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Oh, The Irony

punychicken

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Hunger talks start with lobster and foie gras

THE opening day of the UN World Food Summit, dedicated to combating global hunger, was marked yesterday by a sumptuous lunch for the 3,000 delegates served by 170 Italian waiters.

The summit leaders were offered foie gras, lobster, and goose stuffed with olives. followed by fruit compote.

The Rome lunch was a symbol, for Western leaders at least, of the extravagant and bloated bureaucracies that the aid business has created, and went some way towards explaining why so few of them were in attendance yesterday.

storyhere from The Times.
 
Re: Hunger talks start with lobster and foie gras

punychicken said:
The Rome lunch was a symbol, for Western leaders at least, of the extravagant and bloated bureaucracies that the aid business has created, and went some way towards explaining why so few of them were in attendance yesterday.

Or maybe, as suggested in a quote later in the article, the 'West' doesn't care much.

And, if the extravagance of the lunch was the problem, why didn't they - Bush, Blair, et al - go, and walk out en masse when the meal was served? That would have attracted media coverage to the problem, surely?

Either way, a lot of these agencies/charities etc. seem to spend a lot of their resources looking after number one - 'I'm all right, Jack'.
 
I feel angry about this whole affair, although I'm not exactly sure why, or at whom, and I sure as hell don't know what to do about it.

So I'll let off steam with a cheap joke

"Let them eat concrete!" (See Koffi Annan's remark.)
 
Re: Re: Hunger talks start with lobster and foie gras

DerekH said:
And, if the extravagance of the lunch was the problem, why didn't they - Bush, Blair, et al - go, and walk out en masse when the meal was served?

Because pigs like being at the trough. :mad: :rolleyes:
 
Sad to see that the West didn't see fit to send national leaders to such a vital summit. They always manage to turn up for the big economic conferences, so why not a meeting where something was to be decided regarding world hunger? And what about there refusal to formally adopt the right to food as a basic human right? The talked about 'creating the condtions in which a right to food could be recoginsed' i.e. 'No.' Surely the right to food is part of the accepted right to life?

If the Western leaders had wanted to get publicity they could have agreed to live on the diet of a Third World peasant for a day. Or stopped selling guns and started sending a realistic amount of aid.

:mad: :confused: :(
 
Bush and Blair, and other Western leaders were not there - only leaders (mostly) of third world countries.

So it was the latter who were sticking their snouts in this little trough (and who were also being silently accused of siphoning off Food Aid into their own pockets).

Not sure if western leaders being there would have helped or not.


"We are all guilty!" Dr. Heinz Kiosk
 
Would it have been less controversial if fish and chips had been served, this would still seem like top notch grub to a starving person.
 
The contents of most of our fridges would shock any starving person. So would our regular trips to the supermarket. As regular consumers, we're part of the problem. Food production and distribution being aimed at us, and not the starving people discussed at the meeting. All 800 million of them.

Maybe the meal does sound extravagant, but it's pretty similar to the food all these bigwigs are used to eating on their round of international conferences and talks on all sorts of issues. The aid agencies may well bear some responsibility, but they also do some great work, and if it wasn't for them there would be a great deal more suffering in the world.

Nice to know that our government has just sold a really expensive BAE air traffic system to Tanzania - when one much cheaper would have worked just as well. Perhaps Tony didn't show because he knew he would be openly criticised for ripping off one of the poorer nations. Or there were no arms deals to be made this week.
 
I seem to recall that the World Wildlife Fund bigwigs once sat down to a
lunch which began with real turtle soup.

Probably a brace of osprey for mains. :eek:
 
p.younger said:
Would it have been less controversial if fish and chips had been served, this would still seem like top notch grub to a starving person.

At least fish suppers for the delegates (at around £4 a head) would have left some cash for the needy....

The priorities of the delegates seem, to me, to be at best confused, at worst, self satisficing....

IIRC, there was an advert along the lines of "Give us a pound, we'll give a man a fish, and his familly will eat today. Give us ten pounds,we'll teach a man to fish, and his family will always have food."

How many families would that meal have helped? (As the 'poor' delegates stuffed themselves on Western delicacies?)

And how many could the 'West' have helped for the price of a single cruise missile?
 
69 PROTESTS BUT SEX SHOP LICENCE IS SAFE

Source
69 PROTESTS BUT SEX SHOP LICENCE IS SAFE

10:30 - 09 May 2002

GLOUCESTER'S controversial sex shop is to have its licence renewed - despite 69 letters of objection.

