CNN and the Pope on Callousness toward the Starving. I was outraged to see on CNN Headline News today a story about a "custard fight". I sent the following message via feedback form:

What is wrong with you people? Why would you show, and thus condone, a food fite in a world of starvation? Does it mean absolutely nothing to you that custard is food, and a bedrock minimum of 16,000 people a day die of starvation? Would the slimeballs who participated in the left-handed custard fite you approvingly made lite of have done so in front of starving children in Darfur? If not, they should not have done it at all. And CNN should not condone such outrages. No food fite, no eating contest should EVER be covered and thus condoned by any news organization until starvation has ENDED everywhere on this planet.

I decided that the heavy hitters among the world's moral leaders must condemn food fites and eating contests, so found an email address for the heaviest-hitter of all, the Pope (benedictxvi@vatican.va), and sent this message:

[Subject Line:] Gluttony and Deliberate Waste of Food in Rich Countries

With the onset of warm weather in northern countries, many places hold "eating contests" of various kinds, which glorify the sin of gluttony in callous disregard of widespread starvation on this planet. Other places stage "food fights", in which people deliberately destroy food by throwing it at each other. The Church must denounce all such obscenities and demand they end, and urge that the money and effort now misused on such things be redirected to alleviating starvation instead.
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The Papacy should denounce all such obscenities, but should direct special attention to the most widely publicized such event, the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest to be held in New York City on July 4th. (http://www.nathansfamous.com/nathans/contest/) By condemning that particular event well in advance, the Papacy might actually end it, and that would make a very big impression on sponsors of other such obscenities.
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Please use all your powers of persuasion and publicity to end eating contests and food fights everywhere on this starving planet. If we cannot end starvation, we can at least not mock the starving.

I have no way of knowing if that will be seen by anyone with influence on the behavior of the Pope. All I can do is try.
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Correcting the Record. I heard someone on TV talking about "homegrown terrorists", in reference to the plots against Fort Dix and JFK. I just checked. Not one of the people charged was born in the United States. They were all — every last one of them — born abroad. There are over 6 million American Moslems, most born here. Not one U.S.-born Moslem has, as yet, been involved in a terror plot. Not one. We should expect that sooner or later one or more native-born U.S. citizens (Moslem or otherwise) will be so alienated as to become involved in a plot against his or her neighbors. But it hasn't happened yet, so let's have no guilt-mongering, wailing, and g-nashing of teeth about "homegrown terrorists".
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(The current U.S. military death toll in Iraq, according to the website "Iraq Coalition Casualties", is 3,495 — for Israel.)


- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 12:10 PM