Posted on 11/14/2011 1:12:57 PM PST by Sybeck1
MEMPHIS, TN - (WMC-TV) - A new meal program for some students of Memphis City Schools was the subject of a recent rant by nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh.
Students in dozens of Memphis City Schools are receiving an extra meal - dinner - during the district's after-hours enrichment programs. A recent story in the Commercial Appeal about the federally funded program caught Limbaugh's attention.
"The writer, this Jane Roberts, (writes as if) 'oh this is wonderful...this is the greatest invention ever: supper at school,'" Limbaugh said.
The article spotlighted an 11-year-old student at Shelby Oaks Elementary who expressed his gratitude for an additional meal at the end of the day.
"Why does this kid need supper at school?" Limbaugh asked.
Using Memphis as his whipping post, Limbaugh then criticized the federal government's Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was passed last year. The act adds dinner to lunch rooms across the country for the nation's poorest students.
"The sperm meets the egg, the kids are born, and off to school he goes," Limbaugh said. "You might see him on weekends, but you're not going to be expected to feed him."
Action News 5 contacted Memphis City Schools for a response to Limbaugh's statements, but a spokesperson said the district would not dignify the host's comments with a statement. But after the broadcast, parents like Richard Mitchell were quick to respond.
"That doesn't sound very sympathetic," he said. "I mean, my boy eats dinner at home, but some other people's might not."
Clearly, Limbaugh's criticism of a government program for the poor go beyond the Bluff City, but reading a story from the Commercial Appeal made Memphis easy pickings for his platform.
Action News 5 attempted to reach Limbaugh for comment, but Friday, the media telephone line for the E.I.B. Network was either busy or there was no answer.
“Rush rants” with good reason. Feed your own damn kids. And he’s right-—this is all about SEIU jobs.
How ‘bout a midnight snack? After midnight basketball, or midnight... Well, who knows?
IMAGINE! Asking the question of why the government has to feed 3 meals a day to children. HOW DARE YOU SIR!
Also right in line with child care in Mao’s communes.
Just getting the students ready for their future in another institution that provides “three hots and a cot.”
Why should she have a problem with GOVERNMENT feeding kids instead of parents. She has worked for GOVERNMENT radio/tv to pay her!
******
Professional Experience: Anchor, Reporter, Producer, Director at Georgia Public Television in Atlanta, Ga. form 1986-1993. Radio News Anchor, WSB Atlanta (most recent job before moving to Memphis) 1993-1995
Awards/Recognition: Numerous Regional awards for work in public radio feature stories
“Lots of under privileged children are made to feel bad because they can’t afford stuff as nice as their rich classmates.”
In Memphis they don’t have “rich classmates”, most of them live in the suburbs and/or go to private schools.
No one in this country goes hungry unless his parent or guardian is stealing from them and diverting funds or benefits intended to feed him to other uses.
School ‘dinners’ plays right into the hands of SEIU who would benefit financially from the program as they are the ones who provide the meal services.
If they are getting breakfast and lunch at school... why are they starving at dinner? And if we are feeding kids for free, why aren’t we feeding all the kids? Isn’t that discriminatory?/sarc
When I was a student in NJ many moons ago, school children got free milk and soup at lunch which the proceeds from horse racing provided. And you didn’t have to be fake poor to receive, you just had to be a student.
>> Plays right into the hands of the Democrats.
Who cares. Everything plays into the hands of these facilitators.
Said it before and I’ll say it again - Nutraloaf should be the meal served for free by goobermint agencies. It has the calories and nutrients necessary to stave off starvation, but the taste and texture are an incentive to provide something better for yourself. It can be made in huge batches and doesn’t require a kitchen, or plate or even a spork to be served to customers. Prisons, shelters and schools should be serving up a nice slice to anyone who asks for it.
Don’t you know that in the end, that anyone who had enough money to buy their own food was labeled a Kulak.
Yes, I know most of these benefits are not income. So they don’t offset someone getting earned income credit and child deductions, etc. So for many of these “poor” people, all of their income is available for discretionary spending (fancy manicures, gold teeth, you name it). While the rest of us juggle and balance, trying to keep it going from month to month. Yet we are seen as the “bad guys” and unsympathetic to those who are “in poverty”.
Rush is correct here. My initial thought was that this was just another step on the path to total state run/state controlled life. The next step is to just put the kids into a creche as soon as they are born. The mother and father are just sperm and egg donors. The offspring are the total wards of the state.
And of course the parents must be “Taxed/Fee’ed/child support ordered” to pay for this wonderful program that will take this “Unwanted Burden” out of their lives.
I’m a native Mid-Southerner and after retiring from the military, I worked as a public school teacher in districts in Northern Mississippi (think Memphis, but just on a smaller scale).
At the last school where I worked, every single child qualified for the school lunch program (and we had more than 300 kids enrolled). In fact, they also qualified for the supplemental nutrition program, which meant we had to stop class every morning at 8:45 and march them to the cafeteria for breakfast. In the afternoon, every school participating in the post-school program got a snack as well. If “Supper at School” had been a reality in those days, we would have fed them again.
Here’s the dirty little secret that Ms. Hartman and school officials won’t tell you. Funding for many federal school programs is linked to the number of children who qualify for free or reduced lunches. So, getting more kids in the cafeteria, as often as possible, means more federal dollars. No wonder Memphis school cafeterias will soon match Denny’s operating schedule?
And what do we get for all this supplemental nutrition? The school where I taught was on the verge of state takeover, because our seventh graders were reading and doing math on a second grade level. And Memphis has some of the worst public schools in the country.
One more thing: as Rush observed today, Memphis ranks as the fifth-fattest city in America, and a lot of the obese residents are kids. How can so many kids be “hungry” (and in need of school-supplied supper) in a town with an obesity epidemic?
Where are these parents when the child gets home? Why do they have so little contact with the child that lunch and even dinner (and breakfast in other schools) isn't provide?
When the gov't is providing things, like essential meals, directly to your child, the child is not longer yours. You are losing status. You are losing influence in your child's lives.
We see this move to make gov't more influential with kids in CA under AB 499 which allows 12 year olds to directly consent to medical treatments like vaccinations.
Gov't becomes the parent, not a helpmate, under the Democrat's worldview.
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