Thursday, January 25, 2018

Rather Funny Set of Standards

The UK's Presidents Club is shutting down after 33 years of holding an annual fundraising dinner for chldren's charities, in the wake of reports that that dinner was rather misogynistic both in pre-arranged theme and in guest behavior:

Financial Times journalist Madison Marriage, one of two FT reporters who worked undercover as hostesses at the event, described being groped multiple times by guests. Many other hostesses among the 130 women hired for the night had told her of similar behavior and worse, she said.

"It was hands up skirts, hands on bums but also hands on hips, hands on stomachs, arms going around your waist unexpectedly," she told the BBC's Newsnight program.

...

According to the FT report, the women hired as hostesses were told to wear "BLACK sexy shoes" and black underwear. Short, tight, black dresses were provided, the FT said. At the start of the event, the hostesses were paraded on stage, the report said.


The thing that strikes me is the response of from one of the charities who have benefited, to the tune of $28 million, from these charity dinners over the years.

Great Ormond Street Hospital in London said it was shocked by the reported behavior and would return any past donations. "We would never knowingly accept donations raised in this way. We have had no involvement in the organization of this event, nor did we attend and we were never due to receive any money from it," a spokeswoman said.

The hospital told CNN that it received £530,000 (about $753,000) in three separate donations in 2009 and 2016, and would give the money back.

This is the same hospital that went to court to prevent Charlie Gard's parents from getting treatment for their dying son, at their own expense, lest other parents start making their own decisions too instead of just doing whatever the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital tell them to do.

A "children's charity" that will go to court to protect its ability kill a kid, but sanctimoniously return money intended to help children to a bunch of alleged gropers because those gropers might have groped while raising it for them, doesn't sound like much of a children's charity to me. Just sayin' ...

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