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...thats less than a cup of coffee...
we all remember those commercials.....
sally struthers and a horde of lavishly
rich, fat hens urging the lower class
americans to *spare* a few cents a day to
be a hero and SAVE the life of an IMPOVERISHED
child represented by the cute, fawn-eyed
kids on the television screen.
when i was about 10, these commercials were
commonplace on almost all of the major cable
channels, mainly due to the delusion that
the 80s was all about money... and lots of
it... and how we created the impression that
every american took a bath in gold coins.
another reason these commercials were so
predominant was due to the increasing (sadistic)
need to be reminded that while we are bathing
in gold, 4-6 year old dirty children in a
country few americans could point out on a
globe were hanging by a thread for dear life
because of malnutrition and impure water
sources.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*disclaimer: little was actually said about
the apartheid, although the apartheid was
mentioned in 'more intelligent' political
forums. another oversight was that we were
preoccupied with farm-aid, the berlin wall,
and a whole slew of assorted BS that conveniently
blew up into a great drama on the 6 o'clock.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*ahem*
so anyways.... back when i was 10 or so, i
saw these commercials quite often... and
eventually i was so 'moved' that i pleaded
with my parents to help. (this didn't persuade
them to actually send money to the 'outreach')
fast forward 20 years....
i still see these commercials every now and
again on some remote channel, usually while
flipping. grown numb from the propaganda of
my earlier years, i'm no longer affected by
these images or pleas.
however.... just today i was staring out my
window and the images of those lost and
forgotten fawn-eyed children popped into my
head. i remembered the telethon-long commercial
almost instantly... complete with the care
package they send to each sponsor showing
the cute-but-dirty child representative of
the REAL child you MAY be helping.
(god only knows your payments went into some
big corprate scheme)
...51 cents a day...., i thought
can you actually feed a child for 51 cents
a day??? hmmmm... no. but i'm then reminded
of those fruitful images of 12 dirty children
flocking to a working pump GUSHING with
fresh, clean water... or the make-shift
picnic images of a village surrounding
a 'outreach helper' spilling bowls of milky
rice and wheat into whatever containers
they may have... and their JOYOUS grinning
faces as they slosh them together like
rednecks clanking beer bottles in a bar.
...51 cents a day....
hmmm... no, again. for 51 cents a day, you
are giving just enough to keep them from
starving to death. oh gee, great. suddenly
milky rice and wheat has become more like
a cock-tease. not my bag, if you know what
i mean. the prisoners of auschwitz had more
food.
so why does that number ring in my head like
a bad hangover??? maybe because it was a
clever marketing ploy by some tie-tacked
network geek on the 17th floor of an
unknown new york highrise. maybe he figured
that number was just SO UNBELIEVABLE that
he could guilt-net a few million dumb
americans into shelling out much more than
51 cents. remember... 51 cents was the MINIMUM
you could offer each day... but be sure you
make your checks out for a full month.
51 cents a day is $183.60 a year....
if corporate geek expected ANYONE to believe
that, then why are so many gold bathed
americans starving??? surely the government
could issue a monthly stipend to the poverty
stricken from the bazillion dollars they
get from 'helping' taxes.
ain't no fucking way a human is going to be
well-fed enough to overcome starvation and
malnutrition on $200 a year. most average
american families spend $200 every week to
feed 4. even cutting it down to the bare-bones
minimum, no one person is going to eat on
51 cents. lets run over that tag-line again:
feed a small child in nairobi for 51 cents a day
...thats less than a cup of coffee...
whomever fell for this must be a fucking
idiot. i had an excuse... i was 10. it strikes
me now how blatant the message is....
1) coffee is leisurely and 51 cents is the
cost of your leisure... therefore, all americans
bathe in gold coins and should/could EASILY
spare a cup of coffee for a starving kid.
especially when those kids have the misfortune
of NOT BEING AMERICAN
2) coffee isn't a staple. so get off your
coffee-drinking asses and start writing
rubber checks in the amount of $3000 so that
some goose-necked corporate square can feel
good about himself because he just duped you.
but what i REALLY think the message is....
3) if you honestly think we can feed a dirty
child in a country you can't even spell for
51 cents a day, why are you blowing money
on a fucking cup of coffee when you could
be bathing in gold coins for all the money
you'd be saving by just buying milky rice
and wheat from walmart!!!!
**** end ****
[img]graemlins/rose.gif[/img]
i know that flower is lame...
but i type.....and then eraseeeeeeeeeeeee
like any coherent intelligent thought i might have had.....
ceases to exsist by merely forming in my brain
<font size="4" face="Tempus Sans ITC, Tahoma">you have to also think of too things. Their year income level over thier is equal to about $200 a year so if a family can do it on that about I am sure they could feed one kid. Second it think bulk.. rice, wheat, beans etc. How much does it cost to buy reject over seas food ??ain't no fucking way a human is going to be
well-fed enough to overcome starvation and
malnutrition on $200 a year. most average
american families spend $200 every week to
feed 4. even cutting it down to the bare-bones
minimum, no one person is going to eat on
51 cents. lets run over that tag-line again:
Now do I agree with paying for kids in a counrty so far away when we have our own people on the street starving? that is a whole nother bag of beans [img]confused.gif[/img]
I dunno anything about these types of organizations but I would hope that there are TIGHT regulations imposed on where the money is distributed. I'm not really sure how any of it works, but I do know that most charities will take out a certain percentage to cover their expenses. I do wonder what happens to that % if sufficient money is found to cover expenses....does it go down or do they just skim it off the top into their own pockets?
I dont mean to get too much off topic here, but I do know that Montel Williams has a charity to help people with MS and with his, EVERY cent donated goes to fund research. I assume he covers the rest of the expenses, which I think is pretty cool. At one time, I know that his charity was the only one in the country doing it that way.
Anyways....as far as the 51 cents a day....I just dont think you can do all that they promise for that amount. If I were to guess, the "sponsor a child" deal would just be to try to personalize it so that you would FEEL like you were really making a difference for a specific child instead of just "doing good for the community". I love run-on sentences. Anyways....again, this is speculation on my part, but I would assume that all the donations recieved were piled into a lump sum amount and THEN used to feed children or distribute toilet paper or whatever they do.
Over the past few months there has been a new one running. Im sure a lot of you have seen it...it's the one where the cg train goes by at the end. I havent seen it lately, but I do remember questioning something in it.....too bad I cant remember now what that was.
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well, i do know that non profit organizations do take money out of the donations to cover their own expenses. i have worked with a few of these organizations, and i can say that many of the workers make a little bit more than minimum wage (i was laying on the sarcasm thick)....
in other words, of that 51 cents that gets donated, half of that goes to pay the mortgage of CEO Smith, another 25 cents goes to paying all the 2nd in commands, the other 25 cents covers office supplies and the intern wages. the other penny makes it's way over to nirobi or whatever so that hopefully one of those kids might get to SEE some of the food as it drives by and heads straight to the government officials who confiscate all of it.
however, after all that, i must say that the two children that i sponsor, (i have their pictures here on my desk at work), are just as cute as they can be.....ok, so i don't sponsor any of the kids.
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