If you're one of those low-information nimrods who still believes that the privatization of essential services traditionally run by government is a great capitalist idea that serves everyone well, please try not to be butthurt when I tell you that I think you are a blithering idiot. If you're not sure why I think that, or if you feel that my opinion of you is unfounded, please read the following from this week's Attleboro, Massachusetts, Sun Chronicle:
As many as 25 students at Coelho Middle School were denied meals or told to throw their lunches away Tuesday because they could not pay or their pre-paid accounts did not contain enough money, school officials said today... Parents said some of the children cried after they were not allowed to eat or had to toss out their lunches... School officials said an on-site employee from Whitson’s, the school system’s school lunch provider, apparently gave the order not to extend meals to students who could not pay or whose credit was already overextended.Isn't that special? Now, I'm sure you're already getting the warm-and-fuzzies all over, but wait; there's more:
Parents said they were told by their children that some pupils in the cafeteria line had already picked up their lunch and were told at the checkout they had to throw it away... Victoria Greaves, 11, a fifth grader at Coelho, said a cashier told her to throw away her lunch because there was not enough money in her account. She said she threw her meal away and got nothing to eat... Greaves said "about 20" other pupils also were denied meals.Why, ain't that a heartwarming scene? Right out of a Dickens novel, it is! Here you have a few dozen or so kids going hungry because they owed some money to the school cafeteria's for-profit lunch provider. But so what? After all, we simply can not have what's right and decent holding down quarterly profits! Why, the shareholders would never tolerate management so beset by malfeasance that a few dozen freeloading 11-year-olds were allowed to eat a tiny plate of big beefy nachos, veggie dippers, and meat lovers' pizza at company expense! Damn the little bastards; the CEO's bonus is riding on the bottom line! Don't you understand?! The CEO's bonus, for God's sake!!!
Sigh. Please read on...
