At 50th Birthday Party, Geov Parrish Announces New Lobbying Career November 15, 2009

SEATTLE (FNS)–Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish’s 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle’s tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the “Seattle Times” and a frequent target of Parrish’s acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named “I Am The State!”, is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.

A book deal was also announced.

Parrish, who among his other work was a founder of Seattle’s alternative newspaper “Eat The State!“, was in an ebullient mood as he explained the thought process behind his decision:

“After spending so many years fighting for affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans—all to no avail—I’ve decided to focus my efforts on getting myself high-quality health care, no matter what the cost…and considering, on the one hand, that my projected income next year from just the US Chamber of Commerce and Seattle Times operations are going to be somewhere in the range of $2.5 million dollars, and, on the other hand, that when my company pays for my new gold-plated executive health insurance plan it’s fully tax-deductible, I’m thinking the cost of health care is probably not going to be a problem for me going forward.

And then I thought: what better day to make the announcement…than Friday the 13th?”

Apparently channeling Dave Chappell, Parrish then offered the crowd a certain single-fingered gesture before shouting:

“I’m rich, bitchaaas!”

In an exclusive interview, Frank Blethen explained to me the rationale behind the surprising new relationship:

“There was a time when we could afford to ignore publications like “Eat the State!”, but as conditions for traditional publishers continued to deteriorate we found ourselves having to face the uncomfortable reality that last year Parrish’s paper was actually more profitable than “The Seattle Times”, and it was at that point that the Board and I decided to approach Parrish with an offer of employment.”

Parrish declined the offer, citing his unwillingness to be anyone’s employee. Blethen, however, would not be dissuaded:

“…we were determined to have him, in whatever capacity we could, and finally we hit upon the idea of hiring him as a consultant. We still couldn’t come up with enough of an annual retainer for Parrish to be fully persuaded, so I made a quick call to Tom Donohue at the Chamber, which is how we came up with the proposal to have him advise not just The Seattle Times Company on media outreach and branding strategies, but, through the auspices of the Chamber, to provide those same services to other companies that could use ‘the Parrish Touch’.”

As the Obama Administration’s plans for a new energy policy begin to become more certain Parrish’s I Am The State! is also expected to provide services to companies outside the media community.

I was able to confirm this with a quick call to Exxon/Mobil spokesman Harry Paratestes, who told me that:

“…we are one of several companies that are seeking to reinvigorate our corporate image ahead of any new energy legislation that might be forthcoming from this and future Administrations.

Parrish’s ability to successfully position his own media property while simultaneously destroying three competing papers—first, the “Seattle Weekly”, then, Hearst’s “Seattle Post-Intelligencer”, and finally, the “Seattle Times”—gives us the confidence we need to invest in his ideas and every expectation of a profitable and mutually satisfying outcome.”

Based on a recommendation from Tom Donohue, Center Street Publishers is rumored to have offered a $3.5 million advance for the rights to Parrish’s new book documenting his change of circumstances, “The State Can Eat Me!”; it is anticipated that distribution will be not only through traditional retail channels, but also through Conservative websites such as Human Events, which is currently offering books by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin at deep discounts to entice new website subscribers.

A number of times during the evening I attempted to obtain a comment directly from Mr. Parrish regarding these developments, but due to my inability to penetrate either the cordon of sunglass-wearing security personnel or the ever-present entourage that now surrounds him that effort proved to be impossible.

In a written statement, Parrish’s people informed us that his next move will be to visit the Columbia Tower, Carillon Point, and the South Lake Union area to identify a suite of offices that can be redesigned to meet his specific requirements (which, I’m told, include an indoor shooting range, a cafeteria operated by the local “Popeye’s” chicken franchisee, and the largest organ in the State of Washington); during the period of construction, we were informed, he will be in residence in either the other Washington, at the Hay-Adams Hotel, or Atlanta, Georgia, at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, where, despite the fact that he was initially recruited by the “Times’” Blethen, he will be doing his first consulting work for other members of the Chamber.

On Life In The Modern World, Or, What If Jesus Was An HMO? September 30, 2009

Those among us who are familiar with the Bible will recall that Jesus Christ himself was an active member of the health care community as he travelled about the Holy Land.

It is reported that he practiced within multiple medical specialties, and his works as both an ophthalmologist and a neurologist are recounted within the verses of the Gospels.

