San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar, who imitated the Grinch when he sponsored the 2010 measure that banned McDonald’s Happy Meals from including a toy, has decided to join the legion of Batman villains. Mar tweeted his disapproval of the money spent for a city-wide celebration for a five-year-old leukemia patient who got to be Batkid for a day courtesy of the Make-A-Wish foundation. San Francisco changed into Gotham for one day for five-year-old Miles Scott, and Mar’s tweeted response was this: “Wondering how many 1000s of SF kids living off SNAP/FoodStamps could have been fed from the $$.”
The blowback was fierce, with some tweets too angry to be printed, but some others included: “Denigrating the make a wish program. How incredibly low of you,” and “Way to be a wet blanket.”
Mar, noting the public anger, lamely told Sfgate.com, “I probably should have started the tweet with, ‘Love the Batkid,’ to be clear that I support brave young kids.” Only minutes later, he issued a press release stating, “I simply wanted to urge that we, as a city, find similar amounts of love, compassion and empathy for children living every day in dire circumstances who, in the vast majority of cases, will not be supported or even recognized by our society.”
Sfgate reports that out of the roughly 6,000 children with life-threatening medical conditions who have been selected by Make-A-Wish Foundation’s Bay Area chapter, 80% are improving in their conditions. Miles Scott’s leukemia, which he has suffered from since the age of 20 months, is currently in remission; his last chemotherapy was in June 2013.
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