The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.
In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.
For over a decade, Glenn Richter and his wife, Lenore, have led a team of food-delivery volunteers from Ohab Zedek, the Upper West Side Orthodox congregation.
They’ve brought freshly cooked, nutrient-rich surplus foods from synagogue events to homeless facilities in the neighborhood. (Disclosure: I know the food is so tasty because I’ve eaten it — I’m an OZ member.) The practice of donating such surplus food to homeless shelters is common among houses of worship in the city.
DHS Commissioner Seth Diamond says the ban on food donations is consistent with Mayor Bloomberg’s emphasis on improving nutrition for all New Yorkers. A new interagency document controls what can be served at facilities — dictating serving sizes as well as salt, fat and calorie contents, plus fiber minimums and condiment recommendations.
The city also cites food-safety issues with donations, but it’s clear that the real driver behind the ban is the Bloomberg dietary diktats.
Diamond insists that the institutional vendors hired by the shelters serve food that meets the rules but also tastes good; it just isn’t too salty. So, says the commissioner, the homeless really don’t need any of the synagogue’s food.
Glenn Richter’s experience suggests otherwise. He says the beneficiaries — many of them senior citizens recovering from drug and alcohol abuse — have always been appreciative of the treats he and other OZ members bring.
It’s not just that the donations offer an enjoyable addition to the “official” low-salt fare; knowing that the food comes from volunteers and community members warms their hearts, not just their stomachs.
So you can imagine Richter’s consternation last month when employees at a local shelter turned away food he brought from a bar mitzvah.
He’s a former city Housing Authority employee, and his wife spent 35 years as a South Bronx public-school teacher, so they’re no strangers to bureaucracy and poverty. But an exasperated Richter says, “This level of micromanagement is stunning.”
Says Rabbi Allen Schwartz of Ohav Zedek, “Jews have been eating chulent and kugel for a long time, and somehow we’ve managed to live long and healthy lives. All we want to do is to continue sharing these bounties with our neighbors.”
Hitler Commits Suicide; Ravaging of Europe ‘A Desperate Cry for Help,’ Say Therapists.
Fuhrer’s Slaughter of Millions Blamed on ‘Serious Self-Esteem Issues’
‘If We Had Only Known How Much He Was Hurting Inside,’ FDR Says
Berlin – Absent from the public eye for months, Adolf Hitler is reportedly dead by his own hand in an air-raid shelter in Berlin, where he had sequestered himself during his final days.
Dr. Theodore Beaumont, director of the Virginia Psychiatry Center, said he believes Hitler’s marching on Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France, and his systematic killings of millions of people in Germany, was “a desperate cry for help.”
According to Beaumont, “This is classic attention seeking behavior.” Beaumont said Hitler made his plea for approval the only way he knew how: by lashing out.
Other experts agree. “The British and American forces just reciprocated negatively by advancing from the west,” said Dr. Johan Freberg of the Paris Center for Mental Illness. “And Russian soldiers reinforced Hitler’s self-fulfilling prophesy of ‘othering’ by attacking from the east, instead of lending a sympathetic ear, which may of been all Hitler needed.”
Upon learning of the self-esteem issues that led Hitler to militaristic “acting out,” Allied leaders are seeing the once-hated despot in a new light.
“I heard his angry speeches but failed to search for the hurt little boy beneath those words,” lamented British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “I feel guilty – there’s so much more we could have done for him.”
Said President Roosevelt, “Inside that maniacal mass murderer – beneath the veneer of evil and sadism – there was a scared little child searching for love.”
Psychologists say the global carnage of the Second World War could have been averted if only U.S. forces had met Hitler’s emotional needs, giving him the love and approval he so desperately sought.
“What you’re wearing is an absolute disgrace. You parade yourself as some sort of centre-right invested community leader, but you’re in the red!”
“You’re going to be nervous when you line up in those par threes now, aren’t you? You’re munted mate, you’re never going to make it. You’ve got that gay red top on there.”
It has come to the attention of the Department of Environmental Quality that there has been recent unauthorized activity on the above referenced parcel of property. You have been certified as the legal landowner and/or contractor who did the following unauthorized activity:
Construction and maintenance of two wood debris dams across the outlet stream of Spring Pond.
A permit must be issued prior to the start of this type of activity. A review of the Department’s files shows that no permits have been issued Therefore, the Department has determined that this activity is in violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.
The Department has been informed that one or both of the dams partially failed during a recent rain event, causing debris and flooding at downstream locations.. We find that dams of this nature are inherently hazardous and cannot be permitted. The Department therefore orders you to cease and desist all activities at this location, and to restore the stream to a free-flow condition by removing all wood and brush forming the dams from the stream channel. All restoration work shall be completed no later than January 31, 2010.
Please notify this office when the restoration has been completed so that a follow-up site inspection may be scheduled by our staff. Failure to comply with this request or any further unauthorized activity on the site may result in this case being referred for elevated enforcement action..