But what if Jesus had been practicing medicine in the therapeutic environment we’re familiar with today?

In today’s conversation we’ll be tagging along with Jesus as he takes a few calls at his HMO’s Customer Care Center—and by the time we get done you should be able to bring a whole new take to those discussions you‘ve been having about why reform matters.

“…a blind man, Bartimaeus…was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

…Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.”

So they called to the blind man, “Cheer up! On your feet! He’s calling you.”

Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”

“Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight…”

–Mark 10:45-52

“Thank you for calling Customer Care. This is Jesus. How may I help you?”

“Hi, I was recently treated by you in Jericho for blindness—“

“Can I get your account number, sir?”

“J32-21515”

“Oh, yes. Is this Bartimaeus?”

“Yes it is.”

“So what can I do for you today?”

“Well, I went to check my mail, and I found a bill from you for 42,554 shekels for the eye treatment, and I don’t understand why you want me to pay this bill.”

“Well, give me a second while I look that up…ahhh, OK, I understand what happened. You see, I did perform the eye treatment, but your policy requires you to be referred by your Primary Care Physician for any specialist treatment and pre-approved by someone here at Customer Care before we can be liable for any costs of care, and the computer says that you didn’t do any of that first…so, I apologize, but we won’t be able to make any adjustments to this account.

Is there anything else I can do for you today, Bartimaeus?”

“Well, how am I supposed to pay this bill? I don’t have this kind of money. Can’t you perform a miracle or something to help me out here?”

“Well, sir, I can’t do that, but what I can do is transfer you to our Collections Department, who can help you make payment arrangements…”

Needless to say, the call went downhill from there.

“Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed…

One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked…”

–John 5:3-8

“…so you say you were lame and I made you walk, and now you’re getting calls from a collections agency that wants to garnish your ass?”

“Yes, Jesus, that’s correct.”

“Well, it says here that that back in Tishri of 12 AD you had severe boils and lesions, which is a preexisting condition. Now when I asked you if you wanted to get well you never disclosed any of this, and I don’t see it anywhere in your application packet, either.

Your policy requires you to inform us of any medical treatments you received before you became a policyholder, and because you failed to make a true and complete statement in your application we have to reject this claim.

I really do apologize, but we won’t be able to make any adjustments to this account.”

“To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed:

Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.

And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”

–1 Peter 5:1-4

“We didn’t know what to expect when he came here, but in just a few months Jesus has shown us what can happen when the Son of God is a Customer Care Representative.

His average call volumes are more than double those of any other rep, and when you listen to him take calls…well, when you hear him tell someone that they won’t be getting their benefits…it’s almost like he has some divine power over the customers or something, and that’s why today I’ve gathered you together to announce that Jesus is going to be transferred from the call center to the Executive Training Program.

Additionally, because Jesus did not adjust a single claim in favor of a customer for the last three months we’re also giving him the “Employee of the Quarter” award, which means he gets three days off with pay that he can take anytime he wants, a check for $500, and, of course, Jesus gets to use the parking space right by the front door for his Hummer.

We expect really great things from Jesus in the future, and while we will miss Him here at Customer Care I think we can safely say that with Jesus running the show this company is going to remain profitable for decades to come.”

Obama, Lipton, To Seize World’s Teabags August 11, 2009

WASHINGTON (FNS) – In a startling development related to the recent disruptions of town hall meetings, FNS is now able to confirm that the Obama Administration, with the assistance of Unilever Group and Queen Beatrix, both of the Netherlands, PepsiCo, Skull And Bones, and the Bilderberg Group, is unleashing a secret plot to dispatch fleets of unmarked aircraft and helicopters to prevent teabag protesters from having access to teabags.

The goal of the plot: to disrupt protesters’ plans to save America from the destruction of our health care system.

FNS reporters have been following a trail of information that includes airport noise abatement records, classified documents, and the testimony of insiders, some of whom are now willing to be publicly identified.

We’ll begin our story by reporting on three events that occurred the evening of Friday, August 8th.

Residents near the Suffolk Plaza complex in Suffolk, Virginia reported seeing unmarked black helicopters landing in the industrial area just to the east of the Suffolk Golf Course. According to our informant, the helicopters settled in behind the truck parking area of the Unilever/Best Foods distribution center. This facility, in addition to distributing Lipton Tea products, is the largest tea processing plant in the United States.

