Ending World Hunger—An Idea

On occasion, strollers around Al Gore’s World-Wide Web happen upon this humble “website” and criticize its contents. Some feel as if we’re too political. Others think that we’re insufficiently political. Still others believe that we don’t mention Peter Frampton enough. (That last group, however, is essentially confined to Peter Frampton’s mother.)

Yet perhaps the complaint we hear most often is the following: The crack young staff wastes too much time on nugatory subject matter. Gillette razors; Billy Joel; Sudafed—this isn’t the lifeblood of an important “weblog.”

Well, dear reader, having grown accustomed to this gripe, we’ve decided to dedicate today’s “post” to proving it dead wrong. Sure, we may pen a throwaway column on, say, the word “moist” now and again. But, when push comes to shove, we’re big time intellectuals. You know, like Pete Dupont.

You doubt it? Then, nonbeliever, savor the topic of today’s thoughtful musing: Ending world hunger. Not too shabby, eh? Whilst you’re off in search of copious Internet pornography, we’re busy single-handedly saving the world. How do you like ‘dem apples?

Okay, you say, lay your brilliant idea on us. Well, here goes.

As everyone knows, Third World babies are all the rage in Hollywood. Quite frankly, unless you’ve procured a sub-Saharan or Central Asian tyke for your collection, you just aren’t anybody anymore. Ever since Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt went hunting for “disadvantaged” kiddies to smother, adopting “underrepresented” babies has become a jet-set fetish.

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” think that we should harness this fad and make the best of it, rather than poke fun at it as a noxious example of paternalistic imperialism—designer tribalism, in Roger Sandall’s apt phrase. With a little bit of effort, we think that this fascination with malnourished children can be of great help to the world.

So here’s our grand scheme: A massive expansion of celebrity Third-World baby-knapping can lead to the utter abolition of world hunger. Sure, it’s going to cost a lot of stars some money, but, with a little elbow grease, we can wind up putting every less fortunate child on the planet in Rosie O’Donnell’s home. Or, failing that, Steve Gutenberg’s.

Here’s how it’ll work: The more disastrous a given country is, the fancier the star who’ll be compelled to adopt its children. For instance, the kids of Rwanda will wind up in Michael Jackson’s care (God help them), whereas Colombia’s tots will be forced to shack up with Adrian Zmed.

If everything works out as we’ve calculated it, by 2075 no child will live in poverty. Sure, they’ll be compelled to listen to endless stories from the likes of Ryan O’Neal, but even that’s a bit better than starving.