Apparently the eating healthy craze is not going over well with schoolchildren in Chicago.  As Monica Eng writes at The Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) are having trouble getting kids to eat the new healthier choices.  Eng writes, "CPS has met with all three reactions this school year, when it stopped serving daily nachos, Pop-Tarts and doughnuts and introduced healthier options at breakfast and lunch. But in a sign of how challenging this transition can be for schools, district figures show that lunch sales for September through December dropped by about 5 percentage points since the previous year, or more than 20,000 lunches a day."  Seems like the kids are voting with their taste buds.  "If they're going to feed us healthy, they need to feed us something good that's healthy," said Mijoy Roussell, a sixth-grader at Claremont Academy who was skipping lunch in favor of a packet of candy. "This food is disgusting, which is why I'm not eating lunch."

In the 2010-11 school year, CPS "switched to menus featuring more whole-grain products, less sodium and a wider variety of vegetables. Most cereals offered have less than 10 grams of sugar per serving."  Seems the kids prefer "cookies and slushies".  Kate Adamnick who specializes in revamping institutional food operations is blaming it on adults.  "I am baffled and disappointed by the tendency of 21st century adults to give in to children's preferences when it comes to food," Adamick said. "We know that teens prefer pornography magazines over the classics, but we don't give them copies of Playboy in literature class. Adults are present in children's lives to be role models, disciplinarians and caretakers, not to be popular."

She does have a point, adults as role models does seem like a good idea.  Maybe the first lady should think of that the next time she goes on vacation or is hosting a party.

It was a great year for the Nanny state as Michelle Malkin writes here.  The Forgotten Man's Top 3:


1. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. He proposed meddling mileage taxes, mused about a system to track drivers' routes, lobbied for high-speed rail boondoggles and promoted a "livability initiative" to limit suburban growth and force dwellers into public transportation. Then America's driving czar floated a plan earlier this fall to disable cell phones through some kind of centralized government mechanism.  LaHood backed off that creepy crusade, but he is still intent on waging war against drivers who choose to use cell phones, entertainment systems and GPS devices on the road. Just last week, the unstoppable control freak proposed a new rule banning truck and bus drivers from any use of cell phones while driving, including emergency calls on hands-free devices. His anti-car agenda is stuck in overdrive.

We've all been hearing about the alleged epidemic of youth drivers dying needlessly due to texting while driving.  It's certainly true that driving while distracted by a cell phone is a bad thing to do, much like driving while eating a cheeseburger, putting on lip gloss or even shaving on the way to work.  No one thinks it's a good idea, but can the government save us from ourselves?  Michele Malkin writes about the newest initiative that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is considering to save us.  "Making the cable TV rounds to unveil a public service announcement campaign against "epidemic" cell phone use and texting on the road, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood revealed bizarre and alarming plans on Wednesday to install devices in cars that would block a driver's ability to communicate.  "There's a lot of technology out there now that can disable phones, and we're looking at that," he says'.   Malkin notes that 30 states have implemented 'no texting while driving' laws, but are they really working.  She writes,"The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety examined insurance claims and driving habits in Louisiana, Washington, Minnesota and California, which all passed texting bans two years ago.   Its study found that when compared to neighboring states that had not yet banned texting while driving (Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi), the no-texting states actually reported higher accident rates among young drivers – while the states with no bans maintained constant accident rates."  How can this be?  It just seems obvious that more kids are dying since cell phone use became common.  Could it be that government acting as a social engineer doesn't really change behavior.  According to Malkin, "the push for federal policing of our driving habits comes just as the federal government itself reports that the rate of teenage-related car accidents has fallen. Yes, fallen. Despite increased cell phone use, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that when the years 2004 through 2008 were compared, there was a 38 percent reduction in the number of car accidents involving 16- and 17-year-olds." 

Though I haven't read through the CDC study, it certainly raises the question of the value of government intervention.  It would be interesting to know how much of our money (taxes) is being used to fund these types of studies and implement this legislation.  Maybe the Transportation Department is one place to look at when cutting the size of government?

The Forgotten Man has watched the Tea Party movement since it's inception.  I have often wondered who these people were.  They seemed so ordinary when I see them on television at rally's, town hall meetings and other gatherings.  Are they also Forgotten Men?  After reading this column by Pat Buchanan I think the answer is yes.  Buchanan theorizes here;

"Three Iowa Supreme Court judges who ruled that the state constitution requires recognition of same-sex marriages were denied retention, and Gov. Terry Branstad campaigned for giving Iowans a referendum to decide if they wish to outlaw it.  Tea Party types and Iowa conservatives were not only opposed to the idea of men marrying men, they detest the idea of judicial dictatorship."

"In Arizona, Ward Connerly’s anti-affirmative action initiative, which prohibits race, gender and ethnic preferences, won with 60 percent of the vote. Michigan, California and Washington have already adopted the Connerly amendment.  Tea Partiers also united to back the Arizona law that requires cops to determine the immigration status of any whom, in a routine police encounter, they suspect of being an illegal alien."

"In Oklahoma, a proposition to prohibit use of Shariah law in state courts passed with 70 percent. Shariah law is the basis of law in many Muslim countries, as the Bible was once the basis of much law in America...Oklahoma’s prohibition against any use of Shariah law should be seen as a cry from the heart of America that we are and wish to remain a Western nation, a predominantly Christian country, and we wish to be ruled by our Constitution and laws enacted pursuant to it."

Each of these positions are pretty common sense, middle America responses to the issue.  The Forgotten Man doesn't often write about 'social issues', but many of the principles that Person C stands for apply to things like judicial dictatorship, immigration restrictions and sharia law.  Buchanan gets it right when he writes, "The Tea Party people are rising up to take their country back, and that’s why they’re not going away."  That may be the best description of the principles that The Forgotten Man stands for.

