Extending the season

This seems to be school food week at Goat Rope. For some time, I've been blogging about and otherwise working on expanding free meals for kids in high-poverty schools through the federal Community Eligibility Provision.That program goes national this year, which means that wherever you are in the US, Gentle Reader, you can start bugging your school board to do the right thing.

Think about it: the way we deal with school meals through a free, reduced and paid system is out of line with how we do everything else. We don't charge some kids to ride the school bus or get classroom instruction or to play sports. Why should meals be any different? Hungry kids can't learn and there is a growing realization that good nutrition needs to be seen as just a part of the school day.

The US Department of Agriculture announced today that it was extending the deadline for school boards to apply for the program. Previously, the deadline was June 30; now it's August 31st. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that over 28,000 US schools are eligible for the program. The USDA says that around 8 million kids go to those schools.

That means there are thousands of good little fights that can make a real difference for kids and families--plenty to go around. Let's win some.

Food matters

Between road trips and mishaps, I have been a terribly inconsistent blogger. This post isn't much of an atonement but it's all I've got at the moment. Here goes:

Around the country, school boards are grappling with the decision of whether to expand free meals for students in schools with a high percentage of people living in poverty. This item on New York's deliberations and reservations was carried on NPR. It looks like NYC is skittish, although I imagine they'll eventually come around.

The program in question is the Community Eligibility Provision of the 2010 US Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. WV became eligible for the program in the 2012-2013 school year and expanded it the following year. I've been working to encourage holdout counties into implementing the program. So far, at least one county school board has voted to do so.

You can read more about it here. The deadline to sign up for the program for the next school year is June 30.

MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE BOOK STORE, Thomas Picketty's mammoth Capital in the 21st Century has generated quite a bit of buzz and angered many worshipers of the market god. Here's a review by a friend of mine. Note how generously he fed the trolls.

Three from WV

West Virginia's efforts to improve child nutrition in schools got a shout out today from Off the Charts, the blog of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. The post focuses on WV's implementation of the Community Eligibility Provision, a federal policy that allows school boards to provide free meals to all kids in high-poverty schools. Former first lady and current state Board of Education President Gayle Manchin recently published an op-ed in support of the program as well.

June 30 is the deadline for school boards to opt into (or out of) the program. I'm hoping and working to see the numbers increase this year.

IF THAT WAS THE GOOD, this piece on the politics of coal would probably be the bad and the ugly.

A (VERY) LITTLE JUSTICE. People who have lived in Masseyland over the last 20 years or so might be interested to learn that Hugh Caperton finally won a legal round in his long fight with the former coal giant. The award was pretty small though.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

A slow theological slog

Swiss theologian Karl Barth, 1886-1968.

Finishing a large, difficult book is a kind of marathon, although generally it is one mercifully broken up over an extended period of time rather than a few hours. Last night I finally finished reading the signature work of Karl Barth, one of the 20th century's premier theologians.

The book in question was The Epistle to the Romans, first published around 1918. It was 537 dense pages of text, many of which went right over my head. I borrowed it from a friend and sometime reader of this blog back around Thanksgiving. It went into my morning pile of books that I try to turn a couple of pages of over coffee most mornings.

Barth is probably best known for his work in organizing Christian opposition to the Nazi movement in Europe,and especially its efforts to Nazify Christianity, by establishing the Confessing Church. Some if its members, such as Martin Niemoller, wound up in concentration camps. Others, like Dietrich Bonheoffer, were executed by the regime.

If I had to sum up Barth's theology, I couldn't, but maybe one could start like this: the main thing you need to know about God is that you ain't. Barth rejected liberal and rationalist theology and instead emphasized that God is absolutely unknowable by humans--except as He (Barth was pre-feminist but would probably be cool with it today) freely chose to reveal himself in the Gospel proclamation.

I think I like Barth because I do believe in the absolute distinction between God and humanity. I even believe in that on the days I doubt God. Nothing seems loopier or more self-evidently false than the assertion that humans are somehow divine. The Quakers may be right that there is "that of God" in every person. But if so, I'd say that "that" is what Bob Dylan called a "broken mirror of innocence," i.e. something that might reflect light but not originate it.

Somedays I'm orthodox in spite of myself.

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES. This story about real estate highlights our growing issues of inequality.

THANKS, GUYS. NOT. Here's a look at the fun loving guys who gave us West Virginia's 2014 chemical spill.

HOW BOUT WE FEED SOME KIDS? Here's my latest op-ed on school meals, the Feed to Achieve Act and Community Eligibility.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED