My better half sends this self-parodying agenda for the UN’s “International Day for the Recognition of Poverty,” a spectacle oozing with pretense. It begins at 13:15 (that’s 1:15pm for you ugly Americans), with the actually-scheduled agenda item, “guests arrive to tape music.”

The event also includes a children’s choir, a “commemorative stone,” “flowers to hounour the victims of extreme poverty,” and “testimonies of extreme poverty from international delegates (3-4 minutes each).”

Which is funny, ’cause I was just thinking the other day, “what do the world’s poor need to help them escape the cycle of poverty? And why hasn’t Africa made the leap the way Southeast Asia and parts of Latin America have?”

And then it hit me. The Answer: There haven’t been nearly enough children’s choirs singing to international diplomats in gloriosu venues with high ceilings! Why didn’t we think of this earlier? With just a few more comemorative stones, ceremonially dedicated flowers, and important UN officials making grand entrances to self-aggrandizing conferences to taped music, by golly, the children in Niger will be full-bellied, chocolate-ice-cream-faced, and ready for UN officials to be ringing their hands about Type II Diabetes in no time!

My only criticsm of the UN here is that I don’t see interpretive dance anywhere on the agenda. Philistines! I ask you: How can we expect to eradicate world poverty without working the essential institution of interpretive dance into our anti-poverty soirees?

Also, there should be wine and cheese. And a silent auction of cute cultural trinkets some of those poor people might make and sell to tourists if only they weren’t so poor, and had spare time to make stuff. Proceeds go to the local Planned Parenthood.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 7th, 2005 at 6:13 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.