domo-kun
ONE love, blood, life
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2009
- Messages
- 12,580
Almost inpossible, I think they will either switch it for Boots or No Line.
PLEBA Misc News and Articles #4
- Thread starter ramblin rose
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
- Status
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
I'm ready for surprises
domo-kun
ONE love, blood, life
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2009
- Messages
- 12,580
Who isn't Its a surprise none the less.
Can't wait till the tour starts. Only a few more weeks and counting!
Its a surprise none the less. Can't wait till the tour starts. Only a few more weeks and counting!
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
YAY!!!!!!The third leg it's ready to start
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Bono, bloody Bono?
Saturday May 15 2010
Andy Storey does not pull punches. Not when it comes to his views on Bono's campaigning work. The development studies lecturer at University College Dublin describes himself as "very critical" of the singer and activist. "His embrace of the powerful neuters what he can say. He is calling for increased aid but, at the same time, he is bolstering and legitimising the very people who are helping to maintain the huge disparity between rich and poor.
"He is a useful idiot for world leaders who like to look cool when photographed alongside him. And there's something utterly unseemly about Bono's obsequiousness with them."
On Monday, the U2 leader celebrated his 50th birthday. On the same day, Canada's leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, published a special Africa issue that was edited by Bono and Bob Geldof. It's not the first time major print media outlets have opened their doors to Bono, whose CV also includes guest editorship roles on Vanity Fair, The Independent and Libération.
"It's typical of the man's narcissism," Storey says. "Here is Bono, a privileged white rock star pontificating about Africa and making claims about the One Campaign, for instance, that cannot be verified."
While Bono has had to contend with criticisms levelled at his campaigning work since 1984 when he first spoke out on African poverty, his perceived status as poster boy for activism has lead to sustained attack from third-world commentators this year.
In her book, Dead Aid (reviewed by John Bruton on page 22), Zambian writer Dambiso Moyo is particularly scathing about Bono's contribution, while New York academic William Easterly has been so damning about the U2 man's aid work that he has earned the sobriquet, Anti-Bono.
A persuasive polemicist, Moyo's central thesis is that Western aid has made Africa's poor even poorer. She argues that the West's "pity industry" has not only facilitated corruption among the dictators given access to vast sums of unaccountable cash, but aid has also stifled investment and free enterprise.
She objects to how celebrities such as Bono have "inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent" and noted in an interview with The New York Times that on the only occasion in which she met Bono, at a party to raise money for Africans, she was the only African there.
This week, in a questions and answers session with The Globe and Mail, Bono refuted such suggestions. "I don't see colour. Irish people are generally migratory. Where ever we are, we feel at home and I just don't see it in terms of Africa. I don't ever see myself speaking on behalf of Africa. I'm a fan of Africa, I have fallen in love. I have perhaps gone a little native. I have spent a lot of the past years on the continent or talking about issues that deeply effect the continent.
"What we try to do, because we come out of pop culture, is take the issues that are so often obfuscated with arguments at a very high level for and against aid and we try to make them more accessible for people and to just remind people that there are some very achievable goals here."
Jamie Drummond, co-founder of Bono's One charity, says significant goals have already been met. "Thirty million more children are in school in Africa today because of aid flows and there are now over three million more people on anti retro-virals," he told Weekend Review in March. "Bono has a long track record in Africa and lots of people across Africa think he has a role to play."
John O'Shea, chief executive of Goal, endorses that opinion. "Bono has thrown himself into this area over a long time. He has embarrassed, shamed, cajoled and frightened a lot of world leaders into taking the issue of abject poverty seriously. "Bono has the ear of the world's most powerful leaders and that is a striking achievement. The world needs more advocates like him, whether they are singers or footballers or politicians. Awareness is key."
But an executive from another Irish charity takes a more critical view. "I don't doubt Bono's sincerity, but I have issues with his hypocrisy. This is a man who flies around the world by private jet and lives an incredibly privileged life and when you see him photographed with African people, we usually don't learn their names. It's like they are convenient objects in a photo shoot that reflects very well on him.
"And the decision of U2 to move their tax affairs out of the country really smacks of hypocrisy when you consider how well their enormous earnings could be used in the aid area. The Government is squeezing the amount of money it contributes to developing nations and taxes accrued from super-wealthy people would certainly make a difference."
Andy Storey was one of the most vocal opponents of U2's tax restructuring when the story broke in 2006. He is still angry. "It's hypocritical and it sticks in the throat. Can Bono not see the irony of it? I find it incredible that there hasn't been more of an outcry, but the silence speaks volumes. People, particularly in aid agencies, are afraid to put their heads above the parapet and criticise him."
