""You Didn't Build That" - Falsehood By Decontextualization"
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"The Death of Epistemology"
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Alan: Contextualization is everything. After reading the following piece, check out Flint Skinny's comment.
It's not cheap becoming Gotham
The city of San Francisco shelled out $105,000 turning itself into Gotham for the now-famous Batkid, who captured national attention last Friday as the Leukemia stricken-boy whose one wish was to be a super hero.
Most of the money was spent renting a sound-system, video screens, and other last-minute equipment rentals to accommodate the massive crowd that gathered at City Hall to watch Batkid, AKA Miles Scott, receive a chocolate key to the city, the Associated Press reports. The city hopes to recoup some of the costs from private donations. A spokeswoman for the mayor’s office said that costs would have been even higher if many vendors hadn’t donated their services.
The Make-a-Wish foundation organized the event for little five-year-old Miles, and even Christian Bale of Dark Knight fame said he was touched.
You’d think Batkid could have used some of the money from thwarting the Riddler’s bank heist. But no, he would never.
I'm OK with a tiny % of my municipal tax money going to events like this. And I understand that some would be against it. Let the city council hash it out.
The Giants victory parade cost San Francisco about $225k, and a very limited population cared enough to enjoy it. The entire country was able to benefit from BatKid's day on the town. Yes, it's a lot of money, but it's money well spent to encourage a nation.
Many people believe the publicity was worth the money spent, and that Make-A-Wish will reimburse the City for most of the expenses, which is then okay with me. The whole event came across as a real-live holiday movie. If the City doesn't get reimbursed, I would like to know how many children who go hungry every day could have been fed with this money.
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