World Leaders Eat 18-Course Meal While Discussing Solutions To Global Food Crisis

Just two days ago, Gordon Brown was urging us all to stop wasting food and combat rising prices and a global shortage of provisions.

But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[HungerFast080808]

t's easy. Don't eat for a day, or, even if you can't -- think about it; discuss it; meet with friends to strategize, donate, and/or volunteer.

(More to come on Fasting Tips, whether fasting is right for you, activities that you can participate in with friends, neighbors, community members or by yourself.)

[HungerFast080808]

Anything

[HungerFast080808]

...is OK to do that day pertaining to contemplation and action about world hunger:

Friday, August 8, 2008 (08/08/08).

See my profile for more info.

Let's make a difference in defeating hunger -- and making a statement to our leaders!

Peace

[Bettysdad]

This is the kind of stupidity that makes the left look bad.

What are the leaders of the world's major leaders supposed to eat? Stale crackers?

This is the same idiocy that calls John Edwards a "hypocrite" for being wealthy, living in a big house and caring about the poor."

If I was on the right and in a position to do so, I would broadcast this piece far and wide to point out what idiots lefties are.

I know what Arrianna's house looks like, and I'm sure she eats well. Anyone got a problem with that?

[SeriousBlack]

Sigh.

Logic.

"What are the leaders of the world's major leaders supposed to eat? Stale crackers?"

Straw man argument. No they didn't have to eat stale crackers. But having an uber-feast like that at a conference on WORLD HUNGER is at best insensitive. No, not stale crackers. A modest meal would have been nice. On the other hand, do you not agree it would have (1) Looked good, (2) Seen as compassionate, and (3) LENDED LEGITIMACY to the conference for them to have had, oh, let's try some intelligence here - had a selection of nutritious foods that are being developed to feed people in poor countries? (And they still could have gone out to private restaurants afterwards, but imagine the symbolism of something like that.) Yeah, such idiots us "lefties" are.

Edwards and Arianna - I could care less how ANYone lives in their private life if they have the money to spend on luxuries (I suppose you're insinuating the old call-lefties-commies argument there). Nope, I don't have a problem with how Arianna eats AT HOME. I WOULD have a problem if she had her private chef fly in and serve her caviar at a CONFERENCE ON WORLD HUNGER.

Typical "rightie" myopia - unable to connect the dots or conduct critical analysis.

[agachieng]

Mr. Brown's statement leaves one questioning why the other G-8 leaders have not joined the mettled-hypocritical ranks of the likes of his prominence. Well! until one comes to grips with fact that each has a highly insured membership to the club, a clear proof that Mr. Brown is only a "late-comer". I'm however very thankful of President Bush's wise stunt not to indulge in such careless statements. The staggering amounts of food wasted by Americans would not only make Mr. Browns' miniscule numbers look like child's play, but also make the world look like a haven in an invisible universe. But that's until one carefully peruses through the G-8's July 7th exotic dinner-menu. The 18-course meal gave new meaning to 'feasting while pondering over global food shortages'.
To add to the demur, it was only one of the many meals and services these modern day Emporers would be pampered with, not widthstanding the costs attached to such an extravaganza. At hard-working taxpayers' demise. Oh! what a wonderful world! and just who can blame them especially if they have to do this every year?
I'm tempted to want to be plaintively optimistic about the day the G-8 leaders will endure the wrath of exploring the convenience of a 'G-8 Conference Call', even if for the sake of preserving the dignity of one hungry citizen of the world, but my adulation for this group of "problem solvers" cannot allow me.

[olivia]

At best it was callous and in poor taste.

[nightwind928]

The expense of the privledged few is always born by the many. It's the old "let them eat cake" attitude of the pampered, overpaid dignitaries who believe they are "entitled" to an eighteen course meal as many in the world watch their children die of starvation while they enjoy their delicious desert choices.

[WFV]

Wow. These people need to wake up.

[rwe2late]

Let's be clear.
Their main concern about the starving is not that the hungry will starve,
but that the hungry may revolt.

[4Ply]

Yup.

[ntmessage]

Food inflation is directly related to our ill-conceived ethanol craze. Both candidates pander to the corn farmers that cost us many, many Billions of dollars in give aways and increased food costs and we can only find a dopey example to embarrass the same politicians we need to help solve the issue. Great work. How making an issues about something more constructive for a change?

[barriosbabe]

I feel a bigger issue is being ignored. These attendees' crime families earn billions from the very cause of world poverty and keep systems in place to try and keep the rest of us distracted (Google Manufactured Consent and Noam Chomsky). These ARE the leaders of the problem, the purveyors of: greedy capitalism, the forces that brought you the poisons of HFCS, GM seeds, and the Big Pharma with its poisonous diabetes pills and harmful psych meds (just Google Peter Breggin). Who cares about appearances? Get these Bozos out of power!

[jpshotwheels]

NOW

[kae]

The root cause of the food crisis is not scarcity, but the failed economic policies long championed by the G8, namely, trade liberalization and industrial agriculture. These policies, which treat food as a commodity rather than a human right, have induced chaotic climate change, oil dependency, and the depletion of the Earth"s land and water resources as well as today"s food crisis.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/08/10212/

[TchoupitoulasCanal]

Well at least they didn't get all fancy and serve Spam with a side of Top Ramen and washed it down with some Sunny Delight.

[ZenJu]

This is YOUR world, folks. YOU have created it, YOU allow it to happen in this manner. If you truly willed it otherwise, it would be different. Humans are, essentially, sheep; the wolves among us will always rise to the top and dine well, while we baaa and bleat and pay for it and go back to sports, lotteries, mindless sex, beer, religion, or American Idol or whatever grabs our pitifully limited minds. We'll have a more just, sane and peaceful world when we're actually capable of it.

[plaidlemur]

People, please.

The milk fed lamb flavored with herbs and mustard was atrocious, and the portions were horribly small! Those small portions, served up 18 times, reminded them, again and again, of the scarcity of grand bighand thornyhead fish with pepper sauce in some areas of the world. I mean really, if some areas of the world have water shield and pink conger with soy sauce vinegar, then they may not even have Isojiman Shuzo Shizuoka to go with it! Seriously, it can get that desperate in places!

[VivaZapata]

vulgarity, where is thy sting? apparently, it's been left behind in japan.