Another off-topic comment on another thread worth starting a new one with:
Anonymous said...
Hi David,
Any observations on the schools milk petition ?
Thanks
26 May 2011 12:40
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Blogger Ugh, It's Him! said...
Anonymous #11:
In the first place, I believe school milk is a good thing, but, in today's affluent and overfed society, a much less important good thing than it was at the time of its original introduction. I think they should have kept it, but asked parents to chip in towards the cost, but that option has never been on the table.
Regarding the petition; it is the kind of stunt that stops me regretting baling out of the JDA, and the undignified squabble between Geoff and Ted about whose petition it is diminishes both men. It is the 2,000 signatories' petition, if it is anybody's, and the front men owe it to the 2,000 to get on with presenting it, not drag it into their own quarrel.
26 May 2011 16:34
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10 comments:
David.
More often than not I agree with what you publish and your political philosophies.
But asking parents (tax payers) to chip in for school milk when Bill Ogley and Mike Pollard are given, between them £800,000 of tax payers money is just out and out lunacy. The States also voted to give the Finance Industry £400,000 of tax payers money, in a year that the finance Industry made in excess of £800M profit.
You're so very wrong on this one David. What have Bill Ogley and Mike Pollard done that is worth such a generous golden handshake rather than putting that money towards school milk, trips to Durrel etc.?
My sentiments exactly. It's the property of the people who signed it, not those who organised it.
The public spat is a most vulgar display that paramount in both men's minds are their own personal political ambitions, rather than the interests of those who took the trouble to sign the petition. If I had had the opportunity to sign it, I would feel I had been used.
This has interesting paralells with many of the recent comments on your blog, which I think is all the stronger for your willingness to countenance a non-partisan content.
Neil:
You seem to have inferred something I had not meant to imply, regarding spending priorities.
I quite agree that subsidies to a massively profitable industry and paying civil servants half a lifetime's average wages not to come to work again are both bloody stupid ways to waste our taxes.
However, if asking parents to divert the cost of one of the numerous bars of chocolate most 21st century schoolkids eat in a week, to paying half the cost of school milk, brought the cost to the States down to something they admitted was cheap enough to keep, then it would have been worthwhile. Exemptions could always be arranged for the very few genuinely poor families.
TOM GRUCHY says
There are enough health arguments against the consumption of cows milk. I guess that most people in the world have more sense or a natural intolerance to the stuff- but the over rich Jersey variety is particularly undesirable.
Like so many things in life it might well be pleasan enough to taste or consume but soya, rice, hemp, olives and others provide perfectly good alternatives.
In Jersey of course the cow is sacred because it symbolises a whole culture and way of life that, in reality is long since dead. But the image of the pretty cow is used to promote the delusion and as an emotional trigger to support the "preserve green fields lobby."
Those who enjoy all the benefits of a balmy life behind the locked gates of £multi-millions properties in the country parishes use the image to protect their interests. We can't blame them for that in a selfish society where 10,000 working adults don't even have the right to rent or buy proper living accommodation. The lesser injustice of sub-standard or non-affordable housing for so many of those with "quals" is a closely related problem that eludes the political attention that it deserves.
The pollution that cows cause,the cruelty of mechanised milk production, the ridiculous demand for priceless land (2 plus acres per animal) for so litle food production that can be obtained from elsewhere at far less cost, is all part of the unpleasant truth.
Neither Ted nor Geoff should be fighting over this petition - let one of the reactionary tories who still think that feudalism and 5 cows was a Jersey Utopia do their own dirty work.
"in today's affluent and overfed society, a much less important good thing than it was at the time of its original introduction."
Forgive the digression, but shouldn't the same be said for States members pay, originally bought in to allow those without wealth to hold political office?
As one of those that helped to get signatures on the petition, spending several Saturdays in King Street and not a few lunch hours, I feel disappointed that all the effort of a number of dedicated individuals ends up being the subject of an unseemly public squabble.
Such conduct plays straight into the hands of reactionary forces. It gives the impression to the public that those seriously campaigning for social justice behave in a similar fashion. A serious political organisation would have sufficient discipline to prevent this happening. Were there democratic participation by a membership it would likewise not occur.
Loyalties will be questioned as they should.
School milk, what it does, it pays our farmers to keep our Jersey cows in the fields, it gives our future, our young children a healthy drink, money worth spent as far as I am concerned, money to pay Bill Ogley or any civil servant for that matter is not money going back into the Island and not supporting our local business! so for saving school milk we do 3 things 1) pay a local business 2) keep our Jersey cows 3) give young children a healthy drink, its really very simple! the £138,00 goes back into the local economy, three positive things! not negative, positive!
School milk, what it does, it pays our farmers to keep our Jersey cows in the fields, it gives our future, our young children a healthy drink, money worth spent as far as I am concerned, money to pay Bill Ogley or any civil servant for that matter is not money going back into the Island and not supporting our local business! so for saving school milk we do 3 things 1) pay a local business 2) keep our Jersey cows 3) give young children a healthy drink, its really very simple! the £138,00 goes back into the local economy, three positive things! not negative, positive!
Part of the problem with the left / centre-left in Jersey are the incessant tiffs, which remind me of when the Labour party was so riven with internal conflict in the 1980s that the Conservatives had an easy ride.
I might have little or no internet access for a few days from this afternoon. Your comments remain welcome, but please be patient if I am unable to moderate them temporarily.
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