Editor, The Herald:

In the name of fairness, I must respond to a letter in the Feb. 29 issue that made reference to an incidence of “food police” that was said to have occurred in Georgia. After a bit of on-line research, I found that the incident occurred at a pre-kindergarten (not elementary) school in North Carolina. The school was being monitored by the State (not the Dept. of Health and Human Services) for compliance with State regulations. The school supplied the child with a lunch consisting of chicken nuggets (preparation method unspecified), milk, a fruit and a vegetable. The student only ate the chicken nuggets and reported that to her mother when asked what she ate.

A curious person would have discovered that there was no Federal employee involved in this incident and would not have immediately blamed President Obama. Furthermore, the blame for the No Child Left Behind Act should go to former President George W. Bush who signed it into law in 2001. And the Virginia Standards Of Learning, a State program, were established while George Allen was the Governor of Virginia. Also, this curious person discovered that the “bloated staff' of the Department of Health and Human services does consist of about 65,000 employees, of which 51,000 work at the NIH, the FDA, the CDC, and the Indian Health Service. An additional 4,500 perform administrative services for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS). Finally, a curious person would use more than one source for information and would examine the possible bias of each source.

Rather than suggesting that President Obama be rejected along with his “likeminded co-conspirators in Congress”, the letter writier should read the opinion article by Thomas Friedman in the same issue of the Herald.

Robert J. Huskey

Cumberland