Katy Grimes: UPDATE: Since I wrote about Gov. Jerry Brown’s awkward confrontational moment with a Los Angeles reporter last week, I expected to see the story all over the news. When a governor behaves badly in public, it’s usually news. But there has been a virtual news blackout on this story.

The original story was broadcast on a Friday evening, when all bad news about government is released. Government officials figure that the bad news will die over the weekend.

This is just too weird to let fade away. Brown’s aggressive and confrontational style with the reporter is bizarre. It is how a government official behaves when caught by the media who usually give him a pass. Brown is dumbfounded, then angry.

Here is the video. The story is below.

Gov. Jerry Brown reacted very badly last week when confronted by a CBS 2 Los Angeles reporter who discovered state employees using expensive rental trucks while on the clock.

CBS 2 Reporter David Goldstein asked Brown why he would not look at the video the news station had taken of Caltrans employees using dozens of $30,000 rental trucks for personal use.

Brown got close to Goldstein’s face, pointed his finger at him and accused Goldstein of withholding the tape. Then Brown grabbed Goldstein’s phone, and said, “this guy is like a thug.”

The CBS2 Los Angeles investigation found numerous Caltrans employees using rented trucks, paid by taxpayers, for personal use including shopping at Costco, Home Depot and for liquor store runs. And these same employees took the trucks home.

Goldstein confronted Brown and only asked why the governor would not look at the video. Brown turned on Goldstein. “Sir, you’ve concealed a tape,” Brown said. “Why won’t you show it to us?”

Then Brown reached around Goldstein and grabbed his cell phone from his hands.

It was really weird.

On CBS 13 in Sacramento, the story got even stranger. Channel 13 followed up the CBS 2 story with another brief segment showing Brown telling reporters after the confrontation, “I think jumping in your face at the funeral of Mervyn Dymally and only wanting to know about something that’s in his cellphone that he forces me to look at while he puts a camera in my face and a microphone, I don’t think that is the civility and the gentility that I expect from the old CBS network.”

CBS 2 VIDEO

CBS 13 video 

What is going on? Caltrans employees still ripping off taxpayers is bad enough.  But with the governor’s office and Caltrans refusing to address the CBS investigation is deplorable. Far too many state agencies refuse to return press phone calls and media inquiries, if it’s about an issue they don’t want to address.

And for Gov. Brown to try to turn the tables on the reporter was either a really bad PR strategy, or just bizarre behavior.

Food fight!

I love it when kids rebel against the government schools. Reported CBS Los Angeles: “The revamped school lunches at Los Angeles Unified School District have won awards, commending them for improving the menu at the second largest school district in the nation. Too bad the students don’t agree.

“Rejecting healthful alternatives like vegetarian curries and tamales, quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles, students are throwing them in the trash by the thousands, bringing junk food from home and buying instant noodles and other decidedly unhealthy fare from the ‘black markets’ that have begun to thrive at campuses across the district, according to the Los Angeles Times.”

If the food smugglers get caught they really would have a “Twinkie Defense.”

More: “The kerfluffle led to LAUSD’s decision to change the menu in favor of healthier options. The district decided to do away with chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk.

“Now, the Times reports cartons of plain milk are being thrown away en masse, unopened, along with uneaten entrees. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students, who are ditching lunch and are suffering from hunger-related ailments.”

One problem is that it’s much disputed what’s a “healthy” lunch for kids. The schools push the federal government’s vegetable/carb-heavy Food Pyramid.

But what about the low-carb/paleo/Atkins diets that emphasize meat, eggs and cheese? What about kids with Celiac disease, who can’t have gluten (in bread, pasta, etc.)?

Food Diversity?

Usually, the LAUSD is ultra-politically correct when it comes to ethnic diversity. Its Web site boasts: “The Office of Human Relations, Diversity & Equity is committed to fostering a safe and respectful District, school and community culture where the seeds of peace and justice are sown so that all students and staff can lead safe, purposeful and academically fruitful lives.”

The district has identified 92 different languages spoken in the homes of its students, a rough approximation of ethnic background. Why then does it push only one food menu? Shouldn’t it have 92 menus, with the food adjusted to what the kids chow down at home from Mom?

As usual, the government doesn’t like dissonance, even in a system that prepares 650,000 lunches a day. It can’t accept that there can be conflicting, unreconcilable explanations for something. It can’t get beyond the lobbyists, such as the powerful grain and processed food companies that push the “healthy” food on kids.

The LAUSD has responded the only way it knows how: “The complaints have been heard and LAUSD is planning changes to the menu, the Times reports. Burgers and (healthy) pizza are coming back, and dishes like quinoa salads and brown rice cutlets are out.”

Let’s hope this food rebellion turns bigger and overturns the whole rotten government schools system. The kids hate the system, so why make them stay?

Abolish the government schools. Kids who want to study then will do so with enthusiasm, in private schools. Those that don’t can work. But better than the government schools would be to unleash the kids to run wild in the streets.

Jan. 21, 2012