Fries With That?
An excellent editorial in the East Valley Tribune, a paper in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, alerted me to the incredible stupidity of a group called "Commercial Alert."

It seems the group wants UNICEF to cancel a fund-raiser involving the McDonalds hamburger chain, a fund-raiser designed to raise $5 million to help UNICEF fight global child malnutrition.

Commercial Alert's executive direct, Gary Ruskin, "and a bevy of physicians, professors and sundry activists" signed a letter to UNICEF asking them to cancel the project, reports the Tribune.

Why?

According to the organization's web site: “Commercial Alert's mission is to keep the commercial culture within its proper sphere, and to prevent it from exploiting children and subverting the higher values of family, community, environmental integrity and democracy.”

The paper comments, To Rushkin and his ilk, there is no such thing as "corporate citizenship." Just greed, which must be segregated from society's "higher values." Presumably if, in the process of keeping corporate America in its seamy corner, a few thousand children starve — well, so be it. At least we've protected our "higher values."

We see this “let them eat dirt” attitude all too often these days. We see it in the riot-torn streets outside World Trade Organization meetings and on Web sites demonizing genetic engineering of food crops.

And our response is this: We hope you, dear reader, will stop at McDonald's today in observance of World Children's Day. And whether you buy a Big Mac or a Happy Meal, we urge you to toss in an extra buck or two for UNICEF. And spare a scornful thought for those whose narrow, politically correct agenda moves them to disparage such a worthy partnership to save children's lives.

I'll eat to that.