{"id":1348,"date":"2005-12-03T19:15:56","date_gmt":"2005-12-03T23:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2005-12-03T19:15:56","modified_gmt":"2005-12-03T23:15:56","slug":"ethical-christmas-presents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/?p=1348","title":{"rendered":"Ethical Christmas presents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some people are upset about the craze for giving charity goats<\/a> to Africa. In Africa, the real goats gnaw at everything they can reach, still further deforesting a fragile ecosystem; in this country the certificate gnaws at the recipient’s self-esteem, suggesting they are the kind of miserable bastard who never gives enough to charity. The also swell the pharisaic self-satisfaction of the giver, who can believe that they have done something ostentatiously good which simultaneously reflects well on their own sensitivity and care for the earth while causing obscure dissatisfaction to the recipient who is deprived not only of a present they might have liked more, but of grumbling, the traditional compensation for bad presents. You can grumble about a revolting sweater or a silly book, but how can you grumble about a gift for the poor? It only puts you further in the wrong.<\/p>\n\n

I see an opening here for a shrewd entrepreneur. The charity goats remain a very middle class phenomenon. There must still be millions of dud presents given this Christmas, ranging from CDs to pullovers, gifts that appear good only for landfill, or charity stores. But there is one more thing that an unwanted gift can do. It can feed a hungry goat. No matter what it is, a goat will eat it. Given the perversity of the animal, it may well prefer a cashmere sweater to an acacia tree.<\/p>\n\n

So on Boxing Day, I plan to open a web site offering charity gifts for the rest of us: ship your rubbish off to feed a goat in Africa! Save the environment, and, if you want, we’ll send a card to the original giver of the gift you have recycled.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people are upset about the craze for giving charity goats to Africa. In Africa, the real goats gnaw at everything they can reach, still further deforesting a fragile ecosystem; in this country the certificate gnaws at the recipient’s self-esteem, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewormbook.com\/hlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}