A long time friend commented that she was glad that I am putting my American Idol posts on a separate blog. I'm not sure if that was a shot at me or not. After all, what is wrong with American Idol? Wait, don't answer that...
If you saw the profile of local food goddess Alice Waters on 60 Minutes a week ago Sunday you saw that the lunch program at the Berkeley schools that she championed was prominently featured. Waters mentioned in the interview that she wants to use the Berkeley program as a model for schools all across the country to help reduce the rate of obesity among America's youth.
If you are not familiar with the program, Waters through her foundation completely reformed the lunch program in the Berkeley schools. Instead of the processed and frozen foods that haven't changed since either of us were in school the kids in Berkeley get freshly cooked meals made with ingredients harvested either right on campus or at a nearby farm, similar to what Waters uses in her famous restaurant Chez Panisse. The district also has a state-of-the-art kitchen and an executive chef to develop the menus and cook the meals.
This all sounds well and good but there is apparently one big problem, there is not enough money any more to pay for the program. The grant provided by Waters' foundation ran out this year and the foundation has indicated that they are not planning on renewing it. Since there are not enough kids buying these lunches to cover the cost of making them the district kicked in around $275,000 this year to keep the program running. However, now that they are facing budget cuts the district has said that it does not want to subsidize the program to that extent any more.
The executive chef, who is leaving the district in June to take the program to other districts, said in the San Francisco Chronicle that the reason Waters' foundation is no longer funding the program is because the intent was for the program to pay for itself; and that the reason funding is short is because there are not enough kids currently in the program to do this. The Chronicle noted that only 50% of elementary school kids, 35% of middle school kids, and 10% of high school kids regularly buy their lunches at school. The paper also notes that the program costs about $1.40 per student lunch, compared to $0.80 to $0.90 for the frozen, processed stuff that the kids in other districts eat.
So why if this program is so important to Alice Waters and other supporters (including one who claimed that it was a "moral imperative") are they not ponying up the extra money to keep the program going? If this program is so naturally wonderful then why are the majority of students in a politically progressive town like Berkeley not participating in it?
What we have here is a case of people who are blinded by their ideals to the extent that they cannot see the reality through the trees. I sense that Alice Waters thought that parents would naturally be willing to kick in the extra money to pay for a program that is better for their kids, so much so that it may be inconceivable to her that the majority of parents would not. I sense that she also forgot that when given a choice most high school kids would choose cheaper junk food over the healthier fare that she is offering. I know I was guilty of that when I was a teenager and so were most of you. They are not nearly as impressionable as the elementary school kids that were featured in the 60 Minutes piece. Speaking of which, I find it interesting that the money issue was never brought up in the story. Only the positive aspects of the program (and don't get me wrong, I think that there are positive aspects of the program) were featured.
I think it is time for a reality check. If you want to improve the quality of school lunches then you better be prepared to pay for it yourself or find some way to make it more affordable and thus more attractive to the average Joe and Jane who have never set foot in Chez Panisse. To do otherwise is not only a waste of money and effort but it is also insulting to those who don't share these same ideals. You can't sell your product by telling people that they have a moral imperative to spend more money than they can afford or more than what their friends in other districts are being asked to pay. You have to convince them that your product is better, not just assume that because you feel that way they will too. Just ask any American auto maker. It is this arrogance that really bothers me sometimes, so much that I actually spend an hour typing this up and I don't even live in Berkeley.
That's enough of that serious stuff, back to American Idol...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
No Justice No Oakland
I have been struggling all week trying to figure out what to say about the murder of 4 police officers in the city that I call home. I have some very definite feelings about this but I don't know if I can put those words in writing and not get more than a few people unnecessarily upset at me, especially since people who know me personally are reading this blog.
If it was not obvious before it should be obvious now that there is a significant number of people in Oakland who view the police as the enemy that they want to see defeated by any means necessary. I hope I am not sounding racist by pointing out that the majority of these people are African American and live in the relatively poor East and West Oakland neighborhoods. These are the people who justified vandalizing Oakland businesses on 2 separate occasions in protest over the shooting of an African American man, Oscar Grant, on an Oakland BART station New Years Day by a BART police officer, and these are the people who taunted the police and held memorials for the African American man, Lovell Mixon, who shot and killed the 4 Oakland cops last Saturday.
To them, none of this is the fault of the shooter but of a society, and in particular its police force, that they see as racist and discriminatory. They claim it was society that turned Lovell Mixon into a monster and that the police were asking for it because of all of the abuse, both real and imagined, that the police inflict on African Americans. This article in New American Media outlines this case and talks about how Mixon's actions were celebrated by some that feel that justice was served.
There is that word: justice. It is a word that we in Oakland have heard a lot this year, first after the BART shooting and again now. One of its definitions is: "the use of authority and power to uphold what is right, just, or lawful." But what is considered "right" and "just" is subject to interpretation. To some, retribution and retaliation are considered "just" and in that context one can see why people would see the murder of 4 police officers as justice. It is this same mindset that justifies the protests and the calls for the execution of the former BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant.
