So, I was just browsing around on the internet for pictures of starving children again . . .

First of all, you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find good, quality pictures of starving children. I think this is a major oversight that needs to be addressed. If you want to see pictures of enormous, naked she-males over 55, you can find thousands with a simple gooooogle search. If starving children are your bag, however, you're pretty much S.O.L.

Hmmm. Perhaps I should begin by explaining why I was looking for pictures of starving children. Rest assured, there is no sick fetish behind all of this. I was simply doing some research for an article I had planned to write ridiculing starving children. Visual aids are very important.

As with so many things in my life, the results of my numerous web searches did not mirror my expectations. However, every now and then, what you find by accident is better than what you set out searching for in the first place. So it is with love. Where was I?

Oh yes, looking for pictures of starving children. Following the link to a promising site, http://www.feedthechildren.org, I observed, on the left-hand banner, the following graphic:


Adorable Starving Baby Credit Card.

Yes, it's a credit card featuring a picture of a starving baby. Well, let's be more precise, it's a prepaid credit card featuring a picture of a model baby from Detroit who is supposed to remind you of starving babies in Africa and whose parents got paid $1000 for approving the exploitation of their child. But let's not quibble over the minor details.

Every time you use your Feed the Children Prepaid Credit Card, 42 cents is contributed toward the cause of ending world hunger. In kids anyway. I'm not sure if the grown ups see any money out of this deal. Pictures of starving grown ups don't sell credit cards. But that's not the point; the point is that every time you get a new Gazelle-skin Prada handbag, a hopelessly malnourished baby in the Sudan gets a spoonful of rice mush and weevils in your name. When you purchase $147.24 in organic groceries at Whole Foods, you can be sure not only that the crabcakes and the spinach latkes will be delightful, but also that the check-out girl feeding her own seven kids on $8.00 an hour will know that you give a shit, and that a child whose age in years exceeds his weight in pounds will taste his last grape before sweet merciful death takes him.

Alright, I'm gonna cut this short. I'm starving.