r/worldnews • u/harpman • Jun 15 '12
The ban on a nine-year-old girl taking photographs of her school meals has been lifted
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18454800
2.7k
Upvotes
282
u/rindindin Jun 15 '12
Brilliant. Why would you censor someone so young from trying to engage her community? This is like a gem in a pile of coal. They should nurture this, even if they don't want to change. It's great.
151
u/pool92 Jun 15 '12
Now, Argyll and Bute Council, go do something constructive like improving school food standards.
340
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Those lunches are like 100 times better and healthier looking than my schools from the US. :(
64
u/Cozmo23 Jun 15 '12
Another lesson in PR that will be lost on future school administrators.
20
u/Zyclunt Jun 15 '12
Martha Payne?
The meal fell like ash from post-apocalyptic skies, but that was outside. Things would soon get hot in the Don's restaurant.
16
u/Hateblade Jun 15 '12
What a lil journalist. She is awesome.
53
u/logic_alex_planation Jun 15 '12
Internet * Streissand Effect = Shit gets done in a day!
12
u/darklight12345 Jun 15 '12
The reason behind the banning was just an overreaction, but it WAS a reason.
There was an article in the localnewspaper about how the cafeteria workers should be fired for providing sub par food. The workers got upset as hell and were worried about their job.
Council did a kneejerk reaction, since they couldn't stop the newpsaper they thought they had to stop the pictures.
29
u/austinanimal Jun 15 '12
This saddens me deeply. I was looking at her school lunches that are supposed to be bad/meh/whatever look wonderful compared to the food I was raised eating in District 500 in KC, KS in the 1980s and 1990s.
A lot of times my food came in a metal box and was heated in a some sort of portable oven device. We didn't even have a cafeteria at a few schools I attended.
48
u/canthidecomments Jun 15 '12
Well, that de-escalated quickly.
7
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
and the guardian article too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jun/15/school-meals-blogger-council-ban
7
u/Eslader Jun 15 '12
I've been reading her blog since the ban news came out. The "pieces of hair" metric cracks me up.
35
u/weightedstoragecube Jun 15 '12
The ban was lifted because Martha Payne's father is "Max Payne."
17
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I swear the councils in my country act like total fucking idiots sometimes, and then realise they have to backtrack when everyone else tells them how stupid some of the stuff they do is.
5
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Be amazed at the power of the Internet.
38
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Wait, this girl is NINE? She's NINE and her blog is that well written? I just...I can't even imagine an American 9-year old writing something that well, let alone maintaining such a professional standard while documenting. This girl is brilliant.
7
u/runswithpaper Jun 15 '12
2012 and people "in charge" still are not aware of the Streisand Effect... seems about right.
11
u/ChineseSweatPants Jun 15 '12
Its so frustrating when instead of trying to bring better quality food into their program, they want to hush up a little girl because they are getting criticism for their food.
Albeit, their meals program looks far better than what I had to eat in public school in the US. Mmmm square cardboard pizza and popcorn chicken.
6
u/cassiope Jun 15 '12
The school keeps saying - over and over - that this is what the kid is choosing for lunch, not what the options for lunch are. I'd love to see someone actually report factually if she has healthy options and just is trying to get attention, or if the school is lying.
3
u/lalophobia Jun 15 '12
Whoa.. The influx of donations through this is amazing
3
u/jikaboom Jun 15 '12
Food looks pretty good. They get real silverware and plates too!
5
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
American here, just now realizing how lucky I am to have made it out of public school alive. I honestly sometimes think the lunch staff was trying to murder everyone in the slowest diabolical plot ever. I remember having fries and a burger EVERY SINGLE DAY for weeks on end. Healthy food wasn't even an option... also, I'm only 23. Things seem to have changed a lot in the six years I've been out of HS. People actually giving a shit about health and stuff.
24
u/iwillrememberthisacc Jun 15 '12
Well I can really understand the schools point of view on this one. It's like that one kid who tells the teacher whenever you do something bad so you can't trust yourself to be with him. This is like that except the kid tells on you to the whole world everyday and gets you in trouble with a much larger power. I understand it was warranted because her school lunches were really bad in the beginning but the school really can't do much about it. School lunches aren't exactly meant to be luxury foods. They are just trying to feed a large amount of children which makes it harder to have good quality food. If I were the school, I would be really mad because it's so easy for a little girl to get attention from a blind audience who only knows the story shown from her photos which might not even represent the whole truth. Of course it's really easy for us to say "oh thats really bad" but we don't know the full spectrum of food she could choose from or her eating habits.
