The Hell You Say
On Monday night during the Republican Lt. Governor debate, Dan Patrick defended his bankruptcy and his current refusal to pay off his debts by saying, “We don’t have debtor’s prisons in America.”
The hell you say.
Up to 40 kids at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City picked up their lunches Tuesday, then watched as the meals were taken and thrown away because of outstanding balances on their accounts — a move that shocked and angered parents.
“It was pretty traumatic and humiliating,” said Erica Lukes, whose 11-year-old daughter had her cafeteria lunch taken from her as she stood in line Tuesday at Uintah Elementary School, 1571 E. 1300 South.
Any day of the week I would prefer to go to prison than have my child humiliated like that.
Dan Patrick lives high off the hog now by erasing his old debts. These parents have to watch their children be shamed. What the hell is happening in my country?
And where in the whole damn world is it okay to throw away food?
Thanks to everybody for the heads up.
Let me clarify about bankruptcy. Some of those creditors are mom and pop businesses that just get screwed. Mama Ninfa (beloved by all, it seems) used to do it on a regular basis (whatever the legal time frame was for being allowed to do it again). Those sometimes small businesses that got left holding the bag went under.
1And let’s not even get started on the indentured servitude (to put it charitably) that are college loans. BTW, the only debt you CANNOT discharge in bankruptcy. Not to mention, don’t pay (for whatever reason) garnished wages, social security checks garnished, so on. Not to mention creditors and court systems using courts to indeed put debtors in prison.
See here for instance: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/as-economy-flails-debtors-prisons-thrive/
or here:
So, who says there are not debtor’s prisons?
As for the kids in the school lunch story? That is just inhumane child abuse, pure and simple. What has this country come to they would rather let kids starve than cut them a break?
2Heads I win, tails you lose…
Randians; born deadbeats.
3Shaming children is absolutely cruel and ineffective, as is purposely wasting food. What was the message? Your parents didn’t pay so we punish you. Anyone involved in that debacle doesn’t belong in a school. I’m guessing the principal came up with this one. He/she should be fired.
4The sobs of hungry children is sweet music to the job creators like John Galt.
5All this fighting about school lunch.
Why don’t we just include lunch as part of schooling, just like books and classrooms? It is part of the school day.
6Holding children up to public ridicule is cruel.
We already have lots and lots of kids on reduced and free lunch.
Why don’t we just include lunch for everyone as part of schooling, just like books and classrooms? It is part of the school day.
7Good point, crone. It’s probably cheaper to simply feed the kids that do all that accounting to track pennies. It’s win-win, when kids are fed and can focus.
It would be great, if we employed more people to feed and educate the kids. Pre-school through 4th grade would be so much more effective with class sizes under 20. The idea of 35+ children in a first grade classroom boggles the mind.
8So that’s what it means to “Suffer the little children…”. Bet this isn’t the only abuse going on under that school leadership.
9Keep in mind, these might be people that *insist* bullying is a right of passage. If it is SO important, pay someone to dun the parents, don’t take it out on the kids.
10Whoever ordered the food snatch should be fired.
11From the article: The district attempted to contact parents with balances via phone Monday and Tuesday, Olsen said, but weren’t able to reach them all before the child-nutrition manager decided to take away the students’ lunches.”
That child nutrition manager needs their stupid butt kicked!!
12Crone – unfortunately books, papers, pencils etc. usually come from teachers paychecks (they are SO overpaid). The classroom “rent’ would too, I suppose if the right-wingnuts could find a way.
13I hate to tell you but Texas public schools don’t have text books, or not many. Mostly they hand out printed work sheets. Well, yeah, I think crone’s advice is wise. Let’s put signs on our cars and in our yards. FEED THE KIDS, ALL OF THEM. PERIOD. I’ve had at least two middle aged “kids” tell me recently that it is going to take a revolution to change the way corporations have taken over our government. It’s all about making the super duper rich richer and never mind what happens to anyone else. CALL 202 225 3121 and say NO FAST TRACK FOR THE TPP. We’ll see more and more hungry kids otherwise because the rich won’t pay their taxes so everyone says “THE DEBT! THE DEBT!” I’ll tell you what the debt is. The debt is the one owed to the USA by the super duper rich whose addiction to money and property keeps them from turning loose of enough money to help fund regular things like public schools.
14What exactly did they hope to gain by throwing away the children’s lunches? As a tax payer, that just pisses me off! There is way too much food wasted in our school cafeterias as it is, but to have them take the lunches up and throw them away is asinine!
15The throwing away of these kid’s lunches is probably the damndest, dumbest, thing I’ve read this week.
How hard would it have been….. to send a note home with the kid whose parents needed to bring current their lunch account, the day or two before this debacle? “Please bring your kid’s lunch account up to date, or tomorrow, we will not be able to serve them.”
At least parents could send a lunch to school with the child,
if need be, until the child’s lunch account is what it should be.
To humiliate children, and to throw away food. Damned dumb.
