Brickbat: Thank You, Ma'am

Students at Tennessee's Madisonville Middle School say they were told to write notes to cafeteria staff telling them what they are thankful for after the students found maggots on their food. A photo of a blackboard with the assignment written on it says, "We are making an effort to be positive." When parents showed up at a school board meeting to express concerns about sanitary conditions in the cafeteria, board members told them the issue had been addressed and would not discuss the matter further because it wasn't on the agenda. Parents were told if they wanted to speak they should ask to have the matter placed on the agenda of the next meeting.
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Listen, lady, your larva infect their place of work but you don't hear the school staff complaining all that much.
Thank you for providing a high protein lunch selection!
Minus the "we won't speak to the public about this issue" BS, this is something of a nothing-burger.
They apparently got some granola that got infested with bugs from a supplier. It happens. Causes for that could include super-cheap suppliers cutting corners, but could also include attempts to go all organic, additive free.
Our local store of a big-chain grocery had a problem with tiny beetles infesting the pasta. It wasn't because they were negligent or cutting corners or trying to cheat people... it happens. We just didn't by pasta there until they got the problem taken care of.. which was surprisingly difficult for a big operation.
The bugs on blackberries thing... well, you get bugs on fresh fruit. Particularly things like blackberries or raspberries that have places for them to hide.
I don't know how bad the infestation was on the berries, but a bug or two is no reason to panic.
The school board definitely should have been more forthcoming and communicative. You don't solve a problem like this by burying your head in the sand. The problem with "being on the agenda" probably was that nobody was prepared to address the issue. School boards are usually part-time elected officials who are more like a board of directors for a company. They are not involved in daily operations, so they probably wouldn't know much. Still, they should have taken the question and let people know how they were going to address the questions they couldn't answer.
Oh, and i have no idea what the "write a note about what you are thankful for" was all about. Maybe the teacher was aware that the kitchen staff was busting their tails to make stuff right and needed an attaboy?
It's just part of our overlord's education system, you will be thankful for how we abu- educate you!
They apparently got some granola that got infested with bugs from a supplier. It happens.
.
.
Our local store of a big-chain grocery had a problem with tiny beetles infesting the pasta. It wasn't because they were negligent or cutting corners or trying to cheat people... it happens.
.
.
The bugs on blackberries thing... well, you get bugs on fresh fruit. Particularly things like blackberries or raspberries that have places for them to hide.
All true. However allowing any of that to get into someone's mouth is pure negligence. There is no excuse. None.
How about the "educator's" coerced phony-baloney positivism?
That attitude, that spirit, infects so much of our culture and society. It is spiritual rot.
It's more holding government workers up on a pedestal. Those selfless police and educators. They can do no wrong because they have good intentions. Officer Friendly shot your dog? Give him thanks. Lunch Lady Doris served you maggots? Give her thanks. Government is our god and its workers are our angels. Now let us pray. "I pledge allegiance..."
...to the conservatives' cognitive dissonance that the pledge was written by a socialist who campaigned for the unholy compulsory alliance of flag and public school and the evils of free enterprise."
What is actually remarkable is that we are a nation with no common descent, no central ethnic identity (real or imagined) at its core--united only by the identity of our political institutions, and our common loyalty to them. And yet we somehow actually do by far the best job in human history of separating that abstract loyalty to "the republic" that we all pledge allegiance to from any kind of deference to our actual government. We aren't nearly as good at that as we think we are, of course; we're worse than we were many years ago; and we will likely get worse and worse in the coming decades until we're essentially indistinguishable in our political culture from Western Europe. But for now we can still be proud of just how much the Founders' wild dreams have manged to still live in us.
I disagree. I think what used to unite Americans was a love of liberty and a healthy distrust of political institutions. As Mark Twain put it "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." These days that distinction has become blurred to the point where if you question government then you are accused of being unpatriotic.
To be fair, some folks are actively undermining the Constitution part of the government not just being angry at the bad politicians and bureaucrats.
To be fair, some folks are actively undermining the Constitution part of the government not just being angry at the bad politicians and bureaucrats.
It's the politicians and bureaucrats who are undermining the Constitution.
Sarcasmic, that is true.
There are also Americans and non-Americans undermining the Constitution.
Someone needs power to undermine the Constitution.
Saying Americans and non-Americans are undermining the Constitution is like leftists blaming corporations for seeking out special favors. Corporations have no power, they only have influence. And they only have influence because politicians and bureaucrats, the ones with the power, let them.
So a more accurate statement would be that Americans and non-Americans are influencing those with the power to undermine the Constitution. But they aren't the ones actually doing it.
Put the blame where it belongs.
S: Power is not needed to undermine the Constitution. Indifference is all that it takes.
Not forcing politicians to support the Constitution.
Not demanding accountability for politicians and bureaucrats.
Not demanding that the limiting principles of the the Constitution are followed.
....
Not forcing politicians to support the Constitution.
Not demanding accountability for politicians and bureaucrats.
Not demanding that the limiting principles of the the Constitution are followed.
