Vegans have respect, responsibility, and love for all
"If the school goes vegan, everything’s fine"
A Fox River Grove art teacher who was fired last year for telling his students about veganism, is still causing controversy. Last month, Dave Warwak contacted some of his former students over the Internet and asked them to meet him at a Fox River Grove restaurant. He passed out 20 copies of his self-published book, "A Peep Show for Children Only."
Watch "The Simpsons"
3:12 minutes - from episode "Lisa the Vegetarian",
this is the educational "documentary" about how meat is made.
"Meat and You: Partners in Freedom." With Troy Mcclure.
Number 3f03 in the "Resistance is Useless" series. Very funny!
"I would have loved if some guy dressed up as Santa gave me a present when I was a kid and that present was the truth"
This is the impossible to find list of State
agencies that track food shipments.
They will tell you if your school has been
supplied with beef from Westland. http://inslide.com/agencies.htm
"Fox River Grove Middle School is standing education on its head when it cracks down on instructors who teach our kids about kindness and good health," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "Mr. Warwak is exposing the meat industry's dirty secrets, and his students have every right to know the truth behind their food choices."
“How many more school shootings until we wake-up? Humane Education coupled with a vegan school lunch program will end school shootings”
“This is not just about diet. Don't believe everything you see. The world is an illusion. Wake up. There are many things all around us made from animals that we never notice. We're so disconnected; we don't even notice this right in front of our face three times a day. When we open our circle of compassion to all, we grow as a people and our treatment of each other and others improves. It really is about peace, love, and compassion for all"
Already morally bankrupt, Fox River Grove School District 3, chooses to sell out your children. And now, knowing full well, of the appeal processes, and the great costs of litigation, have chosen to spend what most certainly will be over millions of dollars fighting a losing case. Your kids could have lived longer, healthier lives in a better world; however, your schools prefer their pride, over your children, our planet, or even our future. And you cheer them and boo me.
Man will not hurt a mosquito, compassionate yes, but so very different and strange in the year 2007. Administrators so fearful of change, and so intolerant of those with different views, that they act irrationally in response to fear. Here, administrators call the police to escort me off school grounds, after the Board of Education had their way with me.
Fox River Grove police officers escort art teacher Dave Warwak out of Fox River Grove Middle School on Monday after District 3 school board members terminated his employment. District officials say Warwak turned his classroom into sessions on veganism and animal rights, and then told students to keep it a secret. (Justin Runquist photo)
143 Million Pounds of Beef
(most already eaten by unsuspecting children)
Recalled!
Disrespectful waste of life sickens me! Is this what you fight so hard for? To make sure your school and you at home, continue to serve this crap to the kids! You are poisoning your children. You are stripping them of their connection with the real world. Talk about indoctrination! Why do you fight so hard against something that is so good? Think of the children Please, for the children Will you?
The Meat and Dairy Industry, Public Schools, and your government have indoctrinated you into a violent society, which Humane Education could heal. In addition, it heals the ozone, solves a whole catalog of society's ills and addresses the most important issues of today. Issues such as cancer, pollution, school shootings, war, health care crisis, longevity, happiness, true achievement, compassion, respect, responsibility, and on, and on, and on. One simple change and instead, administrators fight so hard as to bully and fire people with the best intentions for those around them. Public school administrators choose to waste your tax dollars so they may continue their legacy of death and destruction of our children and our environment.
Public school administrators knowingly suppress truth and promote falsehood. Those who were indoctrinated into this falsehood are the people in charge. They do not want change and will use all their might to fight change. How many more school shootings before you wake up? Do you care enough about your child to be honest? That is ok, go off in the corner with your roast beef sandwich and let us build a better world. Children deserve to know the truth. Tell a child the truth today http://inslide.com
“History cares not of pride, nor, conformists, only to a gasp at how primitive they must have been; whereas, we always remember those who are able to change with great reverence, for they put aside pride and refused to conform to evil” Warwak
Require USDA to facilitate healthful plant-based (vegan) school lunch options to promote public health, freedom from hunger, environmental quality, nonviolence, and kindness to animals.
The Problem
Under the mandate from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program, school cafeterias routinely serve highly processed meals laden with saturated fat, cholesterol, hormones, and salt. Common entrees include chicken nuggets, pizza, cheeseburgers, and hot dogs. This diet flouts U.S. Dietary Guidelines and promotes obesity, diabetes, hypertension, other chronic conditions, and food poisoning.
Consider the following:
• Fewer than 2% of children eat in accordance with the U.S. Dietary Guidelines on a given day.
• School lunches contain 33% of calories from fat, including 12% from saturated fat, while U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend 30% and 10%, respectively.
• More than 30% of children are overweight or obese.
• 25% of children ages 5 to 10 suffer from high cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, or other chronic conditions.
The Solution
A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains is largely free of these problems and essential to good health. It supplies nearly all essential nutrients, contains little fat, fewer pesticides, and no cholesterol, hormones, antibiotics, or heavy metals. It also provides special nutrients that reduce the risk of cancer. It is conducive to more energy and improved academic performance.
A healthy diet for children is a critical indicator of future health, because children's bodies are still developing, because their dietary choices are still being formed, and because their poor eating habits become lifelong addictions.
In addition to its obvious health benefits, a plant-based diet offers the only long-term solution to the world hunger epidemic. It avoids the massive deforestation, water pollution, and global warming caused by the meat and dairy industries. Last, but not least, it spares billions of cows, pigs, and other innocent sentient animals from the atrocities of factory farms and slaughterhouses.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has the ability and the obligation to provide a wholesome food supply for our nation, starting with our children. It should use the school lunch and other national feeding programs to improve the nation's health, rather than to susidize the meat and dairy agribusiness.
Posted by web78377 - on Tuesday, December 02, 2008 @ 20:25:31 GMT
So, ... Barack Obama knows all about the problems with the school lunch program and its implications on the future health of Americans. Will Obama lead by example or will he sweep the issue under the rug? “All ancient philosophy was oriented toward the simplicity of life and taught a certain kind of modesty in one’s need. In light of this, the few philosophic vegetarians have done more for mankind than all new philosophers, and as long as philosophers do not take courage to seek out a totally changed way of life and to demonstrate it by their example, they are worth nothing.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
Posted by web78377 - on Saturday, November 29, 2008 @ 02:33:32 GMT
Pay No Attention to
That Turkey Being Slaughtered
By MARTHA ROSENBERG
Posing for photographers with her felled caribou, her child inches from its bleeding mouth, Sarah Life-Is-Precious Palin is not confused about where meat comes from.