It’s reported that the helicopters spent nearly five hours loading inventory at the location before departing just before sunrise, and that before they left certain records had been erased from the memories of the Markem SmartLase systems used at the plant to encode lot, packdate, and expiration date data onto boxes of teabags before distribution.

A similar sighting was reported the same evening at another Lipton distribution center, the International Food Solutions facility in Wichita, Kansas. In this case, however, after the helicopters landed an unmarked locomotive and three box cars moved to a position just outside the plant gates. Several forklifts carried pallets out the entrance normally reserved for employee parking to the train, which was located roughly 100 feet north of the driveway on South Water Street.

The loading process took almost seven hours, we are told, after which the helicopters and the train left the area. Security guards at the Pepsi plant across the street reportedly kept plant workers away from the west side of the building during the operation.

The third Lipton distribution center to be hit that evening was the Unilever/Best Foods facility in the City of Industry, California. An eyewitness sighted two helicopters, landing at the very end of Otterbein Street. A few minutes later several unmarked tractor-trailers approached the loading docks. Two hours later, the trucks drove away, heading for the Pomona Freeway.

There are rumors that other facilities were being targeted, but we were unable to obtain official comment from representatives of Unilever/Best Foods, nor from Celestial Seasonings, who operate a processing and distribution facility Boulder. Colorado, nor from R.C. Bigelow, Inc, who process both the “Constant Comment” brand and their line of herbal teas from their Boise, Idaho location.

We were able to obtain noise abatement records from the Ontario International Airport and the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport that confirm that aircraft were operating at the times reported by our informants, and that no other air traffic was operating in the area at that time.

Who is organizing all this? That information was recently provided to us by an informant who has only recently agreed to come forward. Harry Paratestes is an Assistant Program Manager who was previously employed by FEMA but now works for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management (ASAM) at the Department of Health and Human Services:

“I was assigned to the ASAM Program Support Center (PSC) in March, after the Tax Day protests. The ASAM PSC is a clandestine office that was charged with coordinating with another clandestine office (the Administrative Services Division of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis), the HHS Office of Global Health Affairs, FEMA, and the White House to shut down any efforts by citizens to prevent the Obama Administration from socializing the larger American economy; and we had finalized the plans that were used Friday night in early June.

From the beginning we were aware of the powerful impact of the Tea Party protests, and we knew we would have to block access to those tea bags if we were going to nip this in the bud.”

Who stands to profit from all of this?

There are rumors that Queen Beatrix and members of the Bilderberg Group hold enormous investments in Sanofi-Aventis, AstraZeneca, and Hoffmann-La Roche, three of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, and that the Queen influenced Netherlands-based Unilever to cooperate.

In addition, confidential sources have reported to us that during President Obama’s spring visit to Europe he was offered membership in the Bilderberg Group, as well as a multimillion-dollar “recruitment package”, in a late-night meeting at the US Embassy in Paris (along with agreements to allow “rendition” of Tea Party protesters to secret French tropical prisons if necessary) in return for guarantees of future access to the US market on favorable terms.

To summarize: so far we have been able to substantiate that the President has ordered secret seizures of a major portion of the national tea bag supply in just one night, that the plan is part of a larger Federal program to shut down the Tea Party protests, that France has agreed to accept “renditioned” Tea Party protesters, and the this President has agreed to join the Bilderberg Group as part of his plan to “internationalize” American health care.

The best advice we can offer to patriotic Americans is to immediately purchase any remaining tea bags at your local grocery store and to make the purchases in cash, in case Government agents use Federal Reserve Bank records to direct FEMA agents in their future home seizures of the tea bags—and Tea Party protesters.

On Reconsidering Racism, Or, This Ain’t Grandpa’s America April 6, 2009

We have a story today that is a big-time reminder of how things have changed in America…and it’s all inspired by a book of jokes.

I am often prowling thrift shops looking for interesting things, and I came across a 1946 copy of “10,000 Jokes, Toasts, And Stories” (edited by Lewis and Faye Copeland), which contains a section of jokes entitled “Races and Nations”…which contains a subsection entitled “Negro”.

We are going to examine some of those jokes…and the world in which those jokes resided.

I warn you now: it will be highly unpleasant; but as we come out the other side the goal will be to show that what was not only acceptable, but commonplace, not so very long ago, would be considered wildly unacceptable today—and that we are a better people for the change.

“Sambo, suppose you were to receive a letter from the Ku Klux Klan advising you to get out of town, what would you do?”

