Let them eat lunch
I was going to write about the latest explosive verbal diarrhea from the Stable Genius, but it's Friday and I'm tired of him. Even here at World Cynicism HQ, we like to write about nice things.
The human brain eats glucose. Cannot function properly without it, which is why people who give advice will tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially if you and your still-developing brain are headed to school. America being America, millions of children (and adults) start out with little or no breakfast, which hugely increases the importance of lunch. It isn't often remembered that in addition to scaring the shit out of white people, the Black Panther Party set up a program to provide breakfast and lunch to poor kids (which probably scared even more shit out of white people), recognizing that hungry kids don't learn as well as nourished ones. Long ago, if you can believe it, there were actual government programs which followed the Panthers in providing free meals for poor kids. Of course, they were demolished by the Republicans, who rightly saw educated poor people as a threat to their party's existence.
Today, children who can't afford a hot lunch are often handed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and even segregated in one section of the cafeteria to increase the embarrassment; in some districts, those who owe food bills cannot graduate. This is entirely in line with the Republican program of abusing the most vulnerable to avoid taxing the rich. It's not just college -- there are high school graduates who start life burdened by debt. If you're lucky and careful, you can get through most of your life without onerous medical bills, traffic tickets and even mortgage payments, but everybody has to eat. Every day, if possible.
But people are stepping up. Hearing of the unnecessary suffering in the Warwick, Rhode Island, school district, Hami Ulukaya is buying everybody lunch. Mr. Ulukaya is a Turkish-born Kurd who came here with a few hundred dollars and started Chobani Yogurt; now he wants to give back to his new country. A Muslim, an immigrant, a self-made millionaire and a philanthropist, he's everything Trump hates. Other people have heard about the school lunch disgrace and offered to help, but have mostly been turned away. It's harder to ignore a man who was profiled on Sixty Minutes, and who successfully sued Alex Jones for defaming him and his workforce.
Last week the school lunch problem in St. Paul, Minnesota, was aired when Valerie Castile donated $8,000 from the Philando Castile Foundation so kids could eat. Set up three years ago after her son was murdered by a police officer, the Foundation was intended to support other victims of police violence and their families. But Philando Castile was a high school cafeteria worker who frequently paid for students' lunches out of his own limited resources, and his mother decided this was an entirely appropriate use of the money.
School lunch programs and food stamps will always be targets of the Plutocrat Party, but there may be a ray of sunshine from an unlikely source. As Trump's idiotic trade wars continue to screw farmers and dry up foreign markets, something will have to be done with the billions of dollars in crops rotting in the fields. Can the Republicans set aside their hatred of the poor long enough to help a core constituency? Or will there just be more GoFundMe campaigns and more work for World Central Kitchen? Millions of Americans can well afford to skip the occasional meal. Why not buy lunch for a hungry kid instead? At least until some measure of intelligence and sanity returns in 2021.
Speaking of lunch, those lucky Boston Red Sox (or "Socks," as somebody in the White House thinks it's spelled) are invited to lunch next week. As the Clemson men and Baylor women know, they should bring their own food. Room-temperature hamberders….mmm, the taste of victory.
The human brain eats glucose. Cannot function properly without it, which is why people who give advice will tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially if you and your still-developing brain are headed to school. America being America, millions of children (and adults) start out with little or no breakfast, which hugely increases the importance of lunch. It isn't often remembered that in addition to scaring the shit out of white people, the Black Panther Party set up a program to provide breakfast and lunch to poor kids (which probably scared even more shit out of white people), recognizing that hungry kids don't learn as well as nourished ones. Long ago, if you can believe it, there were actual government programs which followed the Panthers in providing free meals for poor kids. Of course, they were demolished by the Republicans, who rightly saw educated poor people as a threat to their party's existence.
Today, children who can't afford a hot lunch are often handed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and even segregated in one section of the cafeteria to increase the embarrassment; in some districts, those who owe food bills cannot graduate. This is entirely in line with the Republican program of abusing the most vulnerable to avoid taxing the rich. It's not just college -- there are high school graduates who start life burdened by debt. If you're lucky and careful, you can get through most of your life without onerous medical bills, traffic tickets and even mortgage payments, but everybody has to eat. Every day, if possible.
But people are stepping up. Hearing of the unnecessary suffering in the Warwick, Rhode Island, school district, Hami Ulukaya is buying everybody lunch. Mr. Ulukaya is a Turkish-born Kurd who came here with a few hundred dollars and started Chobani Yogurt; now he wants to give back to his new country. A Muslim, an immigrant, a self-made millionaire and a philanthropist, he's everything Trump hates. Other people have heard about the school lunch disgrace and offered to help, but have mostly been turned away. It's harder to ignore a man who was profiled on Sixty Minutes, and who successfully sued Alex Jones for defaming him and his workforce.
Last week the school lunch problem in St. Paul, Minnesota, was aired when Valerie Castile donated $8,000 from the Philando Castile Foundation so kids could eat. Set up three years ago after her son was murdered by a police officer, the Foundation was intended to support other victims of police violence and their families. But Philando Castile was a high school cafeteria worker who frequently paid for students' lunches out of his own limited resources, and his mother decided this was an entirely appropriate use of the money.
School lunch programs and food stamps will always be targets of the Plutocrat Party, but there may be a ray of sunshine from an unlikely source. As Trump's idiotic trade wars continue to screw farmers and dry up foreign markets, something will have to be done with the billions of dollars in crops rotting in the fields. Can the Republicans set aside their hatred of the poor long enough to help a core constituency? Or will there just be more GoFundMe campaigns and more work for World Central Kitchen? Millions of Americans can well afford to skip the occasional meal. Why not buy lunch for a hungry kid instead? At least until some measure of intelligence and sanity returns in 2021.
Speaking of lunch, those lucky Boston Red Sox (or "Socks," as somebody in the White House thinks it's spelled) are invited to lunch next week. As the Clemson men and Baylor women know, they should bring their own food. Room-temperature hamberders….mmm, the taste of victory.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 2:42 PM
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