I'm not going to dignify David Blaine's current London stunt with a link, because it's easy enough for anyone to track down, but I'm truly offended by it. It took me several days to figure out why.

I'm sure it takes exceptional concentration to go without food for several weeks. Or, perhaps it takes a sneaky (and equally exceptional) support team to manage to smuggle food to someone living in a glass cage and provide the illusion of a six-week fast. In short, I'm sure the guy's good at whatever it is he does. But, given that (a.) there are so many people in the world who are truly going hungry, and (b.) people suffering from eating disorders are hardly fair figures of fun, I just can't understand the concept of deliberate self-starvation as showmanship.

As a political demonstration to draw awareness towards world hunger, yes. As a fund-raising stunt to benefit food relief agencies or for research on anorexia nervosa -- oh, hell, why not? But starving oneself in public (or pretending to do so) as an act of self-promotion? Oh, come on, David. Go bend some spoons with your mind or something. It's a much funnier gimmick, and a lot less insensitive.