So the turkey being slaughtered in full view of the camera as she conducted an interview at Triple D Farms in Wasilla this week probably doesn't phase her.
But most Americans don't want to see the transformations their turkey went through to get to their Thanksgiving dinner table.
How it lived, how it was shipped, who hung the struggling bird upside down on the conveyer to transport it to the awaiting blade, et cetera--are not thoughts that improve the taste of the cranberry sauce.
Nor will the economy get so bad people will have to take jobs as "live hangers" like Sam, not his real name, last year.
"Today I saw about 50 dead turkeys on the trucks, and about 80 live birds fell onto the floor," he writes in a diary he kept while working at House of Raeford Farms in Raeford, NC, the seventh largest turkey producer in the US.
"A worker tried to throw a turkey up to the double-sided dock from its rail side. The bird was about to hit the rail when another worker kneed the bird and then kicked it, knocking it back down to the floor. The worker threw the turkey a second time, but it hit the underside of the dock and dropped straight down to the cement floor for its third time that day. The bird lay in watery feces for about two hours before being picked up and hung on the line - the turkey could keep its head up and blink; it was otherwise motionless."
Mom or Grandma may put hours of care into roasting, basting, stuffing and perfecting their butter brown bird.
But care is not the operant word at the slaughter house as workers throw, swing and "box" at the birds as they unload trucks in video Sam shot.
One worker holds a turkey to be crushed under a truck's moving tires just for the heck of it; others pull heads and legs off turkeys for fun.
Workers insert their fingers into birds' cloacae (vaginal cavities), remove eggs and throw them at each other in a depraved game.
Because turkeys are drugged and bred to grow so quickly, their legs can't support their own weight and many arrive with broken and dislocated limbs says Sam. When you try to remove them from their crates, their legs twist completely around, offering no resistance--useless and limp.
The turkeys must be in a lot of pain but they don't cry out, observes Sam. In fact the only sound you hear as you hang them, he says, is the "trucks being washed out to go back and get a new load."
Most people admit they don’t want to watch laws or 40 pound Thanksgiving turkey carcasses made.
Nor do they want to watch a helpless turkey unceremoniously fed into a wood chipper behind Sarah Palin's head as KTUU TV broadcast.
But will they eat the same bird when it is passed to them on a plate next to mashed potatoes on Thursday? You betcha.
Martha Rosenberg is staff cartoonist on the Evanston Roundtable. She can be reached at mrosenberg@evmark.org
Posted by web78377 - on Tuesday, November 04, 2008 @ 05:32:04 GMT
Even Barack Obama commented on the Agriprocessors ethical black hole on a
campaign stop in Davenport, IA, remarking, "They have kids in there wielding buzz saws and cleavers. It's ridiculous."
Posted by web78377 - on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 @ 06:06:25 GMT
Can In-Class
Huckstering Make
Milk Cool to Teenagers?
(Best Syndication News) During the Keating Five real estate boom, they used to ask what is the difference between an Arizona real estate agent--male or female--and a 65 Mustang? Not everyone's had a 65 Mustang was the answer.
Today, they might ask what is the difference between a 65 Mustang and posing for a Got Milk ad.
Is there anyone who hasn't posed with a milk mustache except O.J. Simpson and Phil Spector? And they may be looking at the paperwork now.
Like Wendy's Where's the Beef ads in the 80's, people love Got Milk ads because they're zany, don't take themselves too seriously and are infinitely repeated.
But like Wendy's ads, they also don't sell product.
In fact, since 1983 when the National Dairy Board (NDB) and National Fluid Milk Board (FMB) began advertising milk, consumption has gone down every year and is at its lowest point ever.
Lower than 1983 even if the population hadn't grown by one person.
Worse the National Dairy Board (NDB) and National Fluid Milk Board (FMB) spent a $1 billion on milk advertising to get it that way.
Over the years, NDB and FMB have tried to portray milk as 1) good for your bones 2) good for PMS 3) good for sports' performance and 4) good for weight loss--with varying degrees of failure and calls for correction from the medical community.
But it has been NDB and FMB's desire to make milk "cool" that drives most milk advertising--and the placement of posters with musicians and sports heroes on the walls of 60,000 elementary schools and 45,000 public middle and high schools across the nation.
And now NDB and FMB have another toehold in the schools.
Students at three California high schools, Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, the Center for Advanced Research and Technology near Fresno and Orange High School in Orange in California, will get a chance to create their very own Got Milk campaigns aimed at their peers in seven week advertising and marketing classes to be taught this fall.
Lucky winners will get an all-expense-paid trip to San Francisco to present their ideas to the milk board and its ad agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, $2000 and a chance to have their campaign used in future milk marketing.
Of course cynics might say, $2000 is a pretty cheap price to intensively sell your product inside the classroom for seven weeks--and even get teenagers to sell it for you. Bet milk sales aren't tanking at those schools.
But ad execs says the use of citizen admen-- inviting consumers to create ads for other consumers in a "two-way conversation"--is the way of the future.
And NDB and FMB have other cool initiatives.
Like White Gold and the Calcium Twins, a Spinal Tap-like musical group that rocks out about milk's benefits to hair, teeth, nails and biceps on MySpace, YouTube and television--NDB and FMB's milk advertising 2.0.
And Gotmilk's new "extreme" web site which shows an animated "happy" farm with cows, chickens, ducks, pigs and a horse working out on a treadmill while milk cartons move by on a conveyor belt and a helium balloon that says Tell Your Friends keeps appearing.
"Do you think drinking calcium fortified beverages like soy drinks and orange juice will meet your bones' requirements," asks the new site, selling against healthful beverages instead of the soft drinks NDB and FMB say they are against. "Not really, says research that concluded 75% of calcium added to popular beverages gets left at the bottom of the carton."
Then there's the disclaimer popup which confesses that milk's actual benefits for "bones, PMS, sleep, teeth, hair, muscles, nails" have been "purposefully exaggerated so as not to bore you"--a condescending and cutesy non sequitur that amounts to a breach of truthfulness and contempt toward the very demographic it seeks.