But when does it end? At what point will all be forgiven? Retaliation and the thirst for revenge is a powerful motivator that does not quickly turn off once it is turned on. Just ask the people of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, who have been engaged in a war fueled by revenge for over 60 years. Even worse, it often grows like a cancer, constantly feeding and growing until it consumes its victims. Two years ago there was an 8 year old boy here in Oakland who was hit by stray bullet while taking piano lessons and became paralyzed from the waist down. The bullet was fired by someone robbing the gas station across the street from the piano store. The shooter was caught and is currently awaiting trial. There was a large outpouring of support from the community towards the boy and his family and calls for the city to increase their efforts to prevent this from happening again, calls that quickly faded away to nothing. Today violent crime in Oakland is even more prevalent than it was then. What hope can we have then that the calls for change that this new incident has generated will actually result in real, positive change, especially when there are people in this city that view strengthening law enforcement as a negative change rather than a positive one? What other effective options are there? What will it take to stop the killings and make Oakland a safer place to live? And does it come at a cost that the people of Oakland, including me, are going to be willing to pay?
For many years Oakland has had an image problem. Many people view Oakland as a dangerous, lawless city, and a few of my friends questioned why I moved here. It may explain why so few of them have come visited me since I moved here 7 years ago. I try telling them that Oakland is not as dangerous as it is portrayed in the media and that it can be a nice place to live, but then incidents like this shooting occur. Not only do I loose credibility but more importantly it leads me to question why I do live here. It leads me to question whether or not there is any hope that Oakland can find its way out of the downward spiral that it has been trapped in for the last few decades and whether or not I can wait around long enough for that to happen. With housing prices being what they are I would have to take a financial loss to move away so that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but what will happen to Oakland in the meantime? I honestly cannot say. I wish that I could.
If it was not obvious before it should be obvious now that there is a significant number of people in Oakland who view the police as the enemy that they want to see defeated by any means necessary. I hope I am not sounding racist by pointing out that the majority of these people are African American and live in the relatively poor East and West Oakland neighborhoods. These are the people who justified vandalizing Oakland businesses on 2 separate occasions in protest over the shooting of an African American man, Oscar Grant, on an Oakland BART station New Years Day by a BART police officer, and these are the people who taunted the police and held memorials for the African American man, Lovell Mixon, who shot and killed the 4 Oakland cops last Saturday.
To them, none of this is the fault of the shooter but of a society, and in particular its police force, that they see as racist and discriminatory. They claim it was society that turned Lovell Mixon into a monster and that the police were asking for it because of all of the abuse, both real and imagined, that the police inflict on African Americans. This article in New American Media outlines this case and talks about how Mixon's actions were celebrated by some that feel that justice was served.
There is that word: justice. It is a word that we in Oakland have heard a lot this year, first after the BART shooting and again now. One of its definitions is: "the use of authority and power to uphold what is right, just, or lawful." But what is considered "right" and "just" is subject to interpretation. To some, retribution and retaliation are considered "just" and in that context one can see why people would see the murder of 4 police officers as justice. It is this same mindset that justifies the protests and the calls for the execution of the former BART police officer who shot and killed Oscar Grant.
But when does it end? At what point will all be forgiven? Retaliation and the thirst for revenge is a powerful motivator that does not quickly turn off once it is turned on. Just ask the people of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, who have been engaged in a war fueled by revenge for over 60 years. Even worse, it often grows like a cancer, constantly feeding and growing until it consumes its victims. Two years ago there was an 8 year old boy here in Oakland who was hit by stray bullet while taking piano lessons and became paralyzed from the waist down. The bullet was fired by someone robbing the gas station across the street from the piano store. The shooter was caught and is currently awaiting trial. There was a large outpouring of support from the community towards the boy and his family and calls for the city to increase their efforts to prevent this from happening again, calls that quickly faded away to nothing. Today violent crime in Oakland is even more prevalent than it was then. What hope can we have then that the calls for change that this new incident has generated will actually result in real, positive change, especially when there are people in this city that view strengthening law enforcement as a negative change rather than a positive one? What other effective options are there? What will it take to stop the killings and make Oakland a safer place to live? And does it come at a cost that the people of Oakland, including me, are going to be willing to pay?
For many years Oakland has had an image problem. Many people view Oakland as a dangerous, lawless city, and a few of my friends questioned why I moved here. It may explain why so few of them have come visited me since I moved here 7 years ago. I try telling them that Oakland is not as dangerous as it is portrayed in the media and that it can be a nice place to live, but then incidents like this shooting occur. Not only do I loose credibility but more importantly it leads me to question why I do live here. It leads me to question whether or not there is any hope that Oakland can find its way out of the downward spiral that it has been trapped in for the last few decades and whether or not I can wait around long enough for that to happen. With housing prices being what they are I would have to take a financial loss to move away so that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but what will happen to Oakland in the meantime? I honestly cannot say. I wish that I could.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Get A Haircut To Go With The Real Job
Over the weekend I got my hair cut, and when I went into the office today several people said to me "you got a hair cut." This happens every time I get a hair cut and I cannot understand why people feel the need to point it out as if I didn't know about it. It's not as if I'm in college anymore where I had drunk roommates who cut the hair of someone sleeping, I was fully awake and in control of my actions when I walked into the barber shop. Are they attempting to complement me for my hair cut, or are they subliminally sending me a message encouraging me to get it cut more often? I wish someone would explain this weird phenomenon. I guess it is OK to get positive attention, I just find it odd that a haircut would draw so much attention.
