Colorful Comparison

[Wilson Gray]

One of us is missing the point, Doug. Either you're missing Kristof's
point or I'm missing yours.

-Wilson

On Thu, Sep 18, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Doug_Harris <cats22 at stny.rr.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Doug_Harris <cats22 at STNY.RR.COM>
> Subject:      Colorful Comparison
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Nicholas Kristof, known to have a soft spot for
> the horrendous problems of distressed nations,
> used a reading-pace-arresting comparison in today's
> NYT to highlight the "Brobdingnagian paychecks" of
> corporate executives that are, he notes, "partly the
> result of taxpayer subsidies."
> These, he said, "cost taxpayers more than $20 billion a year.
> That's enough money to deworm every child in the world, cut maternal
> mortality around the globe by two-thirds and also provide iodized salt to
> prevent tens of millions of children from suffering mild retardation or
> worse. . . ."
> --
> Whoa!
> The executive pay issue _is_ something we should be concerned, and
> outraged, about.
> So, I guess, is the need for deworming of some children. But ALL of them?
> Still, I don't see 'take from the rich and give to the dewormers' ever
> becoming a campaign slogan. The comparison, well meaning as Kristoff is,
> lacks scale.
> cats22 (aka doug)
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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