Looks as though the lobbyists have won again. A Nov. 16 story reported “Congressional plan would keep pizza, french fries on school lunch trays.” In the face of a major effort to combat obesity nationally (and locally, our own public health department has identified obesity as its major campaign), Congress wants to block a provision to make school lunches healthier. Pizza classified as a vegetable? Oh, of course. It has tomato sauce. French fries every day? On other occasions Congress is quick to invoke piously, “but think of our children.” What on Earth are they thinking now?
This ridiculous position Congress is taking reminds me of the current joke about the naming of things: i.e., a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a flock of chickens, a school of fish. Now, consider baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious and least intelligent of all the primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons? Sure enough … a congress.
Florence Wager
Vancouver
