Michelle Obama Vows Veto of Changes to School Lunch Menus

Semi-News/Semi-Satire ^ | 30 May 2014 | John Semmens

[John Semmens]

First Lady Michelle Obama says she will "veto" any effort by Republicans in Congress to grant local school districts discretion to deviate from her prescribed "healthy fare" food choices. "Obesity is a serious health threat and I have worked too long and hard to allow the gains I have achieved to be undermined by people suffering from nutritional ignorance," she declared.

School districts have sought freedom to diverge from the First Lady's program because many of their students refuse to eat what is served. Nonetheless, Michelle sees no reason to yield or compromise. "Even if it is true that some of their students won't eat what's good for them, I can't permit the substitution of unhealthy alternatives," she insisted. "If this means that some students go without lunch, well, is that really so bad? Kids today are way too fat. Missing one meal a day would probably benefit most of them."

Meanwhile, the lunches served to Michelle's daughters at the posh Sidwell Friends School deviate considerably from what she has decreed must be mandatory for public schools catering to the broader population.

if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at...

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/156686-2014-05-30-semi-news-a-satire-of-recent-news-june-1-2014.htm

[itssme]

Loved your post. Your experiences growing up reflect my own back in the 40s & 50s. My mom never worked during her marriage..only after my dad passed away many years later. We had married dads and moms and grandmas’s/grandpa's in those day, who worked together and helped one another. Mom took care of her husband, children, home. My grandma helped out my mother when she could with babysitting. My mom & her nine siblings took care of grandma & grandpa throughout their lives. My dad worked full time and worked around the house in his free time.

Your daily routine was like my own as a kid. Mom made us breakfast & off we walked to school. Back home for lunch and then the walk back to school. After school, we had a snack, changed out clothes & went outside to play. After dinner, it was homework time, & then listening to the radio for our nightly favorite programs. And then it was bed time. On Sunday, after I picked up the Sunday newspapers on my way home from Mass, my parents would read the news, and my brother & I would read all the cartoons..looked forward to them each Sunday. Use to go to the neighborhood show each Saturday, along with many of the kids in the neighborhood, for the movie, popcorn, candy, cartoons and news of the world on the big screen.

I think we got our first TV in the late 40s/early 50s,and then we'd watch a kid's TV program called kids’ TV program called Lunchtime Little Theatre with Uncle Johnny Coons while we ate our lunch and then back to school. In the evening, we'd do our homework first after dinner, and then watch TV with our parents. If my Dad fell asleep in his char, & my Mom was busy in the kitchen, we kids would then turn the channel to watch something a kid would like to see. Sweet memories, and only one TV in each home!

In the summer, the fun never ended, and we get to stay up later and do summer fun things. Aside from my roller skates, my bike and Red Flyer wagon, all our play consisted of fun things we thought up to do and the props we built with our own hands. The local Boy's Club..we lived in Chicago (b/4 they had Girls & Boys Clubs) and the local parks provided lots of fun opportunities, aside from the big yard we had at home. We also liked to play boardgames & cards when we were younger, as you said defconw, there were no video games or other electronics. “We wined if we could not go outside” to quote your words, and that is sooo true. Even IF it was snowing. Those WERE THE DAYS, MY FRIEND.

[Shimmer1]

Oh John, you’ve done it again!!!! (said in my best Magoo voice)

[ComputerGuy]

...catering to the broader population...

There's no need to talk about your butt, Moochelle

[itssme]

OOPS! Sorry for all the errors but I wasn’t able to correct them. QUESTION: why is when I go to preview my post and check it for errors before hitting the post key, that I can’t bring back my original post, in order to correct it. Sometimes I can bring back the original post, and sometimes I can’t,and unless it’s a recognized spelling error, I can’t correct the error as I find them. Can anyone help?

[defconw]

Yes they were. You reminded me of something. If there was no one to play with I would ride my bike all day long. Just round and round. We had a little park near by, we thought it was big then. We would ride our bikes down there everyday in the summer and take a sack lunch.

We would go swimming every afternoon and spent evenings after the street lights came on in the yard chasing lighting bugs. TV was for winters and rainy days. But I remember if it was warm enough and no lighting was in the area, we would put on our swim suits and play in the rain or on someones front porch. I feel lucky that I had that. I feel sorry for today's kids. Everything is organized and structured. Blah!

[usconservative]

I’m sorry but since when does the First Sasquatch have the power to dictate anything?

[CAluvdubya]

Dang! You got me again, John! I got several comments in before I went back to see who wrote this.

Nice work!

[matt04]

I blame the schools and Oprah types as well. They made parents fear little Johnny getting a scrape.