“I’d read it on the train.”

–Joke 6468

“Is your husband a good provider, Dinah?”

“Yessum, he’s a good providah, all right, but I’m allus skeered dat nigger’s gwine to get caught at it.”

–Joke 6458

So the deal is, if you’re under 50 years old, or a recent immigrant to these shores, you probably have little or no familiarity with the overt racism that was practiced against the Americans who descended from slavery.

Now I’m not talking about the kind of covert racism that means the security guard spends more time following the black customers than the white ones…I’m talking about the kind of overt racism that means the black customers aren’t even allowed to enter “white” stores.

Lunch counters were segregated, there were “white” and “colored” water fountains (before you go look at the picture, see if you can guess which one has the cooling unit installed). Fire hoses weren’t used just to put out fires…they were also used to put out school children who didn’t fit the racial profile.

Rastus shuffled into the employment office down in Savannah one morning and said hopefully:

“Don’ spose you don’ know nobody as don’ want nobody to do nothin’, does you?”

–Joke 6351

Rastus was in trouble again, and the sheriff asked him if he were guilty or not guilty.

“Guilty, suh, I think” replied Rastus, “but I better be tried to make sure of it.”

–Joke 6460

As these jokes demonstrate, black people were portrayed as ignorant, lazy, shiftless and quick to steal. To ensure these “undesirables” didn’t threaten white populations, some locales became “sundown” towns…so called because of the signs they posted at their city limits:

“Nigger, don’t let the sun set on you in Elwood”

–Sign posted in Elwood, Indiana, 1966

(Fun Fact: did you know that Indiana was such a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s that KKK Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson once said about himself: “I am the law in Indiana”? Of course, that was before he went to prison for rape and murder later in the same decade.)

Racism, as defined in law, was extreme and trivial, both at the same time. It’s reported that Birmingham, Alabama passed a law requiring segregated checkers and dominoes in 1935 (presumably after the Great Checkers Incident of 1934, or some similar affront)…and Oklahoma passed a law making it a misdemeanor for teachers to teach in mixed-race schools.

A darkey was examined in a Harlem court, to prove the identity of a white man.
“Did you see the man?” asked the attorney.
“Yes, sah, I seed him.”
“Was he a white man?”
“Dunno, sah.”
“Do you say you saw the man and can’t say whether he was white or black?”
“Yea, sah, I seed him, but dere’s so many white fellers callin’ derselfs niggers round here I can’t tell one from toder!”

–Joke 6376

The Boys of Summer are hitting the fields of their respective stadia this month, and no conversation about race and baseball would be complete without a mention of Jackie Robinson, who everyone knows broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball…except that he didn’t.

Moses “Fleet” Walker, and his brother, Welday Walker , seem to actually bear that honor: in 1884 they played for the Toledo Blue Stockings of the American Association. Black players continued to play until 1890, when owners seem to have decided amongst themselves that there were to be no more black Major League players; a decision that lasted until Robinson became the first player “in the modern era” (1947, to be exact) to join a Major League club, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

(Another Fun Fact: remember the movie “Bull Durham”? The stadium used by the Durham Bulls–Durham Athletic Park–was at the center of a segregation and boycott battle during the 1950s…a battle the boycotters won.)

Rastus-“Ef yo’ says anything ter me Ah’ll make yo’ eat yo’ words, man.”
Exodus-“Chicken dumplings, hot biscuits, and watermelon.”

–Joke 6511

So about now you may be asking “what is the point of today’s story?”…and it’s pretty simple:

Barack Obama is president.

Jim Clyburn, of South Carolina, where the first battle of the Civil War was fought, is the Democratic House Whip.

Rosa Parks is a national hero for an act of civil disobediance.

David Duke is the Governor of Nothing.

And out of all that change, we’ve become a better people.

A Fake Consultant Exclusive: Administration Announces Drug Legalization Plan April 1, 2009

Washington, D.C. (FNN)—In a move some are describing as a “news dump” timed to coincide with the attention being paid to President Obama’s foreign trip, the Justice Department announced the Administration’s plans to introduce legislation to legalize and regulate the manufacture, sales, possession, and use of what are today legally known as Schedule I drugs.

Additionally, Schedule II through Schedule V drugs will be made available to adult members of the public at their request, with a doctor’s prescription no longer being required before such drugs can be dispensed.

