OREO CONTROVERSY? REALLY?

A Colorado mother gained dubious celebrity recently by complaining to Right-Wing news outlets that her preschool daughter was sent home with a note telling the mother that Oreo cookies were not a nutritious lunch. The mother's defense of the Oreo diet, "I give them to her (the daughter) because she likes 'em." One Fox News commentator whipped this story up as some sort of Orwellian conspiracy. Really?

 

I see it as a story of Americans who are arrogant, stupid and resistant to education. I see it as an example of propagandist corporate media.

 

The mother in question is sending her preschooler to a lovely private academy on a public-school voucher, as funded by Colorado law. In other words, it is likely she could not or would not pay tuition for her daughter's preschool. The private academy, belonging to an educational genre usually lauded by Right-Wing Libertarian types, actively monitors nutrition of its students. Admirable. It then takes the trouble to educate the ill-informed parents about healthier nutritional choices for students. Another admirable thing.

 

This preschooler's mother, taking apparent public pride in her own nutritional stupidity, claims victimhood for herself and her daughter. Not an admirable thing.