A figure in one of the country's better-known NGOs believes this to be the case. "Bono certainly attracts a lot of criticism among aid agencies, but you'd be doing well to find anyone that will go on the record about their issues with him. Privately, people can be very catty -- recently, I heard one of our aid workers quipping about how Bono's music career has done very well out of global poverty when you think of U2's performance at Live Aid which moved them to a whole new level and so forth."
Concern's head of public affairs, Caroline Hickson, is broadly supportive of Bono's campaigning and notes that his approach has been very different to other celebrities. "Bono and someone like George Clooney in Darfur have put a huge amount of time into understanding the issues and they have worked over a sustained period of time in raising awareness," she says. "That's very different from other celebrities who piggy-back on to a crisis and don't invest much of their own time. For those people, you get the sense that they are at least partly doing it for the photo opportunity. After all this time, I don't think you can accuse Bono of that."
It's an issue Bono raised himself in The Globe and Mail this week. "I do accept the rather cringe-worthy photograph that often accompanies our work where you have rich rock stars next to the most vulnerable people in the world. We are sometimes embarrassed by this juxtaposition but if that's what it takes to divert attention to the arguments then I'll put up with the embarrassment."
Bono was unavailable to speak to Weekend Review this week, but, according to a close associate, the criticisms that have come his way will not stall his campaigning. "Africa is something he has been passionate about for more than a quarter of a century. He spends more of his time on the issue of poverty than he does on U2.
"He is aware of the criticisms and feels that some have validity but he is adamant that others are wide of the mark, particularly the arguments made in the Moyo book which seem so simplistic and brutal. This is someone, after all, who is advocating an end of western aid to Africa."
Yet, Bono himself has come around to the idea that old approaches to Africa don't work.
"A lot of people realise that the real way out of poverty is never aid, it's commerce," he told The Globe and Mail. "I didn't get into becoming an activist thinking like that but I've learned that. It's quite sad that I, as an activist, who came into this preferably prepared to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over my nose have ended up now myself aroused by the sight of cement mixers, the roads being built."
Meanwhile, the newspaper's actual editor, John Stackhouse, has had to defend the contributions of Bono and Geldof, after Canadians expressed mixed views towards the Africa issue.
"Why hand over the newspaper to two European musicians who have never lived in Africa?" he wrote. "Mr Geldof and Bono recognise their star power and its ability to cast light on the shadows of public debate. They don't presume to speak for Africans, or Canadians. They were here as global citizens, confronting a global issue.
"While Bono had to return to New York for his 50th party (it was a surprise), Mr Geldof persevered into Sunday night, reworking headlines and arguing with staff about placement."
Yet, the pair's contribution to Canadian journalism did not please some of the newspaper's readers.
"Just because these clowns travel around in private jets they get to pontificate on what they don't preach?" wrote one poster to the paper's website. "They are very good at wanting to spend other people's money."
Irish Independent
Bono, bloody Bono? - News & Gossip, Entertainment - Independent.ie
Saturday May 15 2010
Andy Storey does not pull punches. Not when it comes to his views on Bono's campaigning work. The development studies lecturer at University College Dublin describes himself as "very critical" of the singer and activist. "His embrace of the powerful neuters what he can say. He is calling for increased aid but, at the same time, he is bolstering and legitimising the very people who are helping to maintain the huge disparity between rich and poor.
"He is a useful idiot for world leaders who like to look cool when photographed alongside him. And there's something utterly unseemly about Bono's obsequiousness with them."
On Monday, the U2 leader celebrated his 50th birthday. On the same day, Canada's leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, published a special Africa issue that was edited by Bono and Bob Geldof. It's not the first time major print media outlets have opened their doors to Bono, whose CV also includes guest editorship roles on Vanity Fair, The Independent and Libération.
"It's typical of the man's narcissism," Storey says. "Here is Bono, a privileged white rock star pontificating about Africa and making claims about the One Campaign, for instance, that cannot be verified."
While Bono has had to contend with criticisms levelled at his campaigning work since 1984 when he first spoke out on African poverty, his perceived status as poster boy for activism has lead to sustained attack from third-world commentators this year.
In her book, Dead Aid (reviewed by John Bruton on page 22), Zambian writer Dambiso Moyo is particularly scathing about Bono's contribution, while New York academic William Easterly has been so damning about the U2 man's aid work that he has earned the sobriquet, Anti-Bono.
A persuasive polemicist, Moyo's central thesis is that Western aid has made Africa's poor even poorer. She argues that the West's "pity industry" has not only facilitated corruption among the dictators given access to vast sums of unaccountable cash, but aid has also stifled investment and free enterprise.