The drugs being “legalized” through this legislation would include marijuana, LSD, heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy; also included will be all pharmaceutical drugs currently under restricted distribution: among those are Xanax, OxyContin, and Viagra.

“Since the Inauguration, we have received more input on this issue than on any other” reports Department of Justice spokesman Harry Paratestes. “Many people will also recall that the question on this issue garnered a very large number of votes from the public in the run-up to the President’s recent Internet Town Hall meeting.”

Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs continued to maintain this afternoon that legalization is not “a good strategy to grow the economy”; but conceded that questions of cost and the ineffectiveness of anti-drug strategies were driving the push for a new approach.

“it really is ridiculous” Gibbs admitted in an impromptu press availability today, “I mean, we are literally sponsoring a website and ads that claim drugs make you bad at video games, for God’s sake. Whoever came up with that idea must have competed in the Special Olympics of Advertising before we hired them.”

DOJ spokesman Paratestes also noted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s recent testimony before Congress, in which it was revealed that the Drug War is costing the US Government about $40 billion annually—but not having any real impact on ending a $40 billion dollar a year business.

“This Administration has committed to reducing this year’s deficit by 50% in four years’ time, and if we hope to reach that goal, we have to be willing to eliminate any spending that doesn’t serve its intended purpose—and we absolutely don’t want to continue spending in ways that are demonstrably counterproductive”, Paratestes said.

The legislation would allow the states to choose from several distribution models.

Paratestes reports that states may incorporate any of several elements from the suggested distribution options, or they are free to create a distribution model of their own.

“We assume some states will distribute certain drugs, such as marijuana and hashish, in a manner similar to the way alcoholic beverages are retailed today; with bars or coffeehouses providing a venue for public use, and grocers or other retailers providing an outlet for sales for home use.”

Paratestes went on to comment that the States might look to Canada for an answer as to how other dugs can be distributed. “Drugs such as codeine and Robaxin have been sold over-the-counter by Canadian pharmacists for decades with no serious problems, and there’s no reason to believe such a plan wouldn’t work in the US as well.”

An additional distribution model Paratestes described would channel the sales of these newly legalized products through the State Liquor Stores which are already operating in 18 states.

Paratestes emphasized that an important element of the new legislation is funding for thousands of new spaces in treatment programs throughout the country: “If there is one thing we have learned over the years, it is that money spent on treatment represents a good return on investment for the taxpayer; and as I said earlier, this Administration is absolutely determined to spend every tax dollar wisely.”

Press Secretary Robert Gibbs offered an additional comment on the proposed legislation at today’s press availability: “In addition to the cost reductions we know we will realize after this legislation is enacted, we expect an almost immediate reduction in cross-border violence from within Mexico as the highly lucrative black market for these products disappears, along with the incomes of the drug gangs who are today engaged in that violence.”

In a most ironic development, Republican Congressman Ron Paul and Fox News’ Glenn Beck have both made statements in support of legalization.

When contacted for a statement, unnamed sources close to Rush Limbaugh said that they would “miss the thrill of picking up” Limbaugh’s various prescriptions; describing the visits to multiple pharmacies on the same day to pick up hundreds of illegal pills as “not quite as big a rush as meeting Ann Coulter, but pretty close.”

One of Limbaugh’s employees lamented the lost relationships as well: “I always enjoyed talking to the pharmacy workers” the anonymous source said “after spending a few years working for Excellence In Broadcasting, they were pretty much the only rational people I would talk to all day.”

The proposed bill already has several potential co-sponsors, and passage, although contentious, should be possible in today’s legislative environment.

On Catching Up, Or, Good News Told, And The Bush Book Reviewed March 26, 2009

So many times when we get together you have to put up with me complaining about something…and there are lots of other times when it’s me warning about events that are looming in our future.

Even though they’re conversations we need to have, they’re often not very emotionally satisfying.

Today we depart from that pattern, in a very good way.

It’s “follow-up day”; and the conversation takes us to three “happy places”: two “problem” stories that have recent positive progress to report—and, just because I care about you, Gentle Reader, an exclusive preview of the George W. Bush autobiography, obtained with considerable effort from an unnamed and particularly well-placed source.

There’s a lot to cover, so let’s jump right in and tell you what you need to know.

“Why don’t you like girls?”
“They’re too biased.”
“Biased?”
“Yeah…bias this and bias that—until I’m busted.”