Of course by now most people know milk is not a health elixir but a suspension of fat, calories and cholesterol that contributes to obesity, diabetes, allergies and several cancers.
Nor is it humane as the nation eyes California's bellwether Proposition 2, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, which is expected to pass.
Dairy cows' "exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup," writes Ryan Huling, college campaign coordinator for peta2.com in Ohio University's The Post in October, "after several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally."
On animal cruelty the NDB and FMB also show derision and contempt, stating with an apparent giggle, "No animals were harmed in the making of this site. In fact the animals aren't even real. If you think we could get a real pig to wear curlers you're bonkers."
excerpt -
Vegans can just as easily encounter micoaggressions and microinequities in the school as they can in the larger society.5 While some schools have moved to try to incorporate a consistent vegetarian (and sometimes vegan) offering on the menu, the overall reality is that vegans are still treated like second-class citizens in most school cafeterias. Even when there is food provided for them to eat, the school experience is structured so as to reduce veganism to a personal “special dietary requirement” and not a collective political standpoint from which to mount a transformative critique of society. When exhaustive ingredient lists are not made openly available, or there is not clear transparency as to the manner in which the available food has been cooked, and staff are not properly educated so as to be able to easily answer questions about the food or its preparation, this constitutes a form of microaggression by school administrations against vegans (and by extension — all who eat at the school). It is crucial to remember, however, that behind these dietary microaggressions lies a macroaggressive institutional logic, not just the careless or uninformed aptitudes of individual administrators.
Consider the recent story of Dave Warwak, a 5th through 8th grade tenured art teacher in the Chicago-area Fox River Grove Middle School, who had previously exhibited at Northern Illinois University but who was suspended and then fired by his public school for teaching art from the animal standpoint.6 In 2006, Warwak became a vegan and decided to respond to evidence of animal cruelty by students at the school by developing (and gaining approval for) a collective art lesson in which a number of students and teachers created and cared for their own companion animal made out of commercially-available marshmallow “Peeps” chick-shaped candy. As with school exercises in which students care for “baby” eggs, people at the school personalized their Peeps, spoke to them, and treated them as if they were subjects of a life that were deserving of protection. At the end of the lesson, however, Warwak surprised everyone by collecting the marshmallow chicks for a diorama school art exhibit he then created in which the Peeps candies were represented as locked behind zoo cages, hung on the wall as trophy game heads, squashed as road kill, boiled and fried in pots and pans, and enclosed between slices of bread as sandwiches. According to a Sept. 12, 2007 Chicago Tribune editorial, this resulted in a rebuke from the school’s principal that Warwak was trying to “influence students against the school lunch program” and he was warned to stick to the curriculum. In response, Warwak replied that part of teaching art to students is to get them to think about life and to have them connect their creativity up to the social issues that they care very deeply about. He then turned his sights on asking for the removal of the National Dairy Council’s “Got Milk?” and other promotional posters which adorned the lunch room walls, and when the school’s cafeteria manager refused to take them down, Warwak and his students posted their own vegan posters satirizing the issue. He also began a more public campaign to raise consciousness about the quality of school lunches being fed at the school, which resulted in his dismissal.
While one might question Warwak’s collegiality, it also seems clear upon studying his case that his firing resulted not due to his pedagogical style, but rather because of his unwillingness to relent from using the art curriculum to explore his own school as a location in which to house the animal standpoint. By doing so, he quickly found himself immersed in a hot bed of political issues related to the existence of what could be termed the “school cafeteriaindustrial complex” that lay just below the epistemological surface of the school’s day-to-day code of normalcy. For instance, we might ask (as he did): Why were the Dairy Council posters in the school? What was the school’s food quality? What’s wrong with influencing students against the school lunch program if there is a sound educational point to be made in doing so?
Not only at Fox River Grove Middle School but also in thousands of schools across the country, corporate agribusiness has run amok in the attempt to utilize public education as a place to establish the naturalization of commercial meat and dairy as lifelong eating habits, to generate increased sales, to subsidize the food industry against decreased producer prices, as well as to funnel below-health standards food not fit for public sale. Warwak was correct to demand the riddance of the Dairy Council’s posters as they had in fact already been targeted for removal from approximately 105,000 public schools by the Federal Trade Commission. In May, 2007, the Commission ruled that the advertisements’ message on behalf of the dairy industry’s “Milk Your Diet” campaign — that claimed that the regular consumption of milk promotes healthy weight loss — was scientifically misleading and false.7 A story on the matter in Alternet captures the corporate duplicity behind this overt operation to infuse milk propaganda in schools:
The Milk Your Diet campaign (also called BodyByMilk; Think About Your Drink; Why Milk?; 24oz/24hours; 3-A-Day; and Got Milk? as in — one of these slogans has got to work!)...shipped truck-size posters of 'stache-wearing David Beckham, Carrie Underwood and New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez to 45,000 public middle and high schools and 60,000 public elementary schools last fall and conducted an online auction where students could use milk UPC codes as currency. ("It's an amazing experience," say the web promos, which were still up in May. "Did we mention you have a chance to win an iPod? And a Fender guitar? And cool clothes from Adidas and Baby Phat? All you have to do is drink milk to get it. Any size. Any flavor.") The campaign offered $1,000 America's Healthiest Student Bodies Awards to schools with the "most active" students and saluted them with what? Got Milk recognitions (Rosenberg, 2007).
Schools across the country have utilized dairy industry materials in this fashion because it is tacitly demanded by the USDA’s National School Lunch Program, the primary governmental vehicle through which food that is in over-supply is promoted and national prices thereby subsidized. In this case, schools are only reimbursed for their food expenses by the program unless they promote items like milk, which it has deemed a nutritional good. It should be pointed out that this is the same National School Lunch Program that was slammed by a March, 2008 exposé from the Wall Street Journal, which uncovered that: In reports dating back to 2003, the USDA Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office cited the USDA's lunch-program administrators and inspectors for weak food-safety standards, poor safeguards against bacterial contamination, and choosing lunch-program vendors with known food-safety violations. Auditors singled out problems with controls over E. coli and salmonella contamination (Williamson, 2008).
