Word: fasted
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...excercise in giving nets $1.30 for the starving in Africa. But what does nearly every faster do on the night of the big fast? Go to Bartley's or Pinocchio's and blow five or six bucks on dinner. It would make a lot more sense to endure the dining hall dreck one more night and just give the fiver to Oxfam...
...extra money that would go to the hungry if we avoided the pretense of the Oxfam fast could go a long way to easing further the problems of world starvation and deprivation. Those few extra dollars--multiplied by hundreds or thousands of students--could build a small teaching hospital in Guatamala, or feed Sally Struthers for a week...
...WAIT, Oxfam night is also a big social event. It's fun to go out, eat, and rejoice in our generosity. This raises the second objection to the Oxfam fast, the spiritual one. The purpose of the fast, in theory, is for us privileged Harvard students to commune long-distance with those in Africa who go to bed hungry every night. But no one does that anyway. We give away a meal to charity and then go out and buy ourselves an even more expensive dinner to celebrate...
...final argument against the Oxfam fast, and my favorite, is the "to hell with the dining services" one. They rip us off year after year, charging us for scores of meals we never eat. It's understandable that the dining service employees need to be paid, even on Oxfam night. But there are many creative, yet simple, ways we could donate meals and money to Oxfam that would take this into account. Only the greedy and apathetic dining service hierarchy stubbornly refuses to even consider them. Instead, they insist that the Oxfam fast be a college-wide, one-night-only...
...stands, then, the Oxfam fast is a hypocritical excercise in conscience-soothing, ego-inflating giving. Under the current system, the most successful fast would see every dining hall employee getting paid for doing no work, every student painting the town--and starving folk in Africa and elsewhere getting far less than if we avoided the pretense of Oxfam night altogether. So do a starving family in Africa a favor. Skip the Oxfam fast...