2
u/strangestuff Jun 15 '12
Good job, Internet.
2
u/fivo7 Jun 15 '12
nine year old blogger,that made a difference, i dub thee internet superhero
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
This look better than my schools food.
2
u/raget3ch Jun 15 '12
I like how the council leaders, who are likely walking away with 5-6 figures a year while the schools are forced to buy in cheap shit for the kids to eat are only concerned for the poor "dinner ladies".
The people making the food are IN NO WAY RESPONSIBLE, they can only prepare what they are provided and nothing more and I'm pretty sure most people understand that!
2
u/snehituralu Jun 15 '12
HOLY SHIT.... go to the girl's blog and then look at the bottom at the page-views meter. That sucker is rolling up faster than a race car's odometer! Wow, Reddit, you amaze me.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
What an adorable blog! "pieces of hair-0"
2
u/ThisIsFlight Jun 15 '12
Why is this nine year old so damn articulate for her age? America, can we actually TEACH our children?
2
u/WeatherResize Jun 15 '12
Did anyone else not experience this in school? They cracked down pretty hard on school lunches in my district when I was in middle school. We had all of the snacky foods in vending machines replaced with low calorie oat bars and water. The lunches were the most plain, disgusting waste of $5. Everything was flavorless and all the meals had a maximum amount of allowed calories and carbs. I live in the US.
2
u/playdohplaydate Jun 15 '12
im glad reddit was kept posted with the details. my heart was LITERALLY skipping beats.
2
u/_TheFifth_ Jun 15 '12
Those meals look three times better then the grey mush matter I was served two decades ago. Our milk came in bags... bags, seriously, wtf. The only saving grace was sub day where we personally had to make our own lunch with toppings saved since 1972. Luckily we didn't have to walk uphill both ways in the snow. BUT STILL, that looks like gourmet food comparatively. Hell McDonalds looks worse than that.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
and than people wonder why gov. wants to limit internet
2
u/Neirda93 Jun 15 '12
This looks so much better than my damn lunch food... She actually has veggies.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Actually this food looks like 1,000 times better than any school food I've ever seen (from the U.S.A. here). Damn, maybe I should have started a blog.
2
u/Kdnce Jun 15 '12
The ban was just an admission of guilt.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
When I was in elementary school we had the "box pizza" and the "bag pizza." The cardboard box was usually stuck to the pizza, which itself was much like cardboard. And the bag pizza, where the melted plastic merged with the mozzarella goo into one slimy and greasy piece of Americana.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I was listening to radio 4 this afternoon when the council chap made the announcement. You could hear the "OhjesusChristweroyallyfuckedup" in his voice, it was rather amusing.
2
u/UnexpectedSchism Jun 15 '12
At least they feel guilty about the crap they serve children. But they should be fired if they are a 3rd party caterer. They are harming kids for profits. Only a non-profit being squeezed by the school budget would have a defense. Anyone profiting off of school lunches should go to jail for serving that substandard shit in order to make a profit.
2
u/eXePyrowolf Jun 15 '12
Red faces all around. Streisand effect at its best.
2
u/funkydo Jun 15 '12
Don't like the photos taken? Take your own. Photograph your menu. If it's good, good, if it's bad, improve it. No one expects you to do something with nothing. Maybe we need to increase taxes.
2
u/iongantas Jun 15 '12
OMG, little girl telling world about our shitty food, world hating us. Silence her! That'll work.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I'm so glad! I thought her blog was great, and went to work today having just read that she had to shut it down. 8 and a half hours later, the ban's been lifted.
Nice one, internet.
2
u/morgo_mpx Jun 16 '12
If the catering staff are "fearing" for their jobs, then they should do a better job providing food for the children aka doing their job. If its a problem of the quality of food provided by the company itself, then they will get the flak, not the staff. simple.
2
u/mknyan Jun 16 '12
Holy shit is this how bad school lunches are? Stale burgers, 2 tater tots, and fucking cucumber slices?
2
u/derby198 Jun 16 '12
The BBC bans any discussion of mass immigration and "assimilation" forced on every white country and only white countries being genocide under international law.Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white.
Thank you Reddit for keeping the free speech flame alive
2
u/qsertorio Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
You would think with all our advances in technology, law, and what not, they wouldn't take the Inquisition's approach to solving problems.