Worse still, the above phrase “known food-safety violations” is something of a euphemism. For a prime beef vendor for the National School Lunch Program has been the meat packing company Westland/Hallmark which, via undercover footage shot by the Humane Society of the United States, was revealed to be regularly slaughtering “downer” cows (i.e., mortally sick animals that have also been linked to Mad Cow and other fatal diseases in humans) for popular consumption. Though having repeatedly denied any illegal wrongdoing for years, the ultimate revelation of Westland/Hallmark’s practices in turn led to the nation’s largest ever recall of beef (Associated Press, 2008). Unfortunately, it was suspected that the large majority of the meat from Westland/Hallmark had already been eaten — much of it by school children. Dave Warwak’s art program therefore sought to provide a form of epistemological rupture of the educational status quo in order to call attention to the role being played by this sort of food in his own school. In so doing, however, he threatened to parade the fact that the dietary norms constructed on behalf of those attending public schools (as well as in the larger society) are generally set in place by an emperor without clothes.
Posted by web78377 - on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 @ 17:06:28 GMT
State board upholds firing of vegan teacher
Associated Press - July 28, 2008 9:34 PM ET
FOX RIVER GROVE, Ill. (AP) - The Illinois State Board of Education has upheld the firing of a suburban Chicago art teacher who taught veganism and animal rights to students and told them not to tell their parents.
Former fishing guide 45-year-old Dave Warwak of Williams Bay, Wisconsin, spent eight years with District 3 in Fox River Grove before he was fired in September.
Warwak doesn't eat any animal products, including meat, dairy or eggs.
Warwak says he's disappointed with the board's ruling and that he doesn't plan to change his message.
School board vice president Steve Knar says the state board's decision makes him glad for district administrators.
Posted by web78377 - on Friday, August 01, 2008 @ 13:32:29 GMT
Face the truth
I find it very disturbing that schools hide veganism from children and promote false dairy industry advertisements. School administrators have proven they do not care to change – even when children’s lives are at stake.
What can be more important than children’s lives?
Schools should be delivering truth; instead, money-hungry administrators promote evil lies and sell out the children we entrusted them to care for.
Children want all the information and appreciate having choices – especially when their own health and well-being are in danger. The philosophy learned in classrooms today becomes the philosophy of society tomorrow.
Schools avoid humane education and teach students to be ignorant and apathetic.
Not knowing and not caring are different things. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is nothing to sweep under the rug. I wonder how people will feel in 10 to 15 years when the children of today are the “dropping-like-flies” adults of tomorrow. It breaks my heart, but at least I know I did everything possible to let people know.
Moreover, because the people in charge wish to oppress the trusting children, I vow to continue informing generations to come.
Fox River Grove, welcome to the new world of beef recalls, truth, and responsible vegan teachers.
Posted by web78377 - on Thursday, July 31, 2008 @ 19:21:56 GMT
District 3 teacher firing upheld on appeal
By CRAIG A. WHITNEY
July 31, 2008
A hearing officer has ruled in favor of Fox River Grove School District 3 against a former Algonquin Middle School teacher.
The district fired David Warwak, a tenured teacher who had taught eight years in the district, last fall after he was first suspended in early September. District officials charged Warwak with teaching students about following a vegan lifestyle instead of teaching art. Vegans avoid using animal products of any kind.
Warwak said the decision on his appeal was made about one to two weeks ago.
"I'm disappointed, but not surprised, in the decision," Warwak said. "I'm definitely not finished with Fox River Grove."
In an e-mail statement to the press, Warwak said his lawyers will be filing charges against (Board of Education President) Pat Hughes and the entire Fox River Grove School District 3 Board of Education for the content of a Sept. 24 2007 press release.
"They said I stopped teaching art," Warwak said. "I proved I didn't stop teaching art. They smeared my name. They have to be responsible for their actions and words.
"This is going to be a lifelong pursuit," he said. "It's too serious of an issue to ignore just because people don't want to talk about it."
Fox River Grove School District 3 Superintendent Tim Mahaffy confirmed the hearing officer upheld Warwak's termination, but declined to comment further on the matter.
News: Vegan loses appeal to keep job as D-3 teacher
Posted by web78377 - on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 @ 04:18:00 GMT
Vegan loses appeal to keep job as D-3 teacher By KELLY MAHONEY
FOX RIVER GROVE – Former District 3 art teacher Dave Warwak has lost his appeal of his September firing.
An Illinois State Board of Education hearing officer sided with the school board’s unanimous decision to dismiss Warwak, 45, of Williams Bay, Wis., after eight years with the district.
“I don’t feel vindication, but I’m glad for our administrators,” vice president of the school board Steve Knar said Monday.
Knar said he was pleased with how then-principal Tim Mahaffy, now the superintendent, dealt with the situation at Fox River Grove Middle School.
“He just did an absolutely great job under a situation that you obviously don’t run into every day as an administrator,” Knar said. “Everything was handled as I would expect our administrators to handle it.”
Mahaffy said the final decision was signed July 7. He declined to comment further because he said Warwak could appeal the decision in the Illinois court system.
Warwak said he had not ruled out an appeal.
A former fishing guide, Warwak in January 2007 became a vegan, meaning that he does not consume any animal products, including meat, dairy or eggs.
At the time of the firing, the board said Warwak began teaching veganism and animal rights without informing the school, he told students not to disclose the lessons, and then did not answer officials’ questions.
Warwak said that was not the case. He said he was disappointed with the ruling, but declined to release a copy of it.
“This is frustrating for me because their rulings don’t make sense; it’s very slanted,” Warwak said. “Nowhere in the 62 pages does [the hearing officer] address the children’s health or well-being.”
Warwak said he was considering legal action against the school for a news release that he said was untrue. In the meantime, Warwak said he did not plan to change his message.
“It’s OK because they can’t keep me away from Fox River Grove,” Warwak said. “They can fire me from the school. If I was still teaching there, ... I’d still be having an influence in that town. If I just leave them alone, it would be letting them have their way.”
Posted by web78377 - on Sunday, June 29, 2008 @ 21:59:22 GMT
Vegan teacher legal battle
cost school over $78,000 K West
June 29, 2008
Fox River Grove, IL – Dave Warwak, the tenured middle school teacher in Illinois who was fired last fall for incorporating veganism in his art lessons, is costing his former school district a great deal more than dinnertime anguish.
Warwak, who filed an appeal with the Illinois State Board of Education last October for wrongful termination said of the hearings that lasted over 30 hours, “it is expensive hiding the truth” and noted, “those figures are from April before the hearings and are much higher now.”
