DEAR PORTLAND

Just a quick note to thank you for the vote of Best Psychic Advisor for the second year in a row. I am very touched and moved that you have bestowed upon me this honor. It means a lot to know that you feel this way, and please know that I feel very grateful to all that have called, to those who have patiently waited on the lines, and come to my shows. Thanks to Meredith, Jeff and Laurie from WJBQ, without them I couldn’t be heard! Thanks again!

In light,

Vicki Monroe

Portland

DEAR PORTLAND PHOENIX

We cannot thank you enough for the editors selection as “Best Suburban ’Zine” for 2002. It is extremely gratifying for a publication of your stature to fully understand what we do at Uncle Andy’s Digest and why we do it. As a small token of our appreciation we have linked you to our Web site at www.uncleandys.com.

In the past month we have opened an office at 145 Newbury Street in Portland. We are in hopes we could come into your office during December and do an “Out and About” at the Portland Phoenix. Again, we were sincerely “blown away” by our selection and will attempt continue to live up to our credos.

Big Gare (Gary Dow)

Managing Partner & Editor

Uncle Andy’s Digest

PEACE NEWS

Bravo for the Portland Phoenix, which, in contrast to the craven mainstream media, refuses to assume the role of the US Government’s Pravda. Recent example: the front page article on the highly effective Internet peace activism of Eli Pariser (“Anti-war agitator,” Nov. 22-28 issue), a reminder of the significant opposition am-ong ordinary citizenry to Boy George’s insane war plans.

Indeed, here in Maine, where the nuclear-capable Aegis warship is built at General Dynamic’s Bath Iron Works, the ongoing protest against the potential slaughter of countless innocent civilians in Iraq regularly brings out scores of antiwar demonstrators to BIW.

And the ain’t-gonna-study-war-no-more beat goes on. Led by Maureen and George Kehoe Ostensen, accompanied by their three-year-old son and 15-month-old daughter, there will be a weekly Saturday vigil at BIW in Bath for the four weeks of the Season of Advent, which began Saturday, Nov. 30, from 11 a.m. to noon.

John Ashcroft’s “usual suspects,” longtime peace activists like Jack and Fay Bussell, along with fellow members of Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi Maine, Peace Action Maine, Women in Black and others, will gather across from the BIW administration building each Saturday with Maureen, George and their children. All are welcome to join in this weekly vigil. Signs and banners are equally welcomed.

John & Mimi Wirtz

Scarborough

THANKS

I just wanted to drop you a note and tell you how much I’ve been impressed with the series Tony Giampetruzzi has written for the Phoenix on the issues related to AIDS in today’s world. Having been in this battle for so many years, I sometimes think people have just forgotten about the epidemic and the psychological damage that has accompanied the physical damage of such a long battle. It is nice to see that a few folks still care.

Scott Robbe

Executive Director

Maine Speak Out Project

BAD APPLES

I am a new teacher in the Portland Public Schools and recently had the unfortunate experience of witnessing the most maligned federal school lunch policy since Ronald Reagan’s declaration of ketchup as a vegetable. And this policy does even more harm by actually promoting waste. (See “Lunch-time Blues,” by Amrita Bruce, July 20, 2001.)

Envision this: Kindergarten and first-grade lunch, about 60 students, around two-thirds receive the federal school lunch. Each tray is provided the same food and always includes fruit. On the day I was covering lunch duty, all of the children were provided a shiny, crisp, fresh apple. Many of the children never bothered to touch the apples and discarded them completely into the trash. Upon noticing this occurrence, I told all of the children who did not want their apples to line them up in the middle of the table for collection. I asked the food service for a plastic bag, which they provided me with. I told them I was intending to collect the fresh fruit to wash and give the teachers for snack period. However, they immediately informed me that, although teachers formerly did this and the food service workers too would use the unwanted fruit, that a policy change as of this year prohibited anyone from collecting and using the food. The students had to discard it if they chose not to eat it then and there. I witnessed about two bushels of perfect apples tossed into the trash in this brief 20 minutes. Now, expand this scenario to the other grades, schools, and students nationwide who are told, “If you don’t want to eat it, throw it away.”

There is no sound rational for this policy of waste. There is a theory that this policy promotes health by eliminating the handling of the fruit. Yet, how many hands touch apples and produce we purchase at the grocery story? That is why we also teach children to wash fruit before eating it, and why teachers would rewash the fruit before using it at snack time, usually for the children who bring no snack (many of whom are the recipients of the federal lunch program). Another explanation for the federal mandate is that only children receiving federal lunches should be consuming the food. God forbid a child not receiving the school lunch should eat fresh, healthy produce that would otherwise be discarded!

Anyway you look at it, there is absolutely no justification for the promotion of this wasteful policy. Indeed, there is a most dangerous precedent and message that children are learning here. And you and I and our nation’s children are all paying for it.

Lisa V. Blake

Portland