come back here for a wider vision. Or at least more reading:

Categories
video

Video: Internationally Known Whistle-blower

A satellite link-up allows Edward Snowden to appear before a New Zealand conference. And receive a standing ovation. And deliver a message.

http://youtu.be/PWAZ8fr4MUE

Categories
Today

Nov 15 Articles of Confederation

On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation — after 16 months of deliberation.

Categories
First Amendment rights

Will Brits Outlaw Speech?

Actually, the proposal is not to outlaw speech. Just some speech.

Which? “Extreme.”

That is, speech that conveys ideas too fundamentally orthogonal to authorized ideas, or that too brusquely nettles sanctioned sensibilities.

Who’s the censor? Some minor shire functionary? No, it is Theresa May, Home Secretary, who is proposing the “extremism disruption orders.”

Ms. May complains that at present, British officials “will only go after you if you are an extremist that directly supports violence.” (It’s not a bug, it’s a feature, Madam Home Secretary.) Under her plan, if you’re an “extremist” served with an EDO (Extremist Disruption Order), you must obtain an official go-ahead, in advance, for anything you wish to publish in any public forum.

Would pen names also be banned? Then what?

Even the most strenuous society-wide efforts to regulate speech don’t stop people from speaking. They still shop, give directions, exhort children, argue about soccer. The most severely repressive regimes permit plenty of public communication along approved channels on approved topics. People learn what not to say or think to skip a trip to the gulag for re-education. But the freedom to say anything you want if only the censors let you means that you have no government-respected right to say anything.

The British proposal may go nowhere. Like comparable assaults on either side of the Atlantic, if enacted it may be only partially or briefly effective. But all such efforts are baleful in their immediate consequences.

And they pave the way to worse.

As illustrated by May’s gall in advancing her “anti-extremist” program.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


Photo courtesy of Stephen Mcleod, under Creative Commons License; altered.

Categories
Thought

P. J. O’Rourke

When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state … This violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people.