The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | Cultivating Failure | Caitlin Flanagan
Chez Panisse, in Berkeley, an eatery where the right-on, “yes we can,” ACORN-loving, public-option-supporting man or woman of the people can tuck into a nice table d’hôte menu of scallops, guinea hen, and tarte tatin for a modest 95 clams—wine, tax, and oppressively sanctimonious and relentlessly conversation-busting service not included.
When I was in 7th grade, I got to grow radishes in the required ag class, which lasted a semester. What we did the rest of the time, I have very little recollection left, but it probably was not applying the principles of germination to the first declension or how to diagram a sentence or whatever passed for social studies.
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I too cultivated radishes in the seventh grade, at Hughes Junior High School under the tutelage of mad Leo Wood (also my homeroom teacher), who held that MAD Magazine was responsible for the homosexual rape and murder of small children, and that the John Birch Society was the only hope for the salvation of the Republic. He was not shy, as you may gather, about sharing these views with his young (but I think not terribly impressionable) charges.
As I remember it, every bird and insect in the south-central San Fernando Valley made a beeline for my ragged row of radishes, and with such ragged solar panels the actual produce emerged from the ground stunted and misshapen and scarcely fit to defend themselves against Leo’s scorn. I came out of 7th grade Ag with a gentleman’s C.
All this said, I think that the snarky Atlantic piece (“ACORN-loving?” —give me a break) does not make its case against the targeted program. In the worst case, I think today’s seventh-graders will feel damned lucky twenty years from now if they know the rudiments of coaxing protein and carbohydrates from the ground.