I would suppose the purchase of a cow for a family in India could be considered a carefully planned act of kindness.
I do take your point,Jim, about the promotion of items to purchase (next item down from the cow story is a book promotion) and the cynic in me may see this as a money spinner for the originator, but I'm prepared to cast cynicism aside in favour of the feel-good factor that this enterprise seems to generate.
If the "leader" is making money does it make the idea any less worthwhile?
I suppose time will tell. Maybe if the papers carried a story about this guy running around in big cars and living the high life, a few devotees would feel used or mis-led, but there doesn't seem to be any requests for monetary donations and the purchase of any goods is clearly optional.


C-flat.