The Off Topic Topic

[Valmy]

What do you mean? What kind of politics? Are they hoping that Tory-haters will start donating to Unicef more?

[Admiral Yi]

What do you mean? What kind of politics? Are they hoping that Tory-haters will start donating to Unicef more?

PR politics.  Whatever their goal is, whether to make the UK look bad or try to convince people that childhood hunger is not only a developing country problem, it most clearly is not to spend finite donor resources in areas of greatest need.

[Valmy]

it most clearly is not to spend finite donor resources in areas of greatest need.

Well clearly not as we are talking about 25,000 Pounds.

But I agree this is a PR stunt to draw attention to child hunger in developing countries and get donations. I don't see why that is something that they should be ashamed of though or that those kinds of politics are not what charities normally do. I am puzzled why this British guy even felt the need to comment and get all defensive about it.

I mean unless there is no child hunger in the UK.

[grumbler]

it most clearly is not to spend finite donor resources in areas of greatest need.

Well clearly not as we are talking about 25,000 Pounds.

But I agree this is a PR stunt to draw attention to child hunger in developing countries and get donations. I don't see why that is something that they should be ashamed of though or that those kinds of politics are not what charities normally do. I am puzzled why this British guy even felt the need to comment and get all defensive about it.

I mean unless there is no child hunger in the UK.

I am not sure that there is just a binary "child hunger in the UK/no child hunger in the UK" choice here.  UNICEF had 25,000 quid they could spend any way they wanted to.  I very much doubt that it most benefitted children globally by spending in in an expensive area with no great need, as opposed to, say, Chad,  where 40% of the people are malnourished and 12% of children die before age 5. https://www.concernusa.org/story/worlds-hungriest-countries/

Sometimes the bureaucrats have to spend their organization's money to make the bureaucrats happy, not the nominal customers.  The organization isn't soliciting donations very wisely if it is claiming that (1) it has so much money it can spend some of it in the UK, and (2) Brits need to spend more money on British problems.

[Admiral Yi]

Well clearly not as we are talking about 25,000 Pounds.

But I agree this is a PR stunt to draw attention to child hunger in developing countries and get donations. I don't see why that is something that they should be ashamed of though or that those kinds of politics are not what charities normally do. I am puzzled why this British guy even felt the need to comment and get all defensive about it.

I mean unless there is no child hunger in the UK.

Did you read the article?  UNICEF is not handing out vitamin-fortified barley gruel to starving children in London; they're handing out Christmas treat boxes.

[Valmy]

I did read the article. I don't think I said anything about what it was being spent on.

If they are spending 25,000 as a publicity stunt to drive donations then what is the problem? They probably have spent far more on ad campaigns in the US to drive donations. 25,000 is a hilariously small amount of money.

[Valmy]

The organization isn't soliciting donations very wisely if it is claiming that (1) it has so much money it can spend some of it in the UK, and (2) Brits need to spend more money on British problems.

I have seen advertising for Unicef before. It might have just been taken out of their ad budget.

But I suppose it could be taken as "your British problems are so big that you shouldn't donate to Unicef" so that might be a reason why it is bad.

I mean you guys might be right I guess I am puzzled why an amount of money less than the cost of one car is some kind of international incident. That seems like a decent amount of money to spend on a publicity stunt for a charity. I mean those charity parties that other charities throw probably cost many times that.

[garbon]

Well clearly not as we are talking about 25,000 Pounds.

But I agree this is a PR stunt to draw attention to child hunger in developing countries and get donations. I don't see why that is something that they should be ashamed of though or that those kinds of politics are not what charities normally do. I am puzzled why this British guy even felt the need to comment and get all defensive about it.

I mean unless there is no child hunger in the UK.

Did you read the article?  UNICEF is not handing out vitamin-fortified barley gruel to starving children in London; they're handing out Christmas treat boxes.

Guardian says they are helping to provide breakfasts through schools during Christmas break.

[garbon]

And actually they are giving about 700k to community groups in the UK. This 25k is just one of the grants.

[Eddie Teach]

25,000 is a hilariously small amount of money.

Hey, can I have $25,000? Be a pal. 

[Sheilbh]

A huge fan of this (correct) hot take on Twitter:

Aris Roussinos
@arisroussinos
The revulsion online Americans have for English food is a revulsion for a genuinely proletarian national cuisine: preserved at the precise moment England's rural bounty met the calorific needs of our industrial labour force, a Marxist moment frozen in time

[The Larch]

A huge fan of this (correct) hot take on Twitter:

Aris Roussinos
@arisroussinos
The revulsion online Americans have for English food is a revulsion for a genuinely proletarian national cuisine: preserved at the precise moment England's rural bounty met the calorific needs of our industrial labour force, a Marxist moment frozen in time

The very next tweet seems to undermine that take. 

The revulsion all right-thinking humans have for Scottish food, is, however, natural and correct

[Sheilbh]

I mean no-one's right twice

Edit: Although Scottish food does fit more into a peasant food v bourgeois/aristo food model (and arguably one of the most "imperial" bits of British food). Skirlie, cock-a-leekie, kippers, haggis, cullen skink, mince neeps and tattie - all off-cuts or preserved meats and oats and barley v scallops, venison, kedgeree, mulligatawny, grouse - all game/shellfish or dishes to give a reminder of India.

[Valmy]

And actually they are giving about 700k to community groups in the UK. This 25k is just one of the grants.

I know but it was the $25,000 that got that official mad

[Syt]

I mean no-one's right twice

Edit: Although Scottish food does fit more into a peasant food v bourgeois/aristo food model (and arguably one of the most "imperial" bits of British food). Skirlie, cock-a-leekie, kippers, haggis, cullen skink, mince neeps and tattie - all off-cuts or preserved meats and oats and barley v scallops, venison, kedgeree, mulligatawny, grouse - all game/shellfish or dishes to give a reminder of India.

In slightly related news, internet Americans recently freaked out over someone falling ill after eating raw ground meat on a bun.

"How can you eat something so disgusting and unsafe?"

Germans, meanwhile:



"THIS IS THE BEST "