Florida man fights to keep vegetable garden in front yard

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An Orlando man is fighting city officials to keep his vegetable garden in his front yard. You have to step over radishes, wax beans and kale to get to Jason Helvingston's front door in College Park.

However, his 25 x 25 foot micro-irrigated vegetable garden is against city code, and the city of Orlando has asked Helvingston to dig it up by Wednesday.

"I said, 'You'll take my house before you take my vegetable garden,'" he said.  "There's nothing wrong here, there's nothing poisonous here.  This is a sustainable plot of land."

City code requires ground covers to be planted in a way that gives off a finished appearance so neighborhood lawns are clean, and inviting -- keeping property values up.

Helvingston has decided not to listen to the city.  Instead, he's trying to petition the code to allow for veggie gardens in the front yard.

He's gathered more than 200 signatures, including one from his neighbor, Shelly Snow. "(I'm) definitely not bothered by it.  As a matter of fact, we love it," she said. Helvingston hopes the city will reconsider the code when he meets with a code board in December.

"This is another example of the government telling us what we can do with our own property -- that should never happen," he said.

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First Lady touts $875 clutch, or is it a $6,000 alligator manila clutch?

While the First Lady poses for country-style photo ops in the White House vegetable garden, she totes around what the WH claims is an $875 VBH patent leather clutch while on a casual stroll in Russia [see photo]. However, Italian luxury goods manufacturer VBH vaunted publicly that the First Lady was in possession of their $5,950 alligator manila clutch, according to NY Daily News. The White House denied the VBH claim, stating that the First Lady was carrying the $875 VBH patent leather clutch -- like there's really any difference in a depression.

Even after the WH made the bag denial, a VBH rep insisted the bag was their $5,950 alligator manila clutch. “It’s definitely ours,” she said. But curiously the rep later backed off. "If that's what the White House is saying, then it's a patent bag," said VBH rep Kelly Vitko.

That's called damage control.

Washington elites have never represented the people they are elected to serve -- that vision is merely an obligatory and playful facade. The elite represent the elite. British Royalty and their historical paradigms are alive and well in the White House, whose inhabitants live an imperial lifestyle funded by the taxpayer.

Also See: First Lady requires more than 20 attendants