Questionable Motives

I'm not sure what to make of  children abandoning school to protest about climate change. School is quite a chore for many children so demonstrating about something may be an attractive alternative for many, regardless of what they are demonstrating about.

I'd be more impressed if great numbers of school children abandoned their usual weekend entertainments to demonstrate on a Saturday afternoon.

Overreaction?

The loss of a venerable old building is a sad event, and the threat of such a loss is worrying, but I thought the reaction to the fire in the cathedral of Notre Dame excessive. It seemed reasonable to report the catastrophe while the fire was burning, but there were far too many replays and interviews afterwards.

Mighty ancient buildings make me uneasy. I think how much money would have been levied on people who could hardly afford to feed themselves, and how many builders must have been killed in accidents, just to produce a large building to impress people with the power of whoever had it built.

Money and effort would have been better employed building aqueducts, sewage systems, libraries, or museums, all of which improve the quality of life in one way or another, but a huge church just symbolises the power of priests

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Puzzled by Food Collections

Here and there one sees containers in which people are bidden to place food for the hungry.

That seems strange to me. Do people contribute odd tins that have long lain neglected in dark corners of their pantries? If so some of the food may be too old to be edible.

On the other hand if people buy tins of food specially to donate them, it would be more useful to contribute money. With money those running food banks could buy whatever was most needed, negotiating lower prices by buying in bulk for a good cause, and they would not have to sort a  miscellany of  battered tins.