She objects to how celebrities such as Bono have "inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent" and noted in an interview with The New York Times that on the only occasion in which she met Bono, at a party to raise money for Africans, she was the only African there.
This week, in a questions and answers session with The Globe and Mail, Bono refuted such suggestions. "I don't see colour. Irish people are generally migratory. Where ever we are, we feel at home and I just don't see it in terms of Africa. I don't ever see myself speaking on behalf of Africa. I'm a fan of Africa, I have fallen in love. I have perhaps gone a little native. I have spent a lot of the past years on the continent or talking about issues that deeply effect the continent.
"What we try to do, because we come out of pop culture, is take the issues that are so often obfuscated with arguments at a very high level for and against aid and we try to make them more accessible for people and to just remind people that there are some very achievable goals here."
Jamie Drummond, co-founder of Bono's One charity, says significant goals have already been met. "Thirty million more children are in school in Africa today because of aid flows and there are now over three million more people on anti retro-virals," he told Weekend Review in March. "Bono has a long track record in Africa and lots of people across Africa think he has a role to play."
John O'Shea, chief executive of Goal, endorses that opinion. "Bono has thrown himself into this area over a long time. He has embarrassed, shamed, cajoled and frightened a lot of world leaders into taking the issue of abject poverty seriously. "Bono has the ear of the world's most powerful leaders and that is a striking achievement. The world needs more advocates like him, whether they are singers or footballers or politicians. Awareness is key."
But an executive from another Irish charity takes a more critical view. "I don't doubt Bono's sincerity, but I have issues with his hypocrisy. This is a man who flies around the world by private jet and lives an incredibly privileged life and when you see him photographed with African people, we usually don't learn their names. It's like they are convenient objects in a photo shoot that reflects very well on him.
"And the decision of U2 to move their tax affairs out of the country really smacks of hypocrisy when you consider how well their enormous earnings could be used in the aid area. The Government is squeezing the amount of money it contributes to developing nations and taxes accrued from super-wealthy people would certainly make a difference."
Andy Storey was one of the most vocal opponents of U2's tax restructuring when the story broke in 2006. He is still angry. "It's hypocritical and it sticks in the throat. Can Bono not see the irony of it? I find it incredible that there hasn't been more of an outcry, but the silence speaks volumes. People, particularly in aid agencies, are afraid to put their heads above the parapet and criticise him."
A figure in one of the country's better-known NGOs believes this to be the case. "Bono certainly attracts a lot of criticism among aid agencies, but you'd be doing well to find anyone that will go on the record about their issues with him. Privately, people can be very catty -- recently, I heard one of our aid workers quipping about how Bono's music career has done very well out of global poverty when you think of U2's performance at Live Aid which moved them to a whole new level and so forth."
Concern's head of public affairs, Caroline Hickson, is broadly supportive of Bono's campaigning and notes that his approach has been very different to other celebrities. "Bono and someone like George Clooney in Darfur have put a huge amount of time into understanding the issues and they have worked over a sustained period of time in raising awareness," she says. "That's very different from other celebrities who piggy-back on to a crisis and don't invest much of their own time. For those people, you get the sense that they are at least partly doing it for the photo opportunity. After all this time, I don't think you can accuse Bono of that."
It's an issue Bono raised himself in The Globe and Mail this week. "I do accept the rather cringe-worthy photograph that often accompanies our work where you have rich rock stars next to the most vulnerable people in the world. We are sometimes embarrassed by this juxtaposition but if that's what it takes to divert attention to the arguments then I'll put up with the embarrassment."
Bono was unavailable to speak to Weekend Review this week, but, according to a close associate, the criticisms that have come his way will not stall his campaigning. "Africa is something he has been passionate about for more than a quarter of a century. He spends more of his time on the issue of poverty than he does on U2.
"He is aware of the criticisms and feels that some have validity but he is adamant that others are wide of the mark, particularly the arguments made in the Moyo book which seem so simplistic and brutal. This is someone, after all, who is advocating an end of western aid to Africa."
Yet, Bono himself has come around to the idea that old approaches to Africa don't work.
"A lot of people realise that the real way out of poverty is never aid, it's commerce," he told The Globe and Mail. "I didn't get into becoming an activist thinking like that but I've learned that. It's quite sad that I, as an activist, who came into this preferably prepared to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over my nose have ended up now myself aroused by the sight of cement mixers, the roads being built."
Meanwhile, the newspaper's actual editor, John Stackhouse, has had to defend the contributions of Bono and Geldof, after Canadians expressed mixed views towards the Africa issue.
"Why hand over the newspaper to two European musicians who