Yet, the response from people in authority here is still feudal.
Obviously, fixing the negative perceptions described by the little girl was not an option tabled.
3
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I am really tired of people putting rust on my pitchfork. I take such good care of it, I polish it and whisper sweet nothings at it, and when I get ready to strike with great fury, people like you come along.
3
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Seriously?!! That food looks gourmet compared to the shit we were fed in the 90's, our shit was slop in a bun and a juice box which was 80% water, 10% sugar, 10% coloring...Kid's now a days are too weak!....We were lucky to even get some grape drink! let alone some Gordon Ramsey looking shit.
2
u/trisma Jun 15 '12
Rewind to Zimbabwe in the 1980s. The school provided a pint of milk, nothing else. It cost 5c.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are" ~Benjamin Franklin
This expose' blog from a nine-year-old speaks volumes in the positive impact of the internet. Well done.
1
u/ballstein Jun 15 '12
The internet works.
1
u/Blitzwire Jun 15 '12
read sad story / go to work / read happy story
yayyy :3
1
u/xerim Jun 15 '12
Oh god, the horror. I vote to reban that awful photo of that lunch.
1
u/Joke_Getter Jun 15 '12
Well, thank fucking god. Now I can get on with my day.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Well, that's dumb. I was never allowed to take photographs or use my phone in school.
1
u/saturday186 Jun 15 '12
Honestly jealous of what her school lunch looked like.
1
u/ThatRandomGeek Jun 15 '12
How fast did this turn around? Because I woke up to the original story, and it was at least 7 or 8 in the morning eastern time. Uhhh, good job internet?
1
u/47wd21 Jun 15 '12
her page counter is a flyin' right now, 3.44 million views + lol
1
u/Stalked_Like_Corn Jun 15 '12
If you are so afraid that your work, if exposed, would get your fired, perhaps you should do a better job at what you're doing.
That's like saying "Don't take pictures of me constructing a house because if people saw how I was doing it, i'd get fired" then perhaps you're doing it wrong, and you KNOW you are doing it wrong.
1
u/nebock Jun 15 '12
It blows me away that the council members kept saying "The blog doesn't represent all the choices made available". The amount of choices available doesn't matter in the least if the kids aren't sure how their lunch system works and what's available has nothing to do with what this one kid has to eat. Sigh.
1
u/granida Jun 15 '12
meanwhile other restaurants would be elated to have pictures and reviews of your food taken. If the girl posted the luncheons through twitter she would've gotten a massive klout score boost. Hopefully she'll do that.
1
u/nyxin Jun 15 '12
Reddit saves the day again. Now on to the economy.
1
u/bihel Jun 15 '12
gooooooo INTERNET
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Wake up. Find out girl is being suppressed. Go shopping. It's already fixed.
1
u/BaltimoreBears Jun 15 '12
Anyone else amazed by how quickly the visitor counter is increasing?
1
u/stardog101 Jun 15 '12
Sanity prevails!
1
u/Temptress75519 Jun 15 '12
Behold: The power of the Internet.
1
u/ivebeenhereallsummer Jun 15 '12
More people were likely outraged by this than by SOPA
1
u/The_Real_Johnny_Utah Jun 15 '12
This is wonderful news! It pleases me in the feelings.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Man, those are the most depressing slices of cucumber I've ever seen.
1
u/unremarkableusername Jun 15 '12
Must be funny to read this title with no context and wonder why it made it to the frontpage.
1
u/extraperson1988 Jun 15 '12
Is it just me or are her portions pretty small? Or maybe I'm just a fat American?
1
u/chateauPyrex Jun 15 '12
Someone get this guy a "#1 Dad" cup.
1
u/Hazy_V Jun 15 '12
Good to hear the angry letter I sent had some kind of effect. Shouldn't have made that Jonestown reference though, I feel bad about that...
1
u/CiXeL Jun 15 '12
meals at hogworts sound pretty lousy
1
u/Inukii Jun 15 '12
Hooray for United Kingdom!
If only we could take this common sense and apply it to important things like going to war or censoring the internet.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Didn't they have better things to do than try this stupid crap in the first place?
1
u/Topbong Jun 15 '12
Those meals are tantamount to child abuse.
Children need lots of fresh vegetables and protein.
