A nude photo to die for
April 20, 2008
Lord Nazh over at The Daily Ramble weighs in on Dr Beat Richner’s decision to turn down a $91,000 donation to his children’s hospital because the money came from the sale of a nude photograph.
I don’t know about you, but letting someone potentially die (healthcare isn’t that good in Cambodia or the good Swedish doctor wouldn’t be needing money to run a clinic) because of ‘respect’ isn’t my idea of a good thing. Morals are what keep us sailing the straight and narrow or whatever floats your boat, but personal morals shouldn’t get in the way of healing kids. There are people who I admire that would argue with me on that point and to them I’d like to say, show me. Show me the child that has to die to assuage your morals.
April 20, 2008 at 4:37 am
Seems a little bit too easy to me. Dr Richner has already “saved the life” of much more children than “Lord Nazh”, you or me. I don’t know the truth in this, but it is also said that he has frequently fought against the UN and some NGOs to ensure that the standard of health service brought to the Cambodian people is equal to the Western world, and not a simplified version “enough to the Third World”.
And then, he’s already running 6 hospitals free of charge. Not sure the $91,000 is a huge contribution to the overall budget, especially if you factor in the cost of other sponsors who (for their own reasons) would stop to support Dr. Richner if he accepted to get the money from a nude picture, from a “people” photographer, and depicting a woman who has since become the wife of the French president and who, I guess, must not agree with that sell.
Overall, it’s simplistic thinking.
April 20, 2008 at 11:11 am
At least the world’s poor will now enjoy cleaner water thanks to Dr Beat’s decision. The $91,000 - which isn’t peanuts - has instead been donated to Sodis, an NGO that provides drinking water to the poor.
April 20, 2008 at 2:07 pm
manur: The number of children that the good doctor has saved is irrelevant, 91k could potentially save many more and because of his personal morals, he refuses to let that money help those kids.
If the other sponsors would indeed stop supporting the doctor because of this, then they aren’t really trying to help anyway are they?
April 21, 2008 at 12:51 am
“then they aren’t really trying to help anyway are they?” : so their money isn’t worth the trouble ? But wait… isn’t this kind of moral concerns what offended you in the first place ?
Money can be lost and his foundation’s reputation, both locally and abroad, tarnished. That’s what I call simplistic thinking : you can’t brush off reality as irrelevant.
Here’s the (French) interview of a Swiss newspaper with Richner : http://www.lematin.ch/fr/actu/monde/beat-richner-non-a-carla-bruni_10-134087.
His point is that nudity isn’t as easily accepted in Cambodian society as in the West. I honestly don’t know about this (would require something like a PhD thesis, I guess), but that doesn’t strike me as improbable. And also : “The actual impact of stars in the humanitarian causes is close to zero. They only create publicity for themselves.”
Maybe there’s hypocrisy in his replies, but as far as I can see he never mentioned his own prudishness as the reason.
April 21, 2008 at 12:55 am
Besides, Richner isn’t “Swedish” but Swiss. I’d bet $91k your never heard about Kantha Bopha prior to this event, did you ?