Talk Back to Berkeley: Sign the Petition(Michelle Malkin: Berkeley bans Marines)

michellemalkin.com ^ | February 1, 2008 | MICHELLE MALKIN

[Pit1]

Signed with all honor and pride of the finest fighting force known to mankind. Berkeley needs to be de-commissioned as a city. Their managers are all POS and full of themself.

Semper Fi

USMC '59 - 64

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Please see my post #57 - some Marines put together their own petition.

[kcvl]

“If there’s a senator from South Carolina that wants to take healthy food away from the children of Berkeley because the City Council has an issue with the military recruiting downtown, I just think that’s absurd,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the district.

Chef Ann Cooper is a renegade lunch lady who works to transform cafeterias into culinary classrooms for students - one school lunch at a time.

Ann is demanding that the issue become a part of the 2008 presidential race

Chef Ann is at the fore front of the movement to transform the National School Lunch Program into one that places greater emphasis on the health of students than the financial health of a select few agribusiness corporations. Chef Ann's lunch menus emphasize regional, organic, fresh foods, and nutritional education, helping students to build a connection between their personal health and where their food comes from. Chef Ann's newest book, Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children hit bookstores on September 5

In addition to her work with BUSD and the Chez Panisse Foundation in Berkeley, CA, Chef Ann collaborated with the Center for Ecoliteracy and Slow Food USA to develop a Model Wellness Policy Guide

[kcvl]

“If there’s a senator from South Carolina that wants to take healthy food away from the children of Berkeley because the City Council has an issue with the military recruiting downtown, I just think that’s absurd,” said Ann Cooper, director of nutrition services for the district.

It has not been easy to find time to talk with chef Ann Cooper since she became director of nutrition services last October for the Berkeley, California, Unified School District, where she oversees gardening programs at eleven schools

My time cooking lobster sushi Napoleons for rich people was over; it was time to try to make the world a better place.

We've gone from 95 percent processed foods to 95 percent made from scratch. When we reopen, every school will have a salad bar. We have only hormone- and antibiotic-free dairy and offer fresh fruit and vegetables at every meal.

We instituted a swipe-card system, so that instead of reduced-meal kids being conspicuously checked off a list, every child swipes a card to pay. We've eliminated the stigma about who is free and who is not.

We canceled all of our food contracts and are now buying much of our food from locally owned businesses. All of our Mexican food is made by a locally owned Hispanic company; all of our baked products come from a local, women-owned compan.

It costs about 18 percent more per kid per lunch--which is about 50 cents a day--more than what we get in reimbursements from the Feds and the state. (That's not just for food; it includes labor--but not overhead, which adds another 50 cents.)

When you include fossil fuels used in food production, and the several-billion-a-month war in Iraq, what is the real price?

We need to see school lunch as part of a health initiative, not just as a dumping ground for agribusiness. School food service is now administered by the US Department of Agriculture, which is basically a marketing arm for agribusiness. Really, school food should be housed in Health and Human Services or the Centers for Disease Control.

I'm a high school dropout

We have to have the will to stand up and say we're going to serve our kids healthy food and that we have to do it because we're killing our kids.

[kcvl]

In East Hampton, Cooper spent $12 per child on breakfast and lunch; in Berkeley, she can only spend $3.50 per child.

She banned chocolate milk, vending machines, and fried foods.

Tuesday is pizza day at Malcolm X elementary school. Cooper had the FullBloom Baking Company create a healthy pizza with vegetable toppings, but the kids couldn't stand it.

Cooper was tens of thousands of dollars over budget, and cafeteria attendance had yet to go up

Public-school lunches already cost the country $7 billion a year. To double that funding “would take a profile in courage.”

[Marine_Uncle]

It is more difficult to fight the evil forces within our borders then the goons in those far distant countries.

[ozzymandus]

Signed and bumped

[concretebob]

BUMP
and
SIGNED

[rep-always]

Yes, I wonder what they would say if we closed up Berkeley and let the terrorists in. No Marines, no police, no one to help them. And since I’m sure most of them don’t have any firearms they would really be up the creek without a paddle. Oh, well. Such is life.

