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Dirk Flinthart's philanthropic Whimsies

By Dirk Flinthart - posted Friday, 15 June 2001


Corporate Philanthropy.

Phorkarat clapanthopically.

Pork a rat claptrapery. Pork! Pork! Pork! BURMA!

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Sorry. I panicked.

Well, what do you expect? I'm well over my deadline, and for the last month I've been juggling gastro-enteritis, sick babies, calves that have tried to kill themselves by eating bracken, and an 8000-word honours degree assignment on Independent Learning Groups. Frankly, you're lucky that I can see straight enough to type. The assignment went in this morning, and at this point, I'm onto my eighth brandy-lime-and-soda. (Great drink, that. Along with gin-and-tonic, BLS is one of the drinks that ensured the safety of the British Empire for over a century. One part brandy, one part good-quality lime cordial, three parts soda water, ice and a twist of lime ... take three and you're ready to quell the most frightful of mutinies, by God! Damn the natives! Damn the flies! Pour me another, Carruthers ... I believe I've got one of the filthy brutes in my sights...)

Errrr.... what? Oh, yes. Clorporate buggers being kind to the world. Well, frankly I thought the whole concept was a load of old bollocks. I mean, to this day Daimler/Benz are still refusing to acknowledge their obligations to the Jews that Hitler lent them as slave-labour during the war. Microsoft is trying to play Shirley Temple when everybody knows that Bill Gates is the guy inside the Darth Vader suit. And Exxon ... the less said the better. I mean, what journalist can be absolutely certain that the minions of the Evil Oil Empire aren't sitting outside, watching him through a 50x Mannlicher-Carcano telescopic sight?

Still, I'm the kind of guy that laughs at death. In fact, I'd laugh at anything at this point. Even Russell Gilbert – and that, I can tell you, is drawing a very long bow indeed.

So anyway, I decided that corporate philanthropy (the incidence of profiteering megabastards turning over perfectly good money to the sick, the hungry, and those who happened to invest in the analogue mobile phone system) was just too far out for me. I mean, whoever heard of company chiefs putting money into the community? Oh, sure – Brad Keeling and Jodee Rich agreed to give back their $30 million of performance bonuses once their backs were well and truly against the wall (if you can call it that with a $5000-a-week allowance), but is that really philanthropy? No. It's the kind of promise you make when you are absolutely convinced you are going to die.

No. I'm going to find something simpler, like hen's teeth. Yeah. So, load "hen's teeth" into my favourite search engine, and what do I get?

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http://www.devbio.com/chap06/link0601.shtml Too weird. Hen's teeth. Whoa. Maybe there's something to this Cop A Fat Kill Andrew thing after all ...

Just as a test, I ran a check on "Bigfoot". There was this site that came up... http://gcbro.com/LAnwa002.htm "Large, hairy, walked on two legs", it said. Could it have been Jodee Rich? Who knows? Maybe our man Jodee was travelling the world in disguise doing corporate good deeds with other people's money. Clearly, it was time to check in at Loch Ness:

http://tbook.com/l/Loch_Ness_Monster/Loch_Ness_ Monster_Books.htm

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About the Author

Dirk Flinthart is a writer and student who lives in Tasmania.

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