We anticipate and would appreciate your full cooperation in this matter. Please feel free to contact me at this office if you have any questions.
Sincerely, David L. Price
District Representative and Water Management Division.
********************************************************************************
Response sent back by Mr. DeVries:
Re: DEQ File
No.. 97-59-0023; T11N; R10W, Sec. 20; Lycoming County
Dear Mr. Price,
Your certified letter dated 11/17/09 has been handed to me. I am the legal landowner but not the Contractor at 2088 Dagget Lane , Trout Run, Pennsylvania.
A couple of beavers are in the process of constructing and maintaining two wood ‘debris’ dams across the outlet stream of my Spring Pond. While I did not pay for, authorize, nor supervise their dam project, I think they would be highly offended that you call their skillful use of natures building materials ‘debris.’
I would like to challenge your department to attempt to emulate their dam project any time and/or any place you choose. I believe I can safely state there is no way you could ever match their dam skills, their dam resourcefulness, their dam ingenuity, their dam persistence, their dam determination and/or their dam work ethic.
These are the beavers/contractors you are seeking. As to your request, I do not think the beavers are aware that they must first fill out a dam permit prior to the start of this type of dam activity.
My first dam question to you is:
(1) Are you trying to discriminate against my Spring Pond Beavers, or
(2) Do you require all beavers throughout this State to conform to said dam request?
If you are not discriminating against these particular beavers, through the Freedom of Information Act, I request completed copies of all those other applicable beaver dam permits that have been issued. (Perhaps we will see if there really is a dam violation of Part 301, Inland Lakes and Streams, of the Natural Resource and Environmental Protection Act, Act 451 of the Public Acts of 1994, being sections 324.30101 to 324.30113 of the Pennsylvania Compiled Laws, annotated.)
I have several dam concerns. My first dam concern is, aren’t the beavers entitled to legal representation? The Spring Pond Beavers are financially destitute and are unable to pay for said representation — so the State will have to provide them with a dam lawyer.
The Department’s dam concern that either one or both of the dams failed during a recent rain event, causing flooding, is proof that this is a natural occurrence, which the Department is required to protect. In other words, we should leave the Spring Pond Beavers alone rather than harassing them and calling them dam names.
If you want the damed stream ‘restored’ to a dam free-flow condition please contact the beavers — but if you are going to arrest them, they obviously did not pay any attention to your dam letter, they being unable to read English.
In my humble opinion, the Spring Pond Beavers have a right to build their unauthorized dams as long as the sky is blue, the grass is green and water flows downstream. They have more dam rights than I do to live and enjoy Spring Pond. If the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection lives up to its name, it should protect the natural resources (Beavers) and the environment (Beavers’ Dams).
So, as far as the beavers and I are concerned, this dam case can be referred for more elevated enforcement action right now. Why wait until 1/31/2010? The Spring Pond Beavers may be under the dam ice by then and there will be no way for you or your dam staff to contact/harass them.
In conclusion, I would like to bring to your attention to a real environmental quality, health, problem in the area It is the bears! Bears are actually defecating in our woods. I definitely believe you should be persecuting the defecating bears and leave the beavers alone. If you are going to investigate the beaver dam, watch your dam step! The bears are not careful where they dump!
Being unable to comply with your dam request, and being unable to contact you on your dam answering machine, I am sending this response to your dam office.
Outlook for Thursday – DD Smash Friday – Rebecca Black
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting – Elton John
Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2
I Don’t Like Mondays – Boomtown Rats
Ruby Tuesday – The Rolling Stones
… I can’t think of a song for Wednesday. Can you?
A week is a long time in politics.
It’s been 7 days and I still haven’t heard from Muhammad Sadik.
Sunday was Blasphemy Day, but why insult the Prophet? I contented myself with a couple of photoshopped images of Shakeel Bhat for Friday.
Saturday marked the start of some (un)healthy media coverage of the forthcoming Liberty Conference 2012. Can Libertarianz step up? I hope they don’t! I thought the whole idea was for Libertarianz to stand down—indeed, to disband and deregister—to clear the way for a new freedom Phoenix to rise from the ashes. I certainly didn’t reappoint myself as the Libertarianz Spokesman on Drugs with the expectation that the party would keep on keeping on into 2013 and beyond! He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
Commentators also argue the Libertarianz are without a political figurehead but Peter Cresswell, Auckland architect and political blogger, is willing to be that person. He too believes the party is in need of a facelift, which could be revealed as soon as Saturday at their party conference in Auckland.
This was the first I’d heard of Peter Cresswell’s nomination. My co-blogger Tim asks, “Is Peter Cresswell the Right Man for the Job? I’m not so sure. Can an Objectivist Zealot change his spots?” I’m an optimist, but an optimist who carries a raincoat. IMHO, there is at least one better candidate.
Yesterday’s post is a timely reminder that “He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit …” Is this the way forward for the new freedom party?! This Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing. And Monday. Don’t like Mondays? Me neither. We are all going to die. Yay!
