February: Skip a single little luxury month
The Max Mello association for animal’s plea got me thinking. Exchange rates, life, well being, Brazil’s £130 per month minimum wage. How a pretty boxed bottle of Cristal champagne is £189.50 (and it takes 4 people about 25 minutes for that experience to have come and gone)
Or how dinner out for two at a mid-ranged restaurant will cost at least £50. Now imagine if everyone who could afford to, skipped just one little luxury and put that money to better use. And what if we could do that once a week, for a month a year? Or even just once a year?
Oxfam can get a pair of chickens to a family in need for £20, or a goat-couple for £50. Okay put the pitchforks down and let’s not have the Ethics of Buying Animals for Africans over a Bottle of Bolla, Saturday Night Debate. You skipped your luxury, you get to choose your cause. A very uncontroversial one is a dog shelter like the one mentioned above. Go on, just skip one little luxury this week!
My Mazamet 
What if there are no luxuries to skip?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Those people are off the hook 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you 🙂
LikeLike
By the way, go to the link about the ethics of animals/africa debate, you’re going to LOVE IT. I’ve rarely laughed so hard.
LikeLike
Actually I’d clicked but got distracted by him.
LikeLike
I’m still confused on the pricing though. £20 for two chickens? We got a cockerel from the local gippo for free. Don’t chickens (and goats) breed in Africa?
LikeLike
Although I’m not a chicken expert, I do know a (dead) free range chicken at a good bio-food-shop costs around €17 to€20. So there must be premium for one that’s still alive.
LikeLike
€20!!!! Eek. I’m glad I’m vegetarian.
LikeLike
That was an hilarious five minute read. You can just picture Margo, Sheba, Peaches et al in some home in Kent over dinner, pissed as farts on Selfridge’s Wine.
And Chloe and her donkey!
They don’t call the UK a ”nanny” (goat) state for nothing.
😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
A friend *who lives in Kent* sent me that and I haven’t stopped laughing since. I might be walking or driving and I just burst into laughter 🙂
I’ve been to so many of those dinners, it’s a blur.
“The way to fix the Middle-East conflict is to give Palestine to a nice country, like Canada. Make it Canadian territory.”
“Well, when we were little and I was fighting with Hermione over a toy, what mummy used to do was take the toy away from both of us. So to be fair we should take Israel and Palestine away from both parties. Split them up, send one group to Australia and the other to South America.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
And the English do it so well, dontcha know?
And while this is obviously satire there is so much cultural truth deeply embedded in the piece that there must be a Margo or Sheba reading it somewhere thinking it is based on them.
I truly cringe at the English sometimes.
LikeLike
Speaking of which… here’s one of the best I’ve ever read. It was in response to an article in the Independent by Lulu Nunn criticizing people using the French flag as their FB image after the Charlie Hebdo attacks:
“What a relief to finally hear the definitive word on this pressing subject from the world of experimental theatre. Lulu did an art course at London Metropolitan University (who wants to go Goldsmiths anyway).She brings a unique insight into third world oppression and can fully empathise and sees through the lies of the west (as only a white art student called Lulu can).
Rather than mock her for her lack of research and knowledge I’m hoping Lulu will re-visit this masterful piece of work in the form of interpretive dance on Newsnight maybe to the tune of Tears of a Clown. She also has lots of fun costumes. Check her profile she’s available for bookings …”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautiful message, Pink.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mr. M., a great addition to the cause to help MaxMello, and love your support both here and over at Learning from Dogs. By the way, Jean used to live in Fayence twenty years ago and loved the area. Can’t be too many miles from you?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A greater distance than we thought. Mazamet is some 440 kms to the West of Fayence!
LikeLike
My two favourite charities are oxfam and msf. I don’t even notice my automatic monthly donations. On top of having low overhead, both organizations are not afraid to call out the douchebags of the world.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually, us undeserving poor have luxuries, it just takes a little more imagination. I could give up my monthly chocolate bar, and donate 60p. In January, once, after dark in a howling gale and heavy rain, I splashed out £4.50 on the bus, rather than use my bicycle!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bad, bad Clare!