According to Fox River Grove SD 3 Meeting Minutes, Board member Steve Knar asked to look at legal fees, which are currently budgeted at $78,000 – the original budgeted amount was $25,000. Knar wanted to know how that number could change, why we changed the original number, and from where the money would come.
District superintendant Jackie Krause stated, “the line item was increased to meet the substantial increase in legal fees. The increased amount is likely to be covered by positive balances from other line items in the education fund. If this is not sufficient, some money would come from surplus.”
Meanwhile, in the midst of the school’s legal and financial woes, Warwak has published a book, “Peep Show For Children Only” which includes actual transcripts from the hearings.
Warwak’s 487-page manifesto is getting him into trouble with parents. Criticisms stemmed from a meeting Warwak arranged with his former students at a McDonalds to distribute copies of his book. When asked why he felt it necessary to give his book to the children, Warwak explained, “the book was written for my friends so they wouldn’t end up like their parents – why wouldn’t I give them copies?” Warwak further explains, “making the transcripts public shines light on the proceedings that were closed to the public. The meat-eaters would like to keep veganism a secret from the public, especially the children.”
Fox River Grove police became involved when news of Warwak’s meeting spread. Police visited several children’s homes and confiscated their books as evidence.
Police claim to have recovered six books but could not charge Warwak with any crime.
First Assistant State’s Attorney Tom Carroll said, “while we certainly do not condone what he did – we don’t think it was appropriate – ... we are unable to charge Mr. Warwak with violation of any criminal statute.”
Warwak said there was nothing inappropriate about distributing information on veganism, the practice of not eating any animal products, and countered, “I can’t condone what they are doing, nor do I think it is appropriate for the school to serve children recalled beef. And with all the school shootings that happened and the climate of schools today, something has to change. So I offer solutions in my book - Humane Education is what’s needed – that is what is missing in schools today.”
No verdict has been announced in the proceedings that officially closed June 3rd. Hearing officer Barry Simon could not be reached for comment.
Posted by web78377 - on Monday, June 23, 2008 @ 22:57:12 GMT
Milk on Trial as Cornell Expert Testifies
at Fired Teacher's Hearing By Martha Rosenberg
Jun 23, 2008
Chicago, IL -- The life expectancy of National Football League players might have as much to do with teaching art as the factory farming fired middle school teacher Dave Warwak is accused of teaching.
But it formed the backbone of Cornell University Professor Emeritus Dr. T. Colin Campbell's testimony at the Board of Education hearing into the middle school teacher's dismissal in Fox River Grove, IL, population 5,000, in April.
NFL players are only expected to live to 56 because "they are dying of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and diet related illnesses," testified Campbell in defense of Warwak's classroom charge that animal foods will shorten lives.
Campbell, Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry, is author, with son Thomas M. Campbell II, of the 2005 nutrition bestseller, The China Study, which links premature death and many diseases to diet and was called the "Grand Prix of Epidemiology" by the New York Times.
After reading The China Study, the Kansas City Chiefs' Tony Gonzalez dropped animal products from his diet. testified Campbell, and "this past season he broke the all-time record for the most catches, the most touchdown passes and the most yards gained of any NFL tight end in the history of the National Football League."
The China Study also converted Minnesota Twins pitcher Pat Neshek to an animal free diet says a June ESPN report which also cites vegan diets of Detroit Lion Desmond Howard, Miami Dolphin Ricky Williams, former St. Louis Ram D'Marco Farr, Milwaukee Brewer Prince Fielder and Atlanta Hawk Salim Stoudamire.
Forty-five year old middle school art teacher Dave Warwak was dismissed last fall from the District 3 school system where he had taught for eight years for, "turning his classroom into a forum on veganism," abandoning the art curriculum and asking students to keep it a secret from their parents according to school board documents.
What began as a simple be-kind-to-animals project approved by administrators who even participated--marshmallow Easter "Peeps" were made into "pets" to be cared for--got out of hand when Warwak put the "pets" in cages, pots and pans and between slices of bread.
"The problem was when it turned into a PETA advertisement and it was against the school lunch program," testified Fox River Grove Middle School Principal Tim Mahaffy at the Illinois Board of Education's three day closed hearings into Warwak's dismissal conducted at the Fox River Grove City Hall in April.
Despite hearing officer Barry Simon's repeated admonishments that the case was not about whether veganism, "is right or wrong or good or bad," feeding children animal products was the 300 pound Peep in the room as Warwak, acting pro se, questioned Mahaffy.
Q: Would you say the school lunch goes against humane education?
A: I disagree. I don't see the connection.
Q: The humane education says be nice to all things; the school lunch says, well, not animals?
Robert E. Riley (counsel for District 3): Objection. Arguing with the witness.
Q: Does the school promote meat and dairy one-sided or do they allow other viewpoints on it?
A: The school is committed to following both the State and federal guidelines for serving school lunches.
Of course Fox River Grove Middle School is paid to be one-sided.
Like 45,000 other public middle and high schools in the US and 60,000 elementary schools, it only receives reimbursement from the National School Lunch Program when it pushes milk and life-size Milk Mustache and "Body By Milk" posters adorn lunchroom walls.
This is the program that served children downer dairy cows, at risk for mad cow disease, until the January recall of Hallmark beef, observes Warwak in a recent memoir about his termination, Peep Show For Children Only, found on lulu.com.
Yet the pro dairy message on the school posters--which feature sports figures and popular musicians and arrive unsolicited from the National Dairy Council--is misleading and harmful testified Dr. T. Colin Campbell on the basis of decades of his National Institutes of Health-funded research.
"The consumption of dairy, especially at the younger ages, is a problem," said Campbell which includes health consequences like higher risks of prostate, uterine, breast and endometrial cancers, osteoporosis and a "threefold higher risk of colon cancer."
The health promises about strong bones and healthy bodies on the posters are written by a USDA dietary committee, said Campbell, whose members were found by a court to have conflicts of interests after refusing a Freedom of Information request.
"Six of the eleven members of the committee including the chair had an association with the dairy industry," said Campbell. "And the chair himself had taken more money without telling the public about it than he was allowed under the law."
The animal rich diet the Fox River Grove's District 3 defends to the point of firing a tenured teacher might mean kids won't live longer than the sports heroes they admire, summarized Campbell.