P.S. Just to set the record straight, my roommates in college never cut my hair, but I did see them do it to someone else once.
P.P.S This post reminded me of this.
P.S. Just to set the record straight, my roommates in college never cut my hair, but I did see them do it to someone else once.
P.P.S This post reminded me of this.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Time Flies When You're Having Fun
Has it really been almost two months since my last post here? Where does the time go? I have been very active with my American Idol blog, which in the past has always taken a considerable amount of my blogging time away, but I think this is the first time I've let a regular blog go for such a long time. Plus I get lots of hits on that site, including a few visits from a certain TV commerical star, which inspire me to spend lots of time over there and precious few hours over here.
I am struggling a bit with what to do here. The predecesor to this blog, the original Reality World, featured a lot of political and social commentary, but to be honest I am not much in a mood to do that now because of all the research that I felt I need to do in order to present my opinions in a truthful manner. It also featured some of the more personal stuff that blogs have become famous for, not as much as my sister's blog but enough to cause my previous employer to be concerned that I had a blog, a discovery that led me to ultimately delete it. I have only been with my new company for 2 months and thus the last thing I want to do is give them a reason to be worried about me, especially in this economy when my dad, one of my uncles, and three friends have all been laid off just since January.
I later learned why my old company was so concerned, and it had nothing to do with me. The bosses were in negotiations to sell the firm to another company and they did not want word of the possible sale to leak to their competitors. Since I was in middle management there I was aware that the negotitations were taking place even though I knew nothing about what was being discussed. Still, I knew enough to be dangerous as they say. It is OK now because the sale went through and is now public knowledge, thus I am free to talk about it. Still, the concern remains even though I work somewhere else that is not looking for a buyer and is actually doing quite well relatively speaking.
I suppose I could talk about my fruitless quest to find a girlfriend, but honestly how many of you care about that? Seeing as how I can't find a woman who is at all interested in me I am not sure how I can make that sound interesting in this blog. Case in point, last week I went to a trade organization dinner meeting and sat at a table with a woman who I did not know. She was very pretty, smart, and engaging, and we started talking about work in China that each of us were doing. I caught her name at the end of the night and found out that she and I were going to attend the same seminar the following week. I also found out that she is friends with one of my new co-workers, who told me that she was seeing someone but that he was living in another country and that she may be considering breaking up with him. So I am thinking that this may be a chance at something, so when we did meet up for a few minutes after that seminar I asked her out for lunch. I was quickly shot down. She did it nicely, saying that she always brought her own lunch into work, but it was still a no. So I was left wondering what I did wrong and why I can't seem to get any woman to say yes when I ask them out.
So, should I continue, or go back to ranting about politicians? Or you can watch this interesting video that I randomly selected off of You Tube:
I am struggling a bit with what to do here. The predecesor to this blog, the original Reality World, featured a lot of political and social commentary, but to be honest I am not much in a mood to do that now because of all the research that I felt I need to do in order to present my opinions in a truthful manner. It also featured some of the more personal stuff that blogs have become famous for, not as much as my sister's blog but enough to cause my previous employer to be concerned that I had a blog, a discovery that led me to ultimately delete it. I have only been with my new company for 2 months and thus the last thing I want to do is give them a reason to be worried about me, especially in this economy when my dad, one of my uncles, and three friends have all been laid off just since January.
I later learned why my old company was so concerned, and it had nothing to do with me. The bosses were in negotiations to sell the firm to another company and they did not want word of the possible sale to leak to their competitors. Since I was in middle management there I was aware that the negotitations were taking place even though I knew nothing about what was being discussed. Still, I knew enough to be dangerous as they say. It is OK now because the sale went through and is now public knowledge, thus I am free to talk about it. Still, the concern remains even though I work somewhere else that is not looking for a buyer and is actually doing quite well relatively speaking.
I suppose I could talk about my fruitless quest to find a girlfriend, but honestly how many of you care about that? Seeing as how I can't find a woman who is at all interested in me I am not sure how I can make that sound interesting in this blog. Case in point, last week I went to a trade organization dinner meeting and sat at a table with a woman who I did not know. She was very pretty, smart, and engaging, and we started talking about work in China that each of us were doing. I caught her name at the end of the night and found out that she and I were going to attend the same seminar the following week. I also found out that she is friends with one of my new co-workers, who told me that she was seeing someone but that he was living in another country and that she may be considering breaking up with him. So I am thinking that this may be a chance at something, so when we did meet up for a few minutes after that seminar I asked her out for lunch. I was quickly shot down. She did it nicely, saying that she always brought her own lunch into work, but it was still a no. So I was left wondering what I did wrong and why I can't seem to get any woman to say yes when I ask them out.
So, should I continue, or go back to ranting about politicians? Or you can watch this interesting video that I randomly selected off of You Tube:
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