LikeLike
Clare, £4.50 is $6.50. That is how much a bus ride costs in the UK? And so round trip it’s $13 to take the bus, is that a long bus ride or something? Are these luxury buses?
LikeLike
£4.50 is a return fare, the single distance is 6.5 miles. I feel it is rather expensive. The buses are from the last century.
LikeLike
Local buses here are *free*. That’s within the entire urban and surrounding areas. And in the summer there are also free buses to leisure centres, the lake and events.
LikeLike
my husband loves giving “animals” via Heifer Int’l , that’s where what we might spend on xmas gifts on each other goes to.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We’ve given up on most of our luxuries as my husband is too ill to enjoy them these days…….so any spare money goes to individuals helping animals and to Nicaraguans in Costa Rica needing help to get their papers in order.
No big charities with inflated salaries….luxury encampments for their ‘workers in the field’….
The link was priceless! I could hear the voices….that middle class whine….the furrowed brow……the hand reaching for the bottle of Primitivo…
LikeLiked by 1 person
-giggles- I have an unopened bottle of Veuve Cliquot I was given as a gift – can I donate that instead?
LikeLiked by 1 person
You can donate it to me 🙂
LikeLike
Okay! You bring the food and I’ll pop the cork. 😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Pinkie, you’re reinventing Lent.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that….;)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Rebranding it! I was born on Maundy Thursday, you know 😛
LikeLike
You are right in that we all should contribute in some way, if we can afford it, to a charity. As for me I give exclusively to gay rights work. For example, in memory of the 32 young Mormon teens between the ages of 13 an 22 who have completed suicide since the Mormon (LDS) church came out with their viciously anti gay policy in November, in their memory I donated $132 to the Ali Forney Center in New York City who provides housing to LGBT homeless youth.
There is a campaign on to buy a Hate Church in Harlem that will be sold at a public auction for not paying over a million dollars in debt, the Ali Forney Center wants to buy that church, it’s right down the street from their LGBT drop in center. This is a good cause, to convert a HATE CHURCH into a center for LGBT Homeless youth.
http://www.joemygod.com/2016/02/09/breaking-ali-forney-center-reaches-200000-goal-in-donation-campaign-to-buy-harlems-hate-church/
What kick started the fund drive were just regular folks on Joe.My.God who within 48 hours had donated $75,000.
My heart bleeds for the LDS Mama Dragons, when I am labeled a bleeding heart I embrace it. I am. I gave in memory of those 32 LGBT Mormon youth who just couldn’t take the Christian hate any longer. My donation was memorable to me, $132 for the 32 youths. I wish so deeply so very deeply that we could end the Religiously Based Hatred of sexual and gender minorities. Not.One.More! I want Not.One.More LGBT youth to be so desperate that they end their life. We gotta change this and We.Can! Yes.We.Can!
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2016/02/08/mama_dragons_respond_to_gay_mormon_youth_suicide.html
I am often reminded of a comment I read on the internet from BenInOakland. He wrote that although he never had children he considers LGBT youth to be his Spirit Children, and works to lift them up. I never forgot that, Spirit Children, what a good way to express how we all should think about LGBT youth. that in fact they are our children, our Spirit Children, and as parents what should we be doing for them? What can we do for them?
I also support the people who lead the cause for civil rights for sexual minorities, I support them by buying their books. If anybody writes a book on how we won Marriage Equality in Ireland, or the USA, I damn well go buy their book. I have some I haven’t even read but I am going to support them to recognize them for what they have done, I am going to do that by buying their book. Basically anybody who tweets out, “so and so wrote a book,” I go to Amazon.com and go buy it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m giving up my beard for Lent. Does this count? Probably not, since shaving costs more than not shaving…
LikeLiked by 1 person