Or you could ask the same question another way.

If it's acceptable to criticize someone's attempts at generosity for being slow or small, then where is the lambasting of an ineffective and wasteful aid organisation?

I'm seeing the U.S. being taken to task for being slow to increase its promise of aid from $350 million to $950 million. Where is the criticism of the "Other" slow responder?



Can you say "Double Standard"?

Oh, there seems to be quite a lot of U.N. bashing coming from your direction. Did any of us tell you to shut up about it? Tell you it's tacky to criticize the U.N.? Imply you're ungrateful for saying so? No. We may argue whether or not your assessment of them is fair, just like you can argue with us over our assessment of the US, but we didn't tell you that the mere act of criticizing the U.N. makes you a nasty person.

Can you say double standard?

If the dreaded U.N. is fair game, so is the US. And Australia. And New Zealand. And guess what, there are Australians criticizing the Australian government's response, and New Zealanders criticizing the New Zealand government's response, Japanese citizens finding fault with the Japanese government's response, and so on. And in all cases the critics criticize because they want their governments to do a better job next time. Presumably, you bash the U.N. because you want it to stop being so bureaucratic and corrupt.

Oh, and Freaky, if the charity you work for was wasteful, and people found out, and criticized it, and the people in charge were pressured into running your organization so that more money went to buying food, wouldn't that be a good thing?

Food Banks don't really buy food; we operate largely (though not entirely, to be sure) on food donations from the community and from local businesses.

But, yes; if our operating budget was wasteful and our mission wasn't fulfilled, a change in policy would be nice. Actually, said change in policy came eight years ago, when our current Executive Director took over, kicked out most of the corrupt employees, tightened ship and made things run much smoother. And people did criticise the Food Bank before that, so it was a good thing.

Now we have a pretty darn good reputation, at least locally, for how well we're run.