Arrested Philanthropy

Another birthday, another boxed set...thankfully, because a carefully chosen one is an excellent gift (if you haven't started to plough your way through The West Wing, The Wire etc, well, there are much worse ways to waste your life...). My first comedic venture into the boxed set world is Arrested Development, in which, to my delight, there is a character called Lindsay Fünke, a member of a dysfunctional and wealthy family, who gets into charity, but lacks consistency or commitment (another week, another cause...). The very first episode shows her declining a canapé at a party, saying she's absolutely stuffed, and above her head is a banner – Stop the Hunger. Another party is in aid of HOOP, an anti-circumcision charity (HOOP, in case you haven't worked it out, stands for Hands Off Our Penises). In a later episode she says – “I care deeply for nature”. To which her brother points out that “You're wearing ostrich-skin boots”. Lindsay’s response: “Well, I don't care about ostriches”. Lindsay has also spoken out against cattle ranching and fish farming, and was on the committee to improve school lunches with more meat and fish.

All this gives an excellent excuse to quote yet again Mordecai Richler’s book, Barney’s Version, in which Duddy Kravitz, a rich and successful hustler, yearns for social respectability. In pursuit of it, he has a brainwave – he’s looking to start a foundation in aid of some disease or other. Problem is, most of the big ones have gone. As he says –

.. it’s a tough call. Don’t tell me. I know. Multiple sclerosis has already been nabbed. So has cancer. Parkinson’s. Alzheimer’s. Liver and heart diseases. Arthritis. You name it, it’s gone. So what I need is some disease still out there, something sexy I could start a charity for, and appoint the governor general, or some other prick, honorary patron …… Polio was terrific. Something kids get tugs at the heartstrings. People are suckers for it.

Now, the eponymous hero – Barney – eventually suggests Crohn’s Disease, an unpleasant disease affecting a significant number of people. He explains it to Duddy –

It leads to gas, diarrhoea, rectal bleeding, fever, weight loss. You suffer from it you could have fifteen bowel movements a day

Who responds –

Oh, great! Wonderful!…. I say, how would you like to be a patron for a charity for farters? Mr. Trudeau, this is DK speaking, and I’ve got just the thing to improve your image. How would you like to join the board of a charity my wife is organising for people who shit day and night? Hey there everybody, you are invited to my wife’s annual Diarrhoea Ball. Listen, for my wife it has to have some class. I want you to come up with a winner by nine o’clock tomorrow morning….

And then there’s Renu Mehta and the Fortune Forum. Oh, but I forgot, that’s real.