–Joke 5997, “10,000 Jokes, Toasts, & Stories”, Lewis and Faye Copeland

In June of 2007 we ran the first of a series of stories describing how some school kids who had parents that owed money to the school—in one case, $7.50–were being served “alternate meals”…which meant that if Mom or Dad forget to send the money, the kid gets a cheese sandwich, while everyone else gets the regular hot meal…which meant that, in some cases, the hot meals were literally taken from the hands of children at the cash register…after which the kids are sent to classrooms where we spend about half a billion tax dollars annually to try to teach them healthy life habits—like not using food as a weapon.

We became aware of all of this because parents in Chula Vista, California decided to take on the local Elementary School District; who felt that implementing this policy in the District made so much financial sense that it outweighed the potential harm to the affected students.

Well, lots of parents didn’t like it…and sometimes parents win.

A partial victory was achieved in February of 2008, when the parents (led by Will and Cyndi Perno, and Alice Coronado) were able to influence first the California Food Policy Advocates…and then, even more importantly, Fabian Nuñez, the former Speaker of the California State Assembly.

Pressure was applied…resulting in this:

“Irrespective of a student’s financial ability to pay for a meal, the laws cited above require that all students eligible for free and reduced-price meals receive a reimbursable meal during each school day. The reimbursable meal shall be the same meal choice offered to students who do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals [EC 49557(c)]. Therefore, school districts/county offices of education (COEs) cannot serve an alternate meal to a student eligible for a free or reduced-price meal who does not have the ability to pay or provide a medium of exchange for his/her meal on a given day.

School districts/COEs need to formulate a plan to ensure that children eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals are not treated differently from other children with respect to meal service.”

–From the “Nutrition Services Division Management Bulletin”, California Department of Education, February 2008 (emphasis is from the original document).

It took another year of pressure, but Will Perno sent an email to let me know that the new policy the Chula Vista Elementary School District adopted just this month ends the practice of serving these lunches altogether:

“…Our research has shown that the alternate meal program is no longer an effective intervention tool for managing unpaid balances. Thus, we are eliminating the alternative meal.”

–Letter to parents, March 2, 2009, from Superintendent Lowell J. Billings

(Victory in California is not, however, victory nationwide…and just last month Albuquerque Public Schools started a “cheese sandwich policy” of their own—which is already causing trouble.

Does your District have this sort of policy?
Take a few minutes this week and find out…)

New Butler: “At what time, Sir, would you wish to dine as a rule?”
Profiteer: “What time do the best people dine?”
New Butler: “At different times, Sir.”
Profiteer: “Very well. Then, I, too, will dine at different times.”

–Joke 6767, “10,000 Jokes, Toasts, & Stories”, Lewis and Faye Copeland

Regular readers are likely to have also noticed a series of four stories in this space on aspects of Egyptian politics.

We have discussed the fact that opposing the ruling National Democratic Party, represented by President Hosni Mubarak, can be construed as unconstitutional—and criminal to boot—and we described how running against Mr. Mubarak for President of Egypt in 2005 was the reason Ayman Nour of the El-Ghad Party had been spending the past several years in prison.

The imprisonment of Nour had not marked the end of violent State harassment against the El-Ghad party…so it was quite a surprise to hear that Ayman Nour had been unexpectedly released about four weeks ago.

Wa’el Nawara, who leads El-Ghad today, sent me these comments regarding Nour’s release:

“Ayman Nour was released today around 6pm where he just walked into his home at Zamalek, Cairo, unexpectedly. A media frenzy broke out and in a few minutes, his home was packed with reporters from local and international news agencies.

His release came as a result from the Egyptian Attorney General, on medical grounds! Nour was first arrested on 29th January 2005, 90 days after El Ghad Party was given legal status in October 2004. Ayman Nour was first released on 12th March 2005 and he ran against Mubarak in Egypt’s first multi-candidate presidential election Egypt witnessed where he came first runner up after Mubarak.

Nour was then re-arrested on 5th December 2005 – merely 90 days (again) after his participation in Presidential Elections, sentenced to 5 years in Jail on 25th December 2005. Appeal was turned down in May 2006.

Upon his release 2 days ago, Ayman Nour announced that he seeks no revenge, that he is calmer and more patient than ever and that he will focus his efforts to rebuild El Ghad party to advance the cause of reform, liberty and democracy in Egypt.