This rant would have made William Graham Sumner proud.....

"[W]here [does] all this talk of rich equaling $250,000 a year, a million a year ... start? What right does Obama have to sit there and proclaim that people who earn X are gonna be punished with Y, people who earn less than X won't be punished with Y? ... Looked at within the prism of liberty and freedom, as our founding documents spell out, the Declaration, the Constitution, in nowhere in any of our founding documents was it ever said that people earning X would be punished for it. It was never said in our founding documents that people earning X would share a greater burden of funding the government than people who didn't. ... [A]ll this is nothing more than a direct attack on liberty, a direct attack on freedom and it creates class envy and resentment and anger between the classes, between people of different income groups. So all of a sudden we're faced with a possibility here of the Bush tax cuts ending for people who earn $250,000 a year or more. Well, why are we even discussing it in the first place? What did those people do? What is the magic? Who sets arbitrarily this figure of $250,000 a year? Why are they targeted? And look how easily people fall into the trap of debating the premise, when the real question is when is the federal government going to assume responsibility for the deficit spending, for the irresponsible position they put this country in? When are they going to be forced to reduce the behavior, to limit the behavior they are engaging in that is causing a usurpation of our liberty and freedom?"  - Rush Limbaugh

"The original Equal Pay Act of 1963 made it illegal for firms to pay different wages to women and men who performed equal work on jobs in the same establishment. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed discrimination against women and minorities in all aspects of employment, including hiring, promotion and compensation. Additional protections came with the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act; the 1991 amendments to Title VII, which boosted penalties for discrimination; and the 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Act, which essentially eliminated the time limit for filing discrimination claims." writes June E. O'Neill here in today's WSJ.  She adds, " In addition, for more than 40 years two major federal agencies have been dedicated to fighting labor-market discrimination: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance."   So do we realy have equal pay for equal work in our country?  It seems to be based on all of the legislation and agencies that O'Neill writes about.  But this isn't enough for the feminist movement in our country, now they want new legislation because, "say the bill's sponsors, ..women earn 77% as much as men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.?  Is this really true?  Not according to Phyllis Schafly in this article.  The reason is that the "this figure refers to the annual earnings of full-time, year-round workers. It doesn't compare comparable men and women, and it doesn't reflect that full-time men work 8%-10% more hours per week than full-time women."  Schfaly goes on, "The feminists want federal law to replace "equal pay for equal work" with "equal pay for equal worth." And they want "worth" to be decided by feminist bureaucrats and judges"...""Equal work" can be judged by objective factors such as experience, time in the labor force, hours worked per week, working conditions and the work actually done. "Worth" is a very subjective concept. Most people probably think they are worth more than they are being paid and deserve a raise."

The Forgotten Man has written about this subject before.  Not only should the government not be involved, but the statistics truly don't tell the whole story here. 

What a great deal, free rides on the North Star Line!  As pointed out here , "Metro Transit hopes to entice commuters by offering free rides (italics added) on the Northstar line Tuesday and Wednesday. The dates were selected not only to commemorate the line's first anniversary, but also to give riders a feel for rail transit during fair weather — ridership tends to increase when weather forecasts are bad" 

Beyond the folly of calling it a free ride, why are they doing it?  Simple, ridership is far below the initial projections that were used to justify the nearly $1 billion project.  Bob Geiger reports in Finance and Commerce that "Ridership of the 40-mile Northstar line, which now connects Big Lake and Minneapolis, is running below expected volume...rather than the 890,000 passengers projected this year, Metro Transit now expects only 790,000 passengers to board the train. That’s about 11.2 percent below projected 2010 passenger volume."  The Forgotten Man is not surprised by this, the only time any of the light rail lines seem to be full is when there is a Twins game at 'The Bank' or a Vikings game at the 'Mall of America Field.'  That's actually a bit ironic since I doubt many of the 'railniks' are friendly towards wealthy sports team owners. It gets worse though as Geiger reports, "Metro Transit officials have downgraded their 2011 passenger forecast to 750,000, a decrease of 40,000 rides that represents nearly a 5.1 percent drop from the disappointing 2010 rider figures."

There may some light at the end of the tunnel though as the NCDA said last Friday that it will not apply for federal funds to extend the 40-mile line, which currently runs from downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake. The agency said the decision was made because the projected ridership of such an expansion did not meet the Federal Transit Authority's "strict standards."   Maybe this will slow down some of the other light rail projects that are driving up taxes and debt in Henneping County and the rest of Minnesota.

As you go to the polls tomorrow, notice how you are 'checked in' to vote.  In my precinct, you just have to sign your name in a book that has all registered voters in my precinct listed with their address.  You can still register to vote on election day, but need to have a drivers license or some other form of identification.   This seems pretty reasonable, after all we want to make sure that anyone who votes is an eligible American citizen.  (felons can't vote for example).  But not to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals as reported in the Patriot Post Monday Brief .  Arnold Ahlert is right, "There is absolutely no reasonable argument to offer against making sure that Americans, and only Americans, vote in American elections -- none."

Governor Chris Christie is fast becoming a favorite of The Forgotten Man.  His no-nonsense approach to cutting spending and taking on the unions is refreshing.  In this story, the Governor cancels a railroad tunnel under the Hudson River.  According to Christie, "I cannot place upon the citizens of the State of New Jersey an open-ended letter of credit,"   I haven't heard that kind of comment since reading about it in various historical references by of our Founders.  The Forgotten Man may need to change his perception of New Jersey. 
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"A just security to property is not afforded by that government under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species." --James Madison