16If I could come face to face with the person who made the decision to throw out school lunches and humiliate innocent children, I would find a way to make them regret their stupidity. Someone consciously made this choice. Process that thought for a while…can we all come together and figure out how to remove power from anyone who would ever duplicate this action?
17Skippy, I’m sure whoever this person is, that they are a card carrying member of the religious right and an ardent teabagoid.
18Shades of Lowood School in “Jane Eyre”. Hard-hearted administrators, hungry kids.
19Damned and dumb. No child in this country should go hungry, simple as that. Somebody apparently thought it was better to throw the food in the trash than feed hungry children. I hope there’s a very special Hell for people who would do such a thing. I do. I really do.
20It should be possible to find out the name the “child nutrition manager” (and WTH kind of title is that? And how does someone with the title “nutrition manager” justify throwing away food?) The notion that you can “phone” parents and be sure of getting them–some parents don’t have phones, some are working, not at home and don’t have answering machines–instead of *sending a written notice, a legal notice*–is disgusting. And serving them food and taking it away is just plain cruel…intentionally cruel.
That child nutrition manager AKA child-abuser needs to be re-educated about real life with some firmness.
21The children want bread? Let them eat cake.
Yeah, that philosophy worked out real well.
22In the good ol days children who got free lunches had different colored tickets than those who paid. This is a throwback.
23Here’s the apology:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/elementary-school-takes-away-students–lunches-due-outstanding-balances-on-accounts-174726995.html
24Child nutrition manager is a misnomer. Should be called Repo Man.
25Okay, kids, altogether: “Food glorious food, hot sausage and mustard, while we’re in the mood, cold jellies and custard.”
26Dickens as a Mormon. As hard to picture as an adult taking the food from a child in a school lunchroom and throwing it away.
What would be the appropriate consequence for EVERY adult who was in the chain of this decision?
This has been happening for sevrral years. They did the same thing to my daughter and i had yo raise holy hell. It happened again a couple yests later and still goes on at Greenfield Elementary in Saginaw. The first time they had put notifications that the teacher was suppose to pick up snd pass out to the kids with balances. However we had a sub that didnt pick them up. Its just plain cruel. Punish the kids for an adults mistake. its a real pisser offer.
27In some places dumpster diving for the food thrown out by grocery stores, etc. is considered to be theft.
28Crone, in many schools in today’s world, papers and pencils and even school books are no longer provided. It costs my daughter a fortune to send her kids to school. She has to buy everything from pencils, scissors, paper, notebooks etc. clear to Kleenex. I am surprised her kids don’t have to take their own toilet paper to school with them.
29There is nothing that is right about bullying children and making them go hungry. And what a horrible thing they taught those kids as well.
My husband was laid off during the Reagan years making my kids eligible for ‘free’ lunches. What used to piss me off was they made the kids receiving free lunches stand in a separate line so they stood out like a sore thumb. So even if they got food, they were still shamed. Yet every one of those teachers and lunch ladies just loved to tell the world how ‘Christian’ they were.
30Umtah Elementary sounds like the modern day version of Lowood School in Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I thought we were well beyond that. And as for the jackwagon who made the decision to do this to little kids — maybe kids who would get only one real meal during the day (lunch at school) — should get arrested for child abuse and fired. This is one of those times when, yes, an apology is certainly required but way the hell not good enough. Not by a long sight!
31“Dan Patrick lives high off the hog now by erasing his old debts. These parents have to watch their children be shamed. What the hell is happening in my country?”
It happened a while ago, and its name is Reagen. I remember.
32I’ve wondered since I first read about this if the lunch is provided at that school through a private contractor. That’s one of the reasons school lunches aren’t nearly as good as they were when I was a kid and when my own children were going to school. Most lunches at the schools in my area aren’t cooked at the schools – they’re reheated. They really are bad. The money is handled completely differently, too.
33Though I’m sure most of us “of a certain age” were schooled in not wasting food, that has changed with the times. I read a study, I think from Oxfam, that shows we throw away half the food we buy in the U.S. Municipal and state law in many areas make it illegal for grocers to donate to homeless shelters and food banks any canned foods, breads and produce past the “sell by” date, so it ends up in the dump to decompose, adding tons of carbon to the atmosphere. And, as someone else noted, in some locations it’s illegal to dumpster dive for food.
We’ve become a throw-away society, with “planned obsolesence” celebrated as sound business practice.
But for those folks in Utah to shame those children in such a manner is just cruel, causing me to question whether they should be around any impressionable youth, if that’s the example they set.
Perhaps they assumed the kids will never be able to better their station in life because they come from struggling families. They should be reminded that here in America, we believe every kid deserves a fair chance to be all they can be. Shaming kids to prove a point with their parents and taking food from their mouths is not only petty and disgusting, it should be considered criminal under child abuse statutes.
34I find it very interesting that Patrick can run for Lite Gov after having filed for bankruptcy. My wife and I have one of those on our credit report which is part of the reason she remains unemployed for 4 years and counting. All this time and she could have just run for elective office where bad credit doesn’t matter.
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