It is worth noting, by the way, that the most sentimental people, who are loudest against the right to wage a just war, to execute a criminal, are just the people who are most likely to be in favour of ‘putting incurables out of their pain,’ which the commandment against murder most emphatically forbids.--Hilaire Belloc, via "The Daily Eudemon", via TSO
"You can be very caring and still be extremely dangerous." -- S., one of my instructors in nursing school
Anthony Esolen on sentimentality
A few weeks ago, the Catholic Charities had their annual "Health Fair". The kids always want to go because it is up the street, they give out free food, have that jumpy thing-it draws them in.
It marketed to people of a lower income status.
They always come back with shopping bags full of "free stuff". I am always incredibly offended by the content. Tons of stuff on using clean needles to prevent the spread of AIDS, drug rehab info, WIC program info, lots of little public service announcements with inane info like "eat three meals a day" or "eat dinner with your family".The Cornell Cooperative Extension actually handed me a sign up sheet on taking free classes on "how to shop for food on a budget" and another on "how to eat healthy".
I could go on. I felt that this was merely an opportunity for people to pat themselves on the back.
I agree it sounds like useless info for your particular family, but they must think it's reaching some people. I'm surprised to hear about the needle exchange info at Catholic Charities, because those programs, while arguably effective, are very controversial.
And the sad thing is, there are people who can't both "shop for food on a budget" and "eat healthy." I'm thinking that my own grandmother could have used classes like that. Her mother died when she was 8 and her stepmother was an alcoholic, so she had no one to show her what many of us learn naturally at home. By the time I arrived, she'd learned a bit (and no longer considered it "a waste of money" to buy fruit), but my mother still talks about the horrible, unhealthy meals her mother used to make -- lots of carbs, lots of frying oil, etc.
L.,
I guess you have a point, but I just found the whole thing maddeningly condescending.