newsobserver.com | Local & State How about only serving healthy foods at school instead?
MARIETTA, GA. — As Garin Hughes picks through his school-lunch burrito and unidentifiable apple-pear dessert, he has a secret.
Hidden underneath the eighth-grader’s right leg is a chocolate cookie in shrink-wrapped plastic. That’s for dessert.
In the past, his parents had no clue when he bought a treat at school. Now, with a new school-lunch monitoring system, they can check over the Internet and learn about that secret cookie
from P. McEntee
Yeah, I read this story locally when it broke.
On the one hand, I agree about personal privacy. (You won’t find many more rabid about defending it than I.) On the other hand, I support the parents’ right to verify what they’re spending their money on. It is, after all, their money. (The exception to the latter is that what is purchased is recorded even if the kid pays cash; some might argue that this could be the kid’s money, not the parents. Whatever.)
If I were a parent, I’d be logging on to make sure someone was not bilking my account, not to see whether my kid had french fries for lunch. Also, if the school is charging $1 for a cookie, I’d want to know about that too.
I frankly wonder if this is where the impetus to establish the program started, with parents forking over big bucks to pay for school lunches with no way to verify what they were getting for their money. Sorta like getting a bag of groceries and being told how much to pay, but not being allowed to have a receipt. Schools love to do that sort of thing. Remember your college meal plans?
I wish the story gave more details.
K B, interesting comments and I don’t disagree with you. I worry that the foot in the door started a long time ago. This, with children’s lunches, is only squeezing the foot inside a little further.
Knowledge is King. Who ever knows the most becomes the most powerful.
Both Stalin and Hitler had and used their secret police, both determined to gain information on enemies of the state. Partly because of our abhorrence to secret police and because we are a more subtle society, today the government tracks everyone, only more subtly.
There is that huge government data base for all the taxes you paid, including your deductions, your contributions to Social Security, and your military service. Got a driver’s license, think about the information required to obtain it, address, social security number, political party affiliation, weight, height, and eye and hair color, and race. Plus, they now even have an electronic picture of you. I have read reports that some local police have posted cameras in downtown locations to scan the crowds looking for “wanted persons”.
Then there are the private data banks. They hold enough information on every person to choke an elephant. Apparently, this information is all in the “public domain” so they have a right to possess it. Then, they also have a right to sell it. How often, when making a purchase, are you asked for personal information? How often do you give it?
We have very few problems with insisting on convicted “sex” offenders registering and posting their names and photos on the internet and even the neighborhood. Often convicted felons are required to register with the local police too, even after their sentences are completed.
The door to the loss of privacy was opened a long time ago. Unfortunately, there has been so little government action to close it because the government either controls it or has access to it. Sure you may see your credit report, but go ahead and try to correct it. The government wants access to it though. Edger Hoover, who led the FBI for decades, had filing cabinets full of personal information on anyone who was someone. That information still exists, only not in the Director of the FBI’s office.
Then there is the Patriot Act. If people truly understood what it involves and the denial of their privacy, then more people would be up in arms. The purpose of the Patriot act is to combat “terrorism”. It is being used to gather information on people without any knowledge or ability to correct that information. Do we really need to spy on Americans under the guise of preventing terrorism when the southern border is wide open? (If I was a foreign terrorist then I would make my plans outside the country and then walk across the New Mexico border to commit them.)
Geez, while school teaching goes down the tubes….we’re concerning ourselves with a COOKIE?
What is the point? Kids eat crap. And? Kids ruin their dinner. So?
Why are they talking down to us in that article….
….and meanwhile, corporations lie, cheat steal…change terms, send screwed up bills, and overcharge up the wazoo….innane laws are written so that we can’t really do anything without breaking some law, sometime, or several laws all the time.
Terrorists, con artists, and liars run around without problem, because…the rest of us are under scrutiny. Not really….the government…federal, state, and local…have systems that can’t even communicate, outdated hardware (literally, some “low budget departments scrounge the hardware of the better funded departments). Heck, in California there are some 50 warrant systems…each county has their own proprietary system, and NONE of them communicate with each other (the cop needs to call the county …IF HE EVEN KNOWS there is a warrant). There is a state system in place, but no one uses it much…because since we folded our state police oversight team to the CHP…no one remembers to write up guidelines to do so. If it’s a con artist….check scammer, or outright low level liar and theif……they can move 20 feet over, to the next county and be “free” of worry about any warrant being served on them. Thing is, no one has the jurisdiction, no one sees the “gap” and no one cares. The cops are more concerned about writing tickets for parking more than the “legal” distance from the curb, and for the bogus street sweeping b.s. They’d rather do DUI dragnets, and write illegal left turn tickets…. it makes more MONEY for the city/state.
So, now tell me….why are we concerned with a secret cookie?