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Sunday, March 2, 2014

The stupidest blog-post I've ever read

Yes, it's Keeping Stock again. Not surprised? Nor I.
Here is his vacuous, petty post in full for your entertainment. It's not every day he reaches this level of puerility, so it's worth having a quick read to see just how silly he, and those who thrum to his words, can get.

A wasteful stunt



How much would 83,000 plastic spoons cost?


Why would we ask this question? Well; check this out:

Thousands of spoons are being transformed into a graphic sculpture in West Auckland in a bid to draw attention to the plight of impoverished Kiwi kids.

Work began on the roadside artwork in the suburb of Te Atatu at 8am today. The project is the brainchild of Auckland artist Donna Turtle Sarten.

By 8.30pm on Sunday, 83,000 white plastic spoons will be inserted along the verge of the seaward side of the road before and after the Gloria Ave roundabout.

Each spoon represents a child in New Zealand that goes to school with no food each day.

''We are installing 83,000 spoons ... that is how many children go to school everyday without lunch,'' Sarten said.

''I believe we need to feed the kids in schools so they have a better chance at learning.''

One hundred and twenty volunteers are involved in the installation of the artwork, each placing about 690 spoons into the turf during their allotted three-hour shifts.

Work is to continue on Sunday between 8am-11am and 5.30pm-8.30pm.




So we did some research. The Party Warehouse sells packs of 100 spoons for $6.90 (GST inclusive); 6.9 cents per spoon. you'd need 830 packs of 100 spoons to get your 83,000 total, so that's $5727.00, just for the spoons. Add in the cost of all the 120 volunteers getting there, and you're probably looking at something between $7,500 and $10,000 being spent.


Let's settle on a figure of $8,000 all up. With a 1kg box of Weetbix on special at Countdown this week (containing 32 Weetbix) at $4.99 (down from $7.49) and a 1 litre bottle of Home Brand milk at $2.25, you could put a lot of food in a lot of kids' bellies for $8,000. In fact a large packet of Weetbix and a bottle of milk is pretty much the same price as 100 plastic spoons, so let's round everything off, and say that you could give around 6,400 hungry kids Weetbix and milk for breakfast one day.


We wonder if Donna Turtle Sarten and her fellow protestors/artists have thought this stunt through. It's blatantly wasteful, and given that the spoons won't be able to be reused after having been stuck into ground where goodness only knows what has been, they'll clog up a landfill somewhere.




If you're going to protest against child poverty, then good on you. But to do it in such a wasteful manner is both irresponsible, and hypocritical.



6 comments:

Jacqueline said...

It makes me sad to read that. I feel so much better for having deleted KS from my blog feed. I no longer see anything to do with that blog on my laptop. It is wonderful.

I wonder if at some stage INV2 was poor, relied on social welfare etc etc? I know sometimes it is the people who have had their own struggles who seem to have the least empathy for others still struggling in the same way they once did. Key and Bennett are examples of this as well.

Sometimes when people are ashamed of where they have come from, they do their utmost to distance themselves from that shame and coming across as so unwilling to express empathy or help anyone worse off than him could be INV2's unconscious protective mechanism.

I used to be addicted to drugs. For a couple of years in the beginning of my recovery i expressed my hatred for all drugs and view that anyone who uses drugs should be locked up. I was very outspoken about this, blogging constantly about the evils of drugs and alcohol and how stupid addicts are, how they should just choose to change etc etc.

Same deal. Shame.

Anyway - that is my psychoanalysis of INV2. It would be interesting to know what his upbringing was like.

robertguyton said...

I don't think he's been starving lately :-)

We are all learning as we go, Jacqueline, at least, I hope that's the case. I'm pleased to read that you've beaten your addiction to drugs. Many such addictions burble along without demanding action and we carry them for a very long time, telling ourselves that there is no real problem. Your success is an encouragement to others, I have no doubt about that. Born-agains, though, eh! We are at our worst when we are righteous (cue Keeping Stock).

Jacqueline said...

Haha! I have no doubt that he is not starving now! I just wonder if there was a time when that was not the case.

That he doesn't understand (or won't acknowledge) that perhaps that money is well spent raising awareness and working towards long term social change rather than spending it on $6400 worth of Weetbix for one meal for each child living in poverty is just unreal.

Something has gone wrong for INV2 along the way because i do not believe he is that stupid.

robertguyton said...

Corrupted by something or other, that's my guess.

Armchair Critic said...

What astounded me, initially, was that he decided that volunteers' time could be assigned a monetary value. Ummmm, they're volunteers KS, they work for free. You're not so selfish that you don't get that, right? It looked like a classic example of how the right don't grasp the fundamentals of the economic system they so love to worship. Then it became clear to me that he'd set a nice precedent regarding the valuing of intangibles.

Unknown said...

Anyone know where the statistics were gleaned from, for the 83,000 children?