We hope that this may be the start of a new era in Egypt’s political scene, where a new social contract can be drafted through a package of comprehensive reform…

…We shall strive to create a national dialogue with opposition leaders to reach some consensus on an Agenda of Reform. We have no reservations to even engage reformist wing from NDP in such an agenda. But we need to agree that the outcome of such dialogue must be some sort of a meaningful political process built on the principles of pluralism, real democracy and freedom.”

(It has been hazardous to be a blogger in Egypt as well, and the recent release of Mohamed Adel, combined with the news of Nour’s release, means we need to take a fifth look at the view from Egypt. Stay tuned.)

And finally…we review the preview chapters of the George W. Bush autobiography.

To give you an idea of what the book is about, a few words from the Random House press release:

“Tentatively titled “Decision Points,” the book will not be a conventional memoir, but instead will focus exclusively on approximately a dozen of the most interesting and important decisions in the former President’s personal and political life. Mr. Bush will write candidly about, among other topics, his decision to run for the presidency; how he chose his closest advisors, including Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Condoleezza Rice; the terrorist attacks of 9/11; the decisions to send American troops to Afghanistan and Iraq; the response to Hurricane Katrina; his commitment to fight AIDS around the world; the formation of his stem cell research policy; his relationships with his father, mother, siblings, and wife; his decision to quit drinking; and how he found faith. The former President will write the book himself, with the assistance of researchers, and has already commenced the writing process.

“My goal is to bring the reader inside the Oval Office for the most consequential moments of my personal and political life. I look forward to painting a vivid picture of the information I had, the principles I followed, and the decisions I made. I am spending time on the book every day, and I am thrilled to be working with the team at Crown,” said the former President.”

As I said, I’ve seen some of the advance pages of the book, and here are a few impressions:

–We are fortunate that this book was written after 1998, because before then it would not have been possible to really do the subject justice.

Of course, that was the year 24 new colors were added to the Crayola palette…and as far as I’m concerned, Jungle Green, which is what I would have used in the past to color in Dubya’s flight suit on the “Iraq and Afghanistan” page, is just not as authentic as Mountain Meadow Green.

The same was true on the “Katrina” page. To simulate the color of the water coming into New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico I combined Caribbean Green and Fuzzy Wuzzy Brown…and mixing Macaroni and Cheese and Olive Green captures the exterior of the Superdome so, so, nicely.

None of this would have been possible without those 24 extra colors…and as so often happens, better tools make the telling of history ever more engaging and accurate—enriching our understanding of events in the process.

–I was worried that I would have trouble sharpening my crayon enough to make “Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The U.S.” legible…but lucky for me, that page was missing from the preview copy.

–What I’ve seen of the book prompts a quick—and admittedly snarky–question: when Mr. Bush says that he’ll be “working with the assistance of researchers”…isn’t that kind of like OJ Simpson telling reporters that he’s busy “looking for the real killers?”

(I was disappointed, I must admit, that the advance copy did not include the “Orange Jumpsuit” page, either: choosing between Atomic Tangerine, Burnt Orange, Neon Carrot, and Mango Tango had taken nearly an hour and two replays of a Ted Nugent song…and with the page missing all that time was expended, with no tangible result produced.

I had also picked out Burnt Orange, by the way, for the fiber optic cables in the AT&T network switching center in San Francisco, but, again, the regret of a missing page…)

So there we are: for today we have three great stories…and two of them don’t even require you to stay within the lines, which is always nice.

Ayman Nour is out of jail, which may be part of a bigger story, school lunches are no longer punishment in California…and we had a spot of fun with Mr. Bush and his impending book, for which I hope Laura Bush will forgive us.

And as for me?
Time to get online and see if I can order another Macaroni And Cheese to replace the one I used up on the Superdome.

Ah, the troubles of a writer…

On Spinning Up Fear, Or, My Crazy Is Crazier Than Your Crazy November 2, 2008

There are but three days to go, Gentle Reader, and the McCain campaign is now down to fear and Joe The Plumber.

Those who seek to spread The Fear are resorting to fantastic schemes and amazing leaps of logic in an effort to find something to make The Fear rise in voters.

But to be honest, the crazy speculation lacks…imagination.

I believe I can present crazy speculation that is at least as interesting as what they’ve put out—and funnier to boot—and with that and the Halloween just past in mind we present the final weekend edition of the 2008 campaign cycle’s blogging.

