Feed the Humans

Asheville City Council will consider recommendations from the Asheville-Buncombe Food Policy Council Tuesday. In addition to “making food systems environmentally sustainable and socially just,” and growing “medicinal landscaping in all public parks and rights of way,” council is expected to approve the following recommendations:

• Identify arable city-owned land and issue an RFP for organic, GMO-free food
  production, with a focus on permaculture. [Translation: Promote sprawl.]
• Levy property tax incentives for home food production, disincentives for landscaping. [Translation: Put growers of ornamentals out of business.]
• Declare a local and healthy food day. Encourage interactive educational events. [Translation: Party, and drink lots of beer.]
• Allocate funds to nonprofits involved in food security efforts. [Translation: Citizens cannot be properly charitable.]
• Identify qualifying students who aren’t enrolled in free and reduced lunch; for qualifying students, identifying needs outside of school for food, expand on “summer feeding sites.” [Translation: Human organisms need feeding, and 50% of students receiving subsidized lunches is a very tiny number. Takers of welfare must overcome the welfare available.]
• Consider a poster campaign policy to promote local food and healthy eating. [Translation: People who are disobedient fall helplessly submissive when they see a sign.]
• Explore Food “sin tax” (sodas, fast food) to fund food security efforts. [Translation: Government knows best.]

Who You Gonna Call?

911 was not working today in parts of Buncombe County.

Money for Beer Joints, but Teachers Must Go!

The recurring theme in the news today is school budget cuts and reversions. Mitchell County will be closing two elementary schools because enrollment is down to about enough students to fill a single classroom at one, and there isn’t enough money to justify keeping either school open.

The chairman of the Buncombe County School Board, Bob Rhinehart, observed:

There’s a lot of systems that are going to be laying off a lot of staff next school year.”

To try to fix the problem, Phil Berger et al. are advocating for new legislation that would, among other things, require students to read at grade level before being promoted, and eliminate teacher tenure.