[marine86297]

Proudly signed by not only a US Marine but a former recruiter as well.

Semper Fidelis

[marine86297]

Proudly signed by not only a US Marine but a former recruiter as well.

Semper Fidelis

[Chgogal]

GRRRRRR! Ying Lee, a former Berkley Council Member accuses the Marine Recruiters of purposefully lying to young people. She quotes “the Military, ABC and the NYT”. Can the Marines sue this lady?

[bdennard]

On Jan 31, 2008 I wrote a letter to the Mayor of Berkeley stating my position regarding his and the City Counsel’s position on the USMC recruiting station.
I passed that letter along to a couple of Marine handball buddies. They passed that email/letter to the guys who play in the Semper Fi handball tournament at MCRD, who passed it along to, who passed it along to, etc.
In my wildest dreams I never envisioned the response I have received. I now spend ALL DAY answering my cell phone acknowledging that yes, I really did write “THE” letter, and receiving personal thank yous from Generals, Majors, Colonels, SGTs, PVTs, CEOs, COOs, talk show hosts, and average everyday American Patriots. 220 calls yesterday and more today the 7th of Feb.
Likewise I spend the balance reading emails from the same sort of people.
I am humbled to a degree that is hard to state clearly. I am emotionally overwhelmed with the positive response to my letter and want to thank everyone who has called me or emailed me to state their support.
My intention was never to shine the spotlight on me, it was to cause, to whatever degree I could, great fiscal discomfort to the city of Berkeley in retaliation to their un-American, cowardly and despicable stance that the US Marines are unwelcome, and uninvited intruders in their city.
If in my small way I helped light a fire that now appears to be blazing across the nation, I am proud of that, but I am more proud of the fact that I could , at a time when our heroes are fighting against those who would destroy us, help focus some attention to the vast debt, and undying respect, that we as a nation owe to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

Respectfully,

Brian G Dennard

Dear Mayor Bates, Jan 31, 2008

In that you and your city have chosen to gravely insult the brave men and women, who have indeed bought you that right with their blood, I am informing you that my company will no longer do business with any of our current suppliers located in the Berkeley,California metro area.

In that my company is in international resort real estate development, and do business with and am associated with, developers and investors worldwide, I am informing all of my contacts, associates and patrons that we will no longer do any business of any sort with anyone living in the Berkeley area.

In that we/MDG Resorts are currently building a state of the art mega-yacht marina, all of the suppliers of Marina equipment, all owners of Yachts , all suppliers of Yacht materials & supplies, all yacht brokers and all tangential yacht business purveyors will likewise be informed that we will not do any business whatsoever with anyone from the Berkeley area.

Likewise all suppliers of building materials, both interior and exterior, currently associated with any of our several resort developments (Brisamar 300+ villas and 200+ condos: Porto Hussong, www.portohussong.com 500+ condos, 180 slip mega-yacht marina) both of which I might add have international recognition by virtue of glowing reports in Robb Report, Wall Street Journal, Yacht World, Forbes.

I will likewise inform all of our investors, most of whom are very wealthy yacht owners, casino owners, high net worth international businessmen, of our decision to essentially boycott all products and providers located in, or associated with in any way whatsoever,Berkeley, Ca.

Trust me when I say that having been in the real estate development business for over 35 years, our list of contacts and associates is long and very, very impressive. We, and I personally, are going to recomend that they ALL along with us boycott your city, its purveyors, suppliers, and businesses and CHARITIES of every kind.

You have every right to choose to take the obnoxious anti-military stance you have taken, and as stated, that right was bought for you with the blood of better men than you.

I too have every right to do all that I can to insure that your city suffers consequences arising from that obnoxious, sickening stance.

Cordially,

Brian G Dennard

Principal

Director
Meridian Development Group, LLC
619 807 2444
www.mdgresorts.com
www.portohussong.com