[COBOL2Java]

[itssme]

Speaking of lightening bugs, we use to catch grasshoppers in our yard & then let them go. At nite, we ‘d watch the lightening bugs fly around in the yard, as we sat & talked on our side porch in the yard. At night it was too spooky to go in to the yard, no lights except the lone light at the back of the property in the alley. In Chicago, in the 30s & 40s, when the summer nites were sweltering & no one of course had air conditioning, and fans weren’t enough, people would go down to the Chicago lakefront and sleep on the lawns there. It was safe back then, and the police would keep an eye on everyone. Our family would just sweat it out, with all the windows open at home, when the lights went out..what I wouldn't have done to have a summer porch to sleep in, with cool breezes and the stars in the sky to light up the night. I also remember putting on bathing suits and running through the water from the oscillating sprinkler in our yard on summer days..still can remember the feel of the wet grass under my feet and the cool water. I agree with you. I don't envy the lives of children today. Such a dangerous, regimented life they lead, with no opportunity to really be a kid and do the things that kids do, safe from harm, with no communist/socialist/marxist/muzzie supporter in their White House who wants to destroy their world and make it into a utopia of oppression and death. God help them.

[liberalh8ter]

You really got ‘em good this time. Excellent subject matter.

[Busko]

It can’t veto a damned thing. She needs sent to a nut house along with the turd she married.

[defconw]

I remember piling up in my grandparents living room they would leave the door open and we would all sleep on the floor so the night air would cool us. It was sleeping outside without the bugs!

I live in the woods now and we are well armed. Once again I can sleep with the windows open. I really missed that for 30 years or so. I only put the air on when the cats start to pant.

[IIntense]

I wonder if the kids growing up today would trade places with those who grew up during the 40s and 50s. They may actually believe they got the better deal. Computers, video games, cell phones, smart phones, suburban homes, two-income parents, etc., etc. Maybe every generation thinks theirs was the best.

I relate to the 40s and 50s era and keep in touch with a couple of friends from those days. One of them lived three houses away on a row house street with 16 ft. wide homes. We've been friends for 69 yrs. and frequently talk about our great childhood (in the city). Yes, life was simpler then for kids. We walked to and from school in the morning, for lunch, and after school regardless of the weather. None of the moms drove cars and the dads worked all day.

We didn't have a park nearby---we called it "the lot", and the boys got together to play baseball there---no adults controlled their games.

I'm tempted to go on about jumping rope in the one-block street,the boys playing half-ball against the cigar factory wall,and so much more. Maybe I should write some memoirs!

Anyway, thanks for the memories.

[itssme]

You just reminded me that during the hot summer nights, my brother & I would sleep on the floor to catch the cool breeze from the open windows at night..that was a long time ago when we could open all our windows at night & just latch the screened door on our side porch(no double-bolt lock necessary.) I also live in a wooded area today, and love the smell of the woods and the fresh cool air at night. After I married and we had two cats, I had to make sure I didn’t turn on the AC for too long a time or too low a temp, because our cats didn’t like the cold. Cats rule, you know!

[itssme]

I think that if today's kids experienced the life we had as kids, they'd want to trade places. In Chicago, we lived in a circa 1879 home called a “worker's cottage”, a formerly larger home divided into two separate apartments (my grandfather made the changes b/4 he died, knowing that his wife would want to live in the same house with one of her children after his death.) My parents then moved into the front apartment after their marriage in 1940. We lived 10 blocks from the Chicago Stock Yards and on a warm summer night with the breezes blowing, you could smell the “fragrance” and hear the faint sounds of cattle mowing, if that's the correct word for it. For a city girl, who wanted to be a cowgirl each Saturday afternoon, while watching the latest cowboy and indian movie at our neighborhood movie theatre while wearing her new cowgirl boots that her Mom bought her for her birthday, it was unreal.

You're right in that there were few cars parked on streets in those days, and Moms didn't drive..everybody walked or took the bus. There were open lots in our neighborhood also, where kids would play ball. Some of the lots had tall, overgrown grass & weeds, and we use to call then the “prairie”, I think it's a Chicago term. We had those wonderful Ma and Pa grocery stores in our neighborhood and I can remember my Mom sending me to the butcher's around the block for a pound of round steak ground for that night's dinner, or across the street to the Ma & Pa grocery store for canned goods and ice cream for us. Or to the fish store on Fridays for Pike fish, my Dad's favorite.

I'd love to hear about your memories as you've mentioned. Jumping rope, playing tag games in the street, roller skating, dressing up in homemade costumes on Halloween, celebrating Christmas in pre and post WWII households, and the simplicity and sensible gift giving practices that kids today know nothing about. Tell me more...