So, ya wanna hear a few debunked made up rumors that, frankly, have a lot more creative style?

Here’s a good one, to get things started: Obama does not plan to increase employment by having the Department of Health and Human Services purchase hundreds of mobile medical vans that he will staff with pro-choice doctors and nurses so they can drive around the country and perform mobile abortions by night while teaching sex education to kindergarteners by day.

The rumor that <a href=”http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=a118eeeb-715a-461e-93b5-a9f12df0e4c2″>Nicholas Sarkozy</a> is planning to resign as President of France so that he can become Governor of West Virginia after Obama renames it West By God France is, sadly, untrue.

Obama will not rip off a fake rubber head on Inauguration Day and reveal himself to actually be Osama Bin-Laden…or one of the Clintons.

Obama is not planning to create a secret Mexico – USA – Canada “<a href=”http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=15875″>Underground Railroad</a>” so that he can deport all the white people to evacuation camps outside the USA…”for their own safety”…and then sell American Citizenships—and the white people’s former houses–to his millions of foreign campaign donors.

Obama’s education policy is <em>not</em> to change the name of every American primary school to William Ayres Elementary.

There are no plans to change Christmas into a secular holiday called “Reverend Wright Day”.

It turns out that the rapidly developing operational concepts that are to be put in place during the transition to turn all Federal buildings and installations into mosques that actually serve as processing centers for the plan to turn all Non-Muslim Infidels into Soylent Green that will be donated to hungry Iranian children are, in fact, only rumors.

<blockquote>“A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”

–<a href=”http://books.google.com/books?id=p-KvoXTYtVoC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=A+fashion+is+nothing+but+an+induced+epidemic.&source=web&ots=1jhC_SiMJw&sig=0Z4-ExrlESsPIIH9A4xEOTtlmlk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result%5C”>George Bernard Shaw</a></blockquote>

Sarah Palin is not acting that way to fool John McCain so that she can take over…<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9KlQPX1qiE”>Captain Queeg</a> style… if they win.

Tina Fey is not doing all Sarah Palin’s public appearances from the same Area 51 soundstage that was used to stage the moon landings. (In fairness, that one’s <em>almost</em> true. She’s actually using a different one.)

No matter what it says in that one email you received, in an Obama Administration Boy Scouts will not be able to earn merit badges by marrying gay couples.

<a href=”http://evankeane.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/kang_kodos_hitchhiking.jpg”>Kang and Kodos</a> are not on the way to Washington to lobby the new President for leniency for the <em>real</em> illegal aliens.

Despite what some people might suspect, the Obama campaign is not running a secret whisper campaign intimating that Joe The Plumber was, for two years, the seventh member of <a href=”http://www.ivexpo.com/images/VILLAGE_PEOPLE_1.jpg”>The Village People</a>.

Barack Obama’s staff, The <a href=”http://www.cambridge2000.com/gallery/images/P31819090e.jpg”>Secretariat of the United Nations</a>, the Zionist Jews, (represented by the <a href=”http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=66442″>Bilderberger Club</a>), the US Defense Department’s <a href=”http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/”>Institute of Heraldry</a>, the <a href=”http://ec.europa.eu/index_en.htm”>European Commission</a>, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of <a href=”http://www.globalissues.org/article/335/libya-and-terrorism”>Libya</a> are not meeting in Geneva to figure out how to change the US, UN, Israeli, and European flags by replacing the stars (or the wreath, depending on the flag) with the crescent of Islam in time for the Inauguration.

Nobody is planning on making all dog food out of grain-based products in order to advance the vegetarian agenda…or at least, not that “I <em>know</em> of”.

Now look, folks, all of this is fun for a Sunday, but there is a bigger message: things that are just as foolish as what you are hearing here are being spread—and <a href=”http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/292978.html”>not just</a> in the Presidential race—and I’m here to suggest that if you hear some of their foolishness, you can reply with some of this, as a means of using absurd to “out” absurd.

Have fun with it…invent the wildest rumors possible…and if someone gives you that “hey, they might be right…” look, stare ‘em right in the eye and ask: “my friends, if you can believe this load of numbnuttery…I know someone who’s looking to unload a slightly used Palin Barbie…with all the clothes and accessories included…no reasonable offer refused…”

Then watch the looks on the faces of the other voters…in the big line you’re all waiting in…and smile just a bit, inside, because you know you’ve done your good deed for the day.