How do you do that? They have the power. They can say "Fuck you, that's why" and you can't do a damn thing about it. Washington voluntarily stepped down after two terms. Can you imagine any president in your lifetime doing that voluntarily? I can't. Senators and Representatives used to do the same thing. Davy Crockett was a Senator and then stepped down. That bitch Susan Collins ran for Senate as "Two Term Collins" and is now serving her third or fourth term. The problem is the caliber of people who seek office, and the corrupting influence that power has on them. Power corrupts, but it is also a magnet for the corruptible. And the people who seek power are probably the least suited to have it.
Politicians cannot do anything without the support of voters. As evidenced by your example of Susan Collins.
LBJ stepped down after one term. He would have lost but still.
Politicians would have little power if the entire federal bureaucracy was tiny and they were voted out every new term and/or American paid attention and voted accordingly.
Every Democrat and most Republican Congressmen should be voted out of office on the simple point that the national debt is going to hyper-inflate our currency soon. They control the purse.
THE PEOPLE still have power if we choose to use it.
THE PEOPLE still have power if we choose to use it.
Then, like I asked before, how do you do that? As an individual all I can do is vote against the majors and spread the message as best as I can. Got any other suggestions?
Run for office.
Vote for candidates that are NOT shitbags.
Start Civil War 2.0
There are plenty of options, just a matter of if you have the cajones.
If nominated I will not run. If elected I will not serve. No thank you.
I do my best to vote against shitbags.
As far as the last option goes, I'd rather stick with the devil I know. The spirit of liberty is dead and gone in this country, and the Constitution is looked upon as an impediment to progress. If it were to be replaced, lovers of liberty would not be writing it. It would be written by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. It would make the USSR look like paradise.
Libertarians have the same problem. Libertarians wont run for office but someone has to do it.
Good luck with writing off the USA.
We'll be fine.
I am a libertarian, despite your ceaseless attempts to convince me otherwise. Not a Libertarian though. I don't hold allegiance to any political party.
(you do know that there is a difference between small-l and big-L libertarian, right? or are we going to go back you you calling me names because you don't understand words?)
You're a libertine. You're an Anarchist, who wants to be different.
Libertarians are fine with small government under a rule of law. You dont like that.
The USA is fundamentally very Libertarian. The slavery part was not but that was ended except for prisoners.
I should've clarified what I meant by "political institutions." Obviously I don't think that we revere Congress or anything. But I think we do have some degree of reverence for our form of government, for our political traditions--for the express reason that those traditions, the ones we revere, consist mostly of a constant concern with restraining government. That's still very much present in the Constitution we have such reverence for, even if it was written to replace an even more limited government...
...I think our republic's identity in our minds is "the one founded by those fellows in 18th century Philadelphia." And we love it because we love what they stood for, which was restraining government. It's rather remarkable, when you think about it, that in our society even the "anti-government extremists"--like in the militias and sovereign citizen movements and so forth--you find them thinking of themselves as the most zealous Americans, the most zealously loyal, the most zealous flag-saluters, of all. And what they are saluting, again, is a republic--not an ethnic tribe or something, that would transcend loyalty to any particular form of government. You're not a loyal American unless you are loyal to "the republic"--but that is very much loyalty to an abstract ideal, rather than deference to state institutions. Quite the opposite, really, since that political culture we unify around is precisely one of wariness of state power. The fact that this is all quite confusing to outsiders is probably understandable!
DF, I agree with your clarified statement.
Are you writing of 1776-1789, or of today regarding common descent and central ethnic identity?
Yes of course you may find bugs on fresh produce! But you're supposed to inspect fresh ingredients before using them, as a part of bare minimum professional protocol, and what you see in the article should have been easily caught indeed. How many times have you been served food in a restaurant that had maggots wriggling around in it? If you consider such an experience a "nothing-burger" your standards are way too low!
Grubs are not themselves harmful to consume in any way; indeed, the stuff that can really hurt the guest is not immediately apparent to him. But so much more the reason not to take being served maggots casually! In addition to just being plain gross, it is an clear symptom of extremely lax quality control in food preparation!
I hate it when parents freak about their precious delicate little darlings as much as the next guy. But this is hardly and example of that. They're right to demand answers. And the board's attitude is outrageous. You'd almost think they were completely unafraid of losing customers.
"Grubs are not themselves harmful to consume in any way"
Survivor Madisonville Middle School !!
The point is taxpayers are paying for both the food and the food service. Whoever is buying and preparing the food is not completing their end of the bargain - we do NOT pay for food with maggots or produce with bugs.
What would happen if you paid admittance to a buffet and found maggots in your food? What would happen if you came home from King Soopers and found bugs all over your raspberries? Either you would no longer patronize them, which is not an option in government schools or paying your property taxes, or you would complain loudly to the manager and/or waitstaff.
Only in a thoroughly totalitarian state, would the manager/bureaucrat tell you to write a note of thanks to the hard working waitstaff.
Teachers who mandate kids write thank you notes for those who serve them maggot infested foods are training servile little statists, like themselves. Raises? Fire their asses. And if the school board won't listen, vote their asses out too.