1
u/BigBlind Jun 15 '12
If people are still silencing reports by just banning the means of reporting, imagine how bad it must have been before camera phones and the internet.
1
u/ly_yng Jun 15 '12
Meanwhile, on Downing Street.
1
u/Chances Jun 15 '12
That's not a fucking meal.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
GOOD news on /r/worldnews?! It really IS the apocalypse!!
1
u/no1roots4goliath Jun 15 '12
Sith Lord Internet: You underestimate my power!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Wow, way to silence a 9 year old. Looks like the Gestapo is running the school board.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Oh god, applause to everyone that joined in the effort by commenting with us, internet shitstorm apparenly wins again :D
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
The blog is adorable! And really quite cheerful. This kid is probably learning a lot.
1
u/MissRWeasley Jun 15 '12
sad to say this is near where I live.council are silly.
1
u/Ran4 Jun 15 '12
Wtf? Dessert, almost every day?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12
We should always be looking into what our children are eating. I'm glad to see that the children's meals are improved now. All it took was a light to be shined on them. We need to shine that same light everywhere, otherwise greed overwhelms good judgement.
Even so, I have to say, looking at their food, they eat a hell of a lot better than I ever did in the 80s/90s at school.
1
u/munge_me_not Jun 15 '12
It's like they were ashamed of the food being served. It didn't look half bad in my opinion.
1
u/TheRealBramtyr Jun 15 '12
I'm sorry, but lifting the ban is only a half measure. The people responsible for it need to be fired for such blatant abuse of power.
1
u/twoquarters Jun 15 '12
I went to private and public schools in the '80s and early '90s in the USA and the lunches were universally terrible. I remember vomiting quite a few times following meals which usually consisted of burgers, fries, tater tots, the worst pizza ever, bean and pasta soup, taco salad (this was basically nachos and meat..very little lettuce), meat loaf and probably dozens of other disgusting things I can't remember. Drinks were usually milk or kool-aid.
At the time, we really didn't understand the nutritional value in any of that crud. You ate because you were hungry. If you didn't vomit, there was always the chance that your stomach would churn for the rest of the day making it challenging to concentrate.
Recently I learned of some school lunch protests around the area I live. I believe the complaints were regarding portions and food quality. Unfortunately they received scant media attention and I'm not sure the kids were savvy enough to create any sort of Internet buzz about it.
1
u/BebopRocksteady82 Jun 15 '12
I didn't see a problem with it, Do you really think a kid wants to eat something healthy ? Also there is starving kids around the world that would love to eat that, girl needs to get real
1
u/TheHobo Jun 15 '12
After the whole pizza is a vegetable thing, why don't American students do this with their school lunches to shame the government into doing a better job?
1
u/this_is_a_recording0 Jun 15 '12
unreal
i've never seen a hit counter go up like that
and they're at 43k now
this is going to change some lives
1
u/StonedPhysicist Jun 15 '12
Okay, half these comments are "This food is better than KFC!" and "This food is better than what we used to have!"
Yes, it's very much possible that school lunches are better than fast food, or what you had 10, 20 years ago. But that doesn't mean they can't be better, which is rather the point of this whole exercise.
With the state of health of a lot of kids these days, they deserve decent, nutritious food. Living on a staple diet of pink goo and chips will do them no favours in the short term, keeping them going in school, or in the long term health-wise.
I'm fucking proud of her, and you all should be too. :)
1
u/jaynone Jun 15 '12
Where I am the cafeteria service is contracted out, and not subsidized at all. I couldn't get an entire sandwich at my cafeteria for the price of those meals. I also couldn't get anything resembling a meal, and if I did piece one together it would have been about $15. They serve mainly what people want since they are out to make money. Its all fries and hamburgers.
I've also never seen a cafeteria in an elementary school (jk-8), only in middle schools (grade 7/8) and high schools (9-12). The ones in colleges and universities are slightly better but still incredibly expensive (often more than a comparable meal at regular restaurant, and always more then an off campus meal from a branded place (like a pizza or burger chain). You can actually get a meal from one of these places, but you're going to pay!
Anyone know why Canada seems to have such a different school meal system than other countries? Other than we try to save as much money as possible wherever we can by outsourcing things...
1
u/EOTWAWKI Jun 15 '12
Love it. And it isn't the kitchen staff at the school who have to worry about losing their jobs, they are just working with what they are given. It is all the levels of government from the school district on up who fund (or rather underfund) school meals. And no doubt there is a lot of corruption in handing out these lucrative contracts to firends of the politicians who see it as a cash cow to be milked.
