The Chronicle editorial board follows yesterday’s editorial gaffe with an editorial today that again makes us wonder if any adults actually read these things before they go to the printing press.
In twelve paragraphs, the Editorial LiveJournalists ramble on about the paradox of obese people being hungry, poor people making bad nutritional choices, Hurricane Katrina, the Houston Food bank, and a few other items from the Editorial LiveJournalists’ kitchen sink. The headline also introduces an assertion (Houston is one of America’s fattest cities) that is contained nowhere in the editorial itself. And there are entire sentences that I still haven’t been able to parse (here’s one: “Unlike rent assistance and other direct monetary aid that pay $1 of benefit for every dollar donated, food can be donated much more cheaply than its actual value to recipients”). It’s a typical Chronicle editorial page mess.
It’s really too bad, because many of us agree that it’s shameful that pockets of poverty and hunger endure here in the most affluent nation in the history of the world, and many of us agree that organizations like America’s Second Harvest and the Houston Food Bank do an incredible job of helping a lot of people who really need it, and of really stretching donations.
It’s not clear why the Editorial LiveJournalists — allegedly professional writers — couldn’t have crafted a more effective two-to-three-paragraph editorial that highlighted those important organizations and suggested that Houstonians consider supporting them (especially during this season in which so many politicians think THEY need donations instead).
Instead, we just got an odd, rambling editorial that seemed to suggest that starving people need to make better nutritional choices. It’s good that the Editorial LiveJournalists could clear that up for us, and in just twelve paragraphs!