Arbitrator Simon has yet to make a ruling about Warwak--or the posters.
Posted by web78377 - on Monday, June 23, 2008 @ 22:53:03 GMT
Vegan Art Teacher Draws
New Round Of Controversy
Art Teacher Hands Out Books To Former Students Brian Miller, NBC5 Next
A Fox River Grove art teacher who was fired last year for telling his students about veganism, is still causing controversy.
Last month, Dave Warwak contacted some of his former students over the Internet and asked them to meet him at a Fox River Grove restaurant. He passed out 20 copies of his self-published book, "A Peep Show for Children Only."
According to published reports, at least one parent complained to police, upset that a picture of an unidentified group of students in the book included her daughter. Police investigated the incident and confiscated six books, but no charges were filed in the case.
Warwak was fired from his job at Fox River Grove Middle School last September. He was initially suspended with pay after he offered copies of the book "The Food Revolution" to some of his students. He was reprimanded for giving out literature that was not authorized by the Illinois Board of Education and the school board later voted 7-0 to fire him. District officials said during his dismissal hearing that he was teaching veganism instead of art.
But Warwak said he was trying to teach humane education and get kids to have compassion for animals. According to transcripts from his dismissal hearing, he refused to teach unless all posters promoting drinking milk were removed from the school, and he also refused to stop speaking to the students about his beliefs.
"I want these kids to care," Warwak said. "So I create lessons that teach kids to care, and I incorporate these things into art."
Warwak's 487-page book is available for purchase on the Internet. It contains transcripts of Warwak's dealings with the school board over his firing, some of his art, and correspondence with some of his former students.
"People use the word lifestyle to describe veganism, but it's more of a philosophy," Warwak told NBC5 Next. "I think when you don't eat animal products and you don't use them in any way in your life, that's what you strive for. It's very hard in today's world."
Warwak said he began to tell his 5th through 8th grades students about the health benefits of a plant-based diet because he wanted to show them the other side of eating meat. He had about 80 students in his classes during the 2006-2007 school year.
"If you go to school and you learn about vegetarianism, veganism, and meat-eating and make your own choice isn't that better than having people do it for you? That is what school is supposed to be," Warwak said.
Warwak has appealed the school board's decision to fire him. Fox River Grove principal Tim Mahaffey said he was told by the Illinois Board of Education hearing officer not to comment about the case.
"We are waiting for a decision from the hearing officer," Mahaffey said via telephone.
According to an article in the Northwest Herald, the parent who complained about her daughter's appearance in Warwak's book could file civil charges.
But Warwak remains undaunted. He says throughout history, people with radical ideas have suffered a worse fate then he has.
"They didn't put me to death -- they fired me," Warwak said.
Posted by web78377 - on Friday, June 13, 2008 @ 12:42:31 GMT
No charge in vegan handouts
By KELLY MAHONEY
FOX RIVER GROVE – A former District 3 art teacher and outspoken vegan embittered over his dismissal has been distributing a 700-plus page book that chronicles his firing.
David Warwak, 45, allegedly posted a request via the Internet for his former students to meet him at a Fox River Grove McDonald’s after school May 23. He gave numerous copies of the book, “Peep Show for Children Only,” to middle school children, Fox River Grove Police Chief Ron Lukasik said.
Lukasik said police became aware of the book after a mother complained May 27. The mother said her daughter, along with several other students, was pictured in it. The police since have recovered six copies of the book that were given to District 3 students.
Police and McHenry County prosecutors reviewed the book and determined that although Warwak did not have permission to include the photos, he would not be charged with any crime. Civil charges could be possible, Lukasik and First Assistant State’s Attorney Tom Carroll said.
“While we certainly do not condone what he did – we don’t think it was appropriate – ... we are unable to charge Mr. Warwak with violation of any criminal statute,” Carroll said.
Warwak said there was nothing inappropriate about distributing information on veganism, the practice of not eating any animal products.
“With all the school shootings that happened and the climate of schools today, something has to change, so I offer solutions in the book,” Warwak said. “Humane education is what’s needed. ... That’s what’s missing in school.”
The soft-cover, self-published book – a large, rambling text – is mostly transcripts from various proceedings regarding Warwak’s dismissal last year sprinkled with rants about society’s obsession with eating meat and animal products, such as milk. It also contains correspondences with students.
The school board said in terminating him last fall that Warwak ceased teaching art and turned his classroom into an indoctrination zone, telling students to keep his teachings secret.
At least two versions of Warwak’s book exist. Warwak said the one that his students received was a draft. Another is available online for $29.95. The online version is 487 pages long.
Warwak, who lives in Williams Bay, Wis., said he distributed the drafts to 15 to 20 students. Students, he said, are more receptive to his message.
“Kids see it because they’re still in touch with their heart, and adults don’t see it,” Warwak said. “Adults, they flip out, and they don’t want kids to even check it out.”
Warwak said he was not surprised that police looked into the books, but no parents had called.
“I know that the school was upset, and I know that police were going to kids’ houses,” Warwak said. “Anyone can contact me at any time. I’m not hiding from anyone.”
Warwak described himself on the back cover of the book as a social critic, humanitarian and philosopher who “just as Scopes changed the landscape of education with his ‘Monkey Trials’ some 80 years ago, Warwak has come forward in present day with striking revelations about our current failing educational system and offers clear no-nonsense solutions that chill one to the bone. This book is for all ages and for all time.”
An excerpt from “Peep Show for Children Only”:
“The beef industry knows all about me. They documented my initial emergence on the scene. Funny how they monitor such things. ... Too bad these losers can’t control the internet. People are finding out. The gig is up! The internet shall set us free!”
News: Principal tells PETA: Kids hunt, get over it
Posted by web78377 - on Saturday, April 19, 2008 @ 21:30:41 GMT
Rural Wisconsin school won't remove photos of students, dead game
By Chris Niskanen
cniskanen@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 04/16/2008 11:27:02 PM CDT
Do hunting and middle-school education mix?
They do in tiny Poplar, Wis., where a middle-school bulletin board featuring pictures of students with their dead game has been caught in the crossfire of the national anti-hunting movement.
Ken Bartelt, principal of Northwestern Middle School, refuses to take down the pictures of student hunters holding their ruffed grouse, deer and bear after complaints from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
"Half of our school board are hunters,'' he said of the rural northern Wisconsin district, where hunting is a long-held tradition. "How could I explain that to them?"