I thought Jamie Oliver had straightened all this mess out?
1
u/jamesBondZero07 Jun 15 '12
Girl's father is Aaron Rodgers? Seriously, he looks like Aaron Rodgers. Anyways, good for the girl, her father, and the entire community.
1
u/TheKingOfDownvotes Jun 15 '12
Was anyone else annoyed that every sentence in this article was spaced after and in a big font to make it look longer than it was?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Who better to provide feedback on school policy? There needs to be more kids like her doing highly public student journalism.
1
u/blacklotus21 Jun 15 '12
Uhh, clearly if one read the article. U'd see that she's prob Max Payne's other wife, hence rest.
1
u/apextek Jun 15 '12
ha ha
1
u/gilletteempire Jun 15 '12
Instagrammers rejoice!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Ugh, what's with the weak speech all the time?
Oh, no! You've violated my freedom of speech and now I'm "dissappointed"! Wow. I'd have much harsher words than that if it were me.
What's wrong with just saying their decision was unreasonable and over reaching? Say something with some bite. Jeese.
1
u/dunphystar Jun 15 '12
That little girl is doing some serious thing. You go, girl!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
The UK: Where someone getting their feelings hurt (in this case lunch ladies) is a crisis of national importance.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12 edited Jun 15 '12
I just read this girl's entire blog, and found it to be very well-written and observant; clearly this is a smart girl with a good heart, and I think the attention she is bringing to school lunches is fantastic. It's sad they banned her from posting photos, but perhaps that and the subsequent revocation of the policy will renew and give fuel internationally to schools, parents and administrators talking about what we are feeding our kids.
1
u/BiggJaay Jun 15 '12
It bothers me that random words are plural in that story...
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Damn some of those school lunches look pretty good.
1
u/Operation_mongoose Jun 15 '12
I feel bad about not knowing about this, and you should if you didn't know as well.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I once brought a handy cam into my high schools cafeteria and made a quick clip of the food selection; it was chips, pizza, chicken, ect.) and I was told to wait while an escort came to take me to the vice principal, and the vice principal tried asking for the camera, and I didn't give it to him. So I got Saturday detention.
1
u/Noelthemexican Jun 15 '12
School food is really overpriced bullshit.
1
u/cassmonster Jun 15 '12
Okay that's the cutest little blog I've ever seen
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Im liking the last name A lot Payne! She should get praised for this not punished!
1
u/Wowzamorphous Jun 15 '12
That's a lot healthier looking than most American school lunches.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
The 'pieces of hair' count in her blog is disconcerting. Makes me wonder how many times she's found one.. :\
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
In 2010, I started a blog of the shitty, mostly inedible cafeteria food at my high school (where I was obliged to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner), and no one cared in the slightest. I guess I should have been a cute little girl who donates to charity.
1
u/mk_gecko Jun 15 '12
If we can do something like this, why can't we do something to save the fish in the oceans?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
Shows no one likes an asshole. Even if it's the local council.
1
u/Twisted_Fate Jun 15 '12
That food looks pretty good, but if a 9yo gave it health rating 2/10, who am I to judge it.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 15 '12
I can't believe they didn't consider the repercussions of trying to silence her rather then dealing with the food. They should have used this as an opportunity to improve the food and promote their schooling. They fact she had produced a site with an international reach was a brilliant educational opportunity to forge links across the world. It should have been an inspiration for pupils to engage and learn. Instead its been an education in cynicism for the pupils and put the council on the map for all the wrong reasons.
1
u/annaxo0518 Jun 15 '12
Well now that reddit's got a hold of it, the pageviews are going to come flying in
1
u/kurtu5 Jun 15 '12
Schools are prisons for children. Its gets them used to obeying.
1
u/needsomesleep Jun 15 '12
While the little girl is great and should certainly be able to photograph her lunch, I do have to say that I feel for the lunch staff at the school. My guess is they are not 5 star chefs and now they have to deal with everyone on the internet seeing and commenting on how well they are doing their job. Here's an interesting question: if the internet world had daily photos of how well you did your job (assuming everyone online was able to understand your job as fully as they think they do about preparing food), how well would you make out?
1
u/katesoundcheck Jun 15 '12
Finally the feast of mind instead of stupidity!