The city council's licensing and enforcement committee has recommended the licence for the Private Shop, in the cattle market, be renewed for another year...

[Emp edit: Fixing big link]
 
I'll have fives quids worth please!

Source
SIX SEX FIRMS IN BID FOR CITY SHOPS

29 May 2002

GLOUCESTER is poised to become sin city as an "unprecedented" number of sex shop operators try to move in.

At least six sex firms have approached the council during the past year wanting to set up sex shop businesses in the city.

And the council, which is currently reviewing its policy on licensing sex shops, is keeping an open mind...

Source
SEX SHOPS CITY BID

29 May 2002

A spokesman for The Adult Warehouse, which hopes to open on Eastern Avenue, said it was a question of "supply and demand" behind sex shops wanting to open in Gloucester.

The spokesman said the company would not be bothered by other sex shops opening in Gloucester.

"No-one ever says there should only be one butchers."

[Emp edit: Fixing big links]
 
Here in Sheffield (which is, of course, the Sex City) we have a sex shop owned by a female entrepeneur, who is also an official Lib Dem candidate, campaigng for 16 year olds' right to watch hardcore porn.

Her name is Julia Gash.
 
Irony

Who can appreciate this...

MINI-VAN, traveling URBAN AMERICAN streets, the PERSONALIZED LICENSE PLATE reads...."GAIA"
all the while the van is spewing acrid blue-oil-burning smoke into the air....


Irony, anyone?
 
Yes...that discribes

the typical american soccer mom and many other's i see in florida ..........also I can't stand those people that put big race car #3 on their car's and think their "dale ernhart" or who ever.."your new". around these parts arent you??:rolleyes:
 
a few days ago this woman had Dale Ernhart AND Jeff Gordon's numbers on the back of her van. what gives?
 
re" synthwerk

a few days ago this woman had Dale Ernhart AND Jeff Gordon's numbers on the back of her van. what gives?
I don't get it--I really think these people worship some of these dead (and alive ) race care drivers like God's...just like the Folk's who put them bent Metal fish on their boots...what about those bumper stickers that say"my childs was first in the spelling "B" last week....etc...yuck!!..:rolleyes:
 
Same thing happens here - on my walk to work in the mornings I often see those pointless, large urban 4-wheel drive 'cars' stuck in jams carrying one small schoolkid in the back. Quite a few have stickers claiming that said vehicle is using unleaded fuel. Whoopee! Why don't these people walk instead?
 
Because otherwise Saxifrage or Quentin might have to walk more than 10 yards.:rolleyes:
 
Caroline said:
Because otherwise Saxifrage or Quentin might have to walk more than 10 yards.:rolleyes:

or they might get kidnapped by nasty men. I noticed last week in our mini monsoon ques of 4x4's trying to pluck up courage to get tho the huge puddles. A few followed me! And my car is very little!
 
Well, I'm not sure... but here in America (((cue choir "....land of the free....")))) those gas-guzzling SUVs & 4x4s are driven as status symbols, by "soccer moms"; usually while on their cell phones...


....you really can't tell the depth of a puddle just by looking...I mean, it could have been really deep....
 
re:superglu

those gas-guzzling SUVs & 4x4s are driven as status symbols, by "soccer moms"; usually while on their cell phones...
yes and that is the truth...wall to wall from sea to polluted sea..I swear if I had a 10 cent piece for everyone of them that has almost kill or maimed me while out and about (in my little "ford festiva", that just fits me & rowdy) I could be a rich man!! these men and women in those SUV drive like a bat out of hell spueing death and destruction all over the place..lets get 'em off the road!! then go after Saddam!!:mad:
 
English ??

Your use of the Queen's English is exceptional.

Keep up the good work guys !!

Moggadon
 
Re: English ??

Moggadon said:
Your use of the Queen's English is exceptional.

Keep up the good work guys !!

Moggadon

Or are we just exchanging languages, I heard my son talking to a neighbour who's car wouldn't start "pop the hood, let's take a look"
 
Faggus said:
think of it! appreciating irony! a yank!

I know! And he can capitalise properly and everything! :D

My fave observation about irony was by Ed Byrne (Irish comedian) discussing Alannis Morrisette's song "Ironic", in which she describes various situations, which whilst uniformly unfortunate (traffic jams, flies in wine, etc) nonetheless all fail to be ironic. However, Byrne pointed out, it is quite brilliantly ironic that there's a song called "Ironic" written and performed by someone who clearly has no idea what irony actually is.

Stu
 
Bleh. I drive a blue Topaz, I live on Field Street and my last name is Danger. Now THAT'S irony.
 
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