Last week, PETA wrote to Bartelt, asking him to remove the bulletin board because it encourages a "dangerous mindset" of violence in students.
The bulletin board with about 50 student pictures is in science teacher Russ Bailey's classroom. Bailey is a volunteer firearms safety instructor, and the pictures feature some of his students.
PETA's April 7 news release, however, sparked a flood of e-mails to Bartelt from across the nation, both for and against the bulletin board. The release was posted on PETA's Web site.
"Northwestern Middle School's 'hunting wall' is nothing more than a monument to violence, suffering and death,'' wrote PETA officials. The organization drew further connections between hunting and school shootings, including the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.
Responding to the furor has "been very time-consuming for us,'' said Bartelt, whose rural school is in a town of 570 people.
Bartelt said his research shows no connection between hunting and school violence. He fired off a letter to PETA saying, "Hunting is a part of the culture, not only in our school but in many parts of the country, and especially so in northern Wisconsin.
"Students here at school get excited about it, and it seems that's all they talk about before and after they return."
During his five years as principal, he said, there have never been any violent acts. Even fistfights are "almost nonexistent," he wrote.
Bartelt doesn't hunt and grew up "a city kid." In an interview, he said, "Violence in our society is because of family and societal issues. I think hunter safety classes and hunting teaches respect for weapons, and that they are not for fun, destruction or violence. Hunters are probably the least violent subset of our society."
The bulletin board has been on Bailey's wall for many years and features the same hunting pictures printed in local newspapers, Bartelt said.
PETA's Sangeeta Kumar, who wrote the letter to Bartelt, said hunting and animal abuse lead to abuse of humans.
"There is a very strong connection between animal abuse and abuse toward human beings," she said. "As far as we're concerned, hunting is animal abuse. In these days of school violence, we shouldn't be encouraging kids to pick up guns."
She said PETA would not print Bartelt's response letter on its Web site. "It's not our responsibility to defend indefensible actions," she said.
The bulletin board was featured in a newsletter to parents called News of Your Schools. Kumar said the newsletter was sent to PETA after several Poplar citizens alerted the organization, based in Norfolk, Va.
It's not the first time PETA has targeted Wisconsin pastimes. The group once requested that the Green Bay Packers change the team's name because it highlighted violence to animals in slaughterhouses. It suggested Green Bay Six Packers, to honor the state's beer-brewing tradition.
While hunting may be part of the culture of northern Wisconsin, "culture is no excuse for cruelty,'' Kumar said.
Bartelt said he hasn't received complaints from Poplar citizens or parents about the hunting-picture bulletin board. He said if it weren't for hunting, the ancestors of today's PETA members might not have survived life in the wilderness.
"I doubt there were many vegetarians 150 years ago,'' he said. "PETA's members' ancestors survived because of hunting. Why was it acceptable for their great grandfathers to hunt? It seems hypocritical to me at some point."
News: USDA uncovers more slaughterhouse violations
Posted by web78377 - on Sunday, April 13, 2008 @ 15:40:04 GMT
Apr 11, 2008
Washington - 4/11/08 - Operations were suspended at one slaughterhouse and violations issued at three others after 18 facilities were evaluated in a USDA audit, spurred by the nation's largest beef recall earlier this year.
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service evaluated plants that supply beef to the National School Lunch Program, among other federal food assistance programs.
The audit comes on the heels of a 143-million-pound beef recall in February after an undercover video at Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Co. -- a national lunch program supplier -- in Chino, Calif., showed handlers allegedly using abusive methods to make downed cattle walk to slaughter. The tactics violate federal regulations that ban downer cattle slaughter for food to help prevent bovine spongiform encephalopathy and other diseases from entering the food supply.
Requested by Sen. Herb Kohl, chair of the Senate Appropriations agriculture committee, the review issued three separate "noncompliance" violations to facilities for overcrowding and excessive use of force. Operations were temporarily suspended at a fourth facility using insufficient stunning methods; it has since reopened after implementing change. The USDA left all facilities unnamed.
While most of the 18 plants met general humane standards, Kohl expressed concern that at least one had a violation serious enough to warrant suspension. He also noted that the USDA is working to stregthen plant inspection efforts to best ensure violations and mistreatment issues are caught and corrected.
Posted by - on Sunday, April 06, 2008 @ 18:53:09 GMT
March 28, 2008, 12:10AM
FDA lists school districts that got recalled meat
Lawmakers had demanded info be released
FNS All Regions
Affected School Food Authorities
By State
United States Department of Agriculture
Food and Nutrition Service
National School Lunch Program
March 24, 2008
School Food Authorities Affected by Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. Beef
Recall
February 2006 – February 2008
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)
prepared the following list of all School Food Authorities (SFAs)
affected by the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. beef recall announced
February 17, 2008. FNS compiled the list from data provided by State
Distributing Agencies (SDAs) for the timeframe covered by the recall,
February 2006 to February 2008. SDAs are responsible for managing the
distribution of USDA-purchased commodities to local SFAs participating in
the National School Lunch Program (NSLP).
The list indicates (1) States and SFAs affected by the recall, and (2)
States not affected by the recall. FNS identified affected States from NSLP
records of beef purchased throughout the two years covered by the recall,
both through direct shipments of ground beef, and through shipments of
further processed beef products. SDAs were responsible for notifying USDA
which SFAs within their State received product affected by the recall.
Not all SFAs listed had product remaining in inventory when the recall
began. The fact that an SFA is included on this list does not necessarily
indicate that an individual school within an identified SFA received any of
the recalled ground beef products.
The list does not provide data about the quantities of product received by
SFAs. For additional information about affected SFAs, please contact the
appropriate SDA. Contact information is available via the FNS website at: www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/contacts/SdaContacts.htm. Updated information
for the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packing Co. recall is available via the USDA
website at: www.usda.gov/actions.
see full text all schools Nationally receiving non-ambulatory dead stock
downer cattle
(high risk BSE typical or atypical mad cow) for there school lunch program
in every state here ;
News: Nutrition moves to the head of the lunch line
Posted by web78377 - on Sunday, April 06, 2008 @ 18:41:02 GMT
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - March 28, 2008
Mar. 28--HAMPSTEAD -- Mangos, avocados, kiwi and zucchini were on the menu at Hampstead Middle School this week. Students were invited to sample some fruits and vegetables they might not be familiar with, all in the spirit of promoting better nutrition this month in Hampstead and Timberlane schools during National Nutrition Month.