Minus the "we won't speak to the public about this issue" BS, this is something of a nothing-burger.
Anyone familiar with municipal and school board meetings should see this as a nothing-burger too. If you show up to complain about something, and it's not on the agenda, they regularly don't allow it in my neck of the woods. Heck, at the city level, the town I grew up in will put an end to discussion of things on the agenda if it's not going their way after me and a bunch of people used the rules about a decade ago, and forced a council meeting to go past 2 AM.
No one believes any of the Cathy,
#1 At least it wasn't rice.
#2 Maggots should be served with boiled guano.
Some places they eat grubs as a regular thing, tell the kids it's Multi-Cultural Awareness Week and the maggots are part of the curriculum. What, you don't think kids should learn about other cultures, you bigoted red-neck?
But the white can't eat the maggot because that's 'cultural appropriations ' and Dear Leader says that's bad.
Western culture is the only culture in the world that doesn't include insect regularly in their diet. Granted, some African cultures literally eat dirt, so.....
What cultures eat dirt? The most I ever heard about was a tribe that made a delicious soup out of their deceased comrades' ashes.
I hear ashes also make delicious chocolate milk.
Insects include themselves in our food regularly, at least during warmer months. Have you never been to an outdoor barbecue?
I worked in food service for the better part of two decades and I never saw maggots served to anyone.
I found worms in lettuce, spiders on fruit, rotten this and rotten that. Found spoiled meat, dead lobsters and clams, fish that smelled so bad I puked on the spot, I could go on.
None of it made it to the customer.
Thing is, being in the private sector, something like that ending up on someone's plate could cost thousands and thousands of dollars, or even get you shut down.
When a government school does it, they can demand a thank you from the poor souls who were served maggots. I highly doubt anyone even got fired.
It's disgusting on too many levels.
But it'll be solved the minute government gives everyone free healthcare and free college!
They should be thankful for the additional protein in their diets and be thankful that they're not the target of attacks from Trumpistas, who seriously argue that compulsory "edukashion" is a "benefit"...
"Trumpistas, who seriously argue that compulsory "edukashion" is a "benefit"..."
Ummm... what?
Compulsory education is the foundation of our democracy!
"Trumpistas, who seriously argue that compulsory "edukashion" is a "benefit"..."
Yes, I think OMMH missed it on this one... The left in general, IMHO, is a lot more likely to trot this tired old line than the right is...
OMHA should be OMWA - Old Mex With Alzheimers
Dude... Bringing Trump into this is like my grandmother blaming Obama for her gout.
Last night, I had a dream which featured Obama.
We were attending a minor league baseball game in both Lowell, Mass (the Lowell Spinners) and the publicly funded stadium to be of the Worcester Red Sox.
He moved to a seat in the row in front of me, one seat over. He was tipsy. Maybe a little bit more. Then two college aged kids came and took him. I think they were supposed to be secret service.
Dreams of Our Father.
Better head back to Tennessee Jed.
That's right you old beaner, it's Trump, who appointed an ED secretary who supports school choice who is responsible for supporting compulsory public education--not your leftist buddies who want to insert all your wetback grandchildren into that taxpayer funded compulsory public school system.
Was it a stroke?
Senile dementia?
What the hell has happened to you?
You know what the difference is between someone who uses "beaner" and "wetback" as genuine racial slurs, and someone who uses them as quasi-serious buzzwords to "trigger the snowflakes" for the lulz?
There isn't one.
If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training, you will be a weapon. You will be a minister of death praying for war. But until that day, you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grab-asstic pieces of amphibian shit! Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved Corps. Do you maggots understand that?
-R. Lee Ermey
+ 1,000,000
Good ole R. Lee made a great detective out of that loser Vinnie D'Onofrio.
Well, an incredibly smug detective, anyway.
Agreed. Brilliant, but smug. Also annoying.
I always wondered what a greaser is exactly, in this context. Never heard it used that way before, but it better be Puerto Ricans, otherwise he really is a bigot.
Latinos used to put axle grease in their hair.
No seriously, 'Greaser' was a term for poor Latinos who tended to be mechanics. Using the grease(r). It was actually possible to work on 1940-1960 cars and a lot of young Latinos tinkered with cars.
Greasers are a youth subculture from the 60s and 70s of poor white trash. I suggest reading the book The Outsiders.
Stay gold, Ponyboy
You know who else thought that Tony's parent didnt have any children that lived?
Hitler?
Tony's siblings?
Tony's parents?
This late & only the Brickbat's up? They must've run out of Kavanaugh sexcapades to write about, & there's 0 else going on.
At this point the agenda should be a recall election of the entire school board, and maybe a lawsuit.
There's a union thug somewhere in this story, I just know it.
Go ahead. Bite the big apple. Don't mind the maggots.
Shadooby, kiddos.
When I was about 5 we went cherry picking. The older kids and adults were eating them off the tree, I didn't eat any becaus I didn't like cherries. After we got home when pitting them we found a maggot in every single one. My brothers turned green. Lol