Is the Cure worse than the Disease?

I admit, this was a tough one. But last year, I managed to find some pretty decent snark in Lance Armstrong's "Stand Up for Cancer" commercials, so poking fun at KFC's "Pink Buckets for Breast Cancer" should be doable, shouldn't it?

I think it's very nice that for every bucked of grilled or original recipe chicken (FRIED, which has been a dirty word over at KFC for quite some time now, but damn it, I grew up with Kentucky Fried Chicken and I'm over forty so I KNOW what "KFC" stands for) the fast-food corporation which merged with Taco Bell a few years back will donate a whole fifty cents to the fight against Breast Cancer. I really do. After all, how much does a bucket of this stuff cost nowadays? $15? Heck, that means KFC is willing to donate a whopping 3% of the price of each bucket. Pretty darned impressive.

But if you really want to contribute to the cause, is purchasing (and, presumably, helping your Dear Beloved Mother consume) a bucket of greasy, artery-clogging chicken the best way to go about it? Ok, I'm willing to concede that this stuff probably doesn't actually CAUSE breast cancer, either in laboratory rats or Mommies. It's not like Ben and Jerry's joining the fight against diabetes or M&M Mars donating a nickle for every candy bar purchased to defeat gingivitis. But still....

"This is for you, Mom. I'm determined that you won't die of breast cancer. So chow down on this pile of sludge, and then we'll go out for Blizzards at Dairy Queen. Maybe tomorrow we can get you one of those Double Down sandwiches."

Or- you could skip the Heart Attack in a Pail and just cut a check. Just a thought. Because really- if Mom keels over from a stroke instead of Breast Cancer, what exactly got accomplished here?