Some Hampstead students tried unfamiliar fruits and vegetables while Timberlane Middle School students others watched a video about the new food pyramid during lunch.
"I tried the blood orange. It was kind of sour, but I ate it," seventh-grader Brian O'Dell said. "It's a good idea to try new things."
Barbara Campbell, Timberlane Middle School nurse, said the school emphasizes good nutrition whenever there is an opportunity.
"We at Timberlane Regional Middle School are very involved in spreading the word on good nutrition for our children, staff and community," Campbell said. "It is particularly promoted though our student and staff Wellness Committee."
The Wellness Committee runs "The Biggest Winner," akin to the TV show "Biggest Loser" contest for weight loss. There's a walking club for students and the entire student body participates in the cancer walk in May.
At Hampstead Middle School, school nurse Michelle Bernard planned a couple activities to promote good nutrition.
"We held a fruit and vegetables tasting in the cafe during all lunches on Wednesday and Thursday, March 26 and 27," she said. "During that week, we had health tips for good nutrition during morning announcements."
The fruit and vegetable tasting combines the familiar with the less familiar, such as avocados and tabbouleh with zucchini and grape tomatoes on the vegetable side, and mangos and kiwis with pineapple and red grapes on the fruit side.
"The students come by and get any of the samples they want to try," she said.
Bernard hopes by introducing new vegetable and fruit choices, students will make more nutritious food choices.
News: Florida Schools Put Veggie Burgers on the Menu
Posted by web78377 - on Thursday, April 03, 2008 @ 17:56:15 GMT
Florida Schools Put Veggie Burgers on the Menu
School lunch lines across the country are filled with greasy, high-fat cheeseburgers, chicken wings, and pizza. But this past March, PCRM helped Broward County, Fla.—the sixth-largest school district in the country—introduce Gardenburger’s Flame Grilled vegan burger to students at Everglades High School, Driftwood Middle School, and Eagle Point Elementary.
The veggie initiative began with Ashley Capps, a 10th grade student at Everglades High School who wanted more vegetarian options in the lunchroom. To persuade administrators that students would buy meatless meals, she circulated a petition that was signed by more than 100 of her classmates.
PCRM worked with Broward County to explore vegan lunch options that are healthy and taste good. PCRM nutritionists suggested the Gardenburger, and at the request of a Broward County school board member, PCRM helped the district’s food service department roll out the new veggie burger. PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D., visited each school to speak to parents and administrators about the healthfulness of vegetarian options.
Three PCRM staff members traveled to Florida to assist with the marketing and taste-testing of the burgers. They gave out more than 3,400 samples of meatless patties topped with ketchup, mustard, and pickles. Students were so excited about trying the new lunch item that PCRM staffers could barely keep their sample trays full. Many supportive teaches also tried samples and agreed to hand out flyers to encourage their students to buy the burger.
Everglades High School, where students have a large food court with 12 choices, sold 100 veggie burgers, and 70 additional students bought lunch that day. The school was so pleased with these results that they sold the Gardenburger every day during March. Driftwood Middle School sold a remarkable 700 veggie burgers. And Eagle Point Elementary, where the veggie burger was competing with a student favorite—cheese pizza—sold about 580 burgers, and 190 more students purchased meals than on a typical day.
Each Gardenburger has 90 calories, 11 grams of protein, 4 grams of fiber, zero cholesterol, and only 4 grams of fat. Broward County is also planning to offer Garden Chili, rice and beans, and other vegetarian options. If students continue to purchase the veggie burgers, administrators will roll out vegan options to the entire district in the fall.
Posted by web78377 - on Saturday, March 22, 2008 @ 13:32:27 GMT
Pope suggests link between Jesus and mysterious Essene sect
ROME (AFP)---Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday linked Jesus with
the Essene Jews, saying that he used the Passover calendar of the mysterious sect known through the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran.
Celebrating the Mass of the Lord’s Supper at Rome’s Basilica San Giovanni in Laterano, the theologian pope said Jesus "celebrated Easter with his disciples probably according to the Qumran calendar, and thus at least the day before" mainstream observances at the time.
Benedict said this hypothesis was "not yet accepted by everyone" but that it was the most "probable" explanation for contradictions between the different Gospels on the life of Christ.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus dies on the cross during Passover, and lambs are sacrificed in the Temple of Jerusalem, while in the other three Gospels his last meal -- the Last Supper -- with his disciples was a Passover Seder.
In addition, the pope said Thursday, Jesus celebrated Passover "without a lamb, as did the Essene community," which did not sacrifice animals. "Instead of the lamb he offered himself, he offered his life," Benedict added.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, were attributed by historians and biblical scholars to the Essenes, a strict sect that split from the Jerusalem priesthood and settled in Qumran, on the shores of the Dead Sea.
Some say that Jesus himself was an Essene.
French Cardinal Albert Vanhoye, former rector of the Pontifical Biblical
Institute, said that in Jesus’s time "the Essene calendar was more traditional than the newer one of the Jerusalem priesthood" and more in use.
However, he told AFP: "Even if Jesus was able to feel sympathy for the Essenes, who were very pious, his mentality was very different from theirs because they were very attached to ritual observances, which he wasn’t."
Vanhoye noted that the opinion of the pope, who was referring to a theory already advanced by some experts, was an intellectual musing rather than a pronouncement with all the authority of papal infallibility.
“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”
Paulo Freire
“An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious - just dead wrong”
Russell Baker
Contact: Dave Warwak
128 W Geneva St
Williams Bay
WI 53191
(262) 245-6916 dave@inslide.com
“The moon cries in loneliness as today’s child chooses to stay inside glued to an electronic box, compartmentalized inside a temperature controlled façade, instead of going out in to the world, exploring caves, swimming with turtles, discovering nature’s beauty and perfection, caring a broken wing, feeding fish, finding real friends, friends who help the child as much or more than the other” Warwak
The veggie initiative began with Ashley Capps, a 10th grade student at Everglades High School who wanted more vegetarian options in the lunchroom. To persuade administrators that students would buy meatless meals, she circulated a petition that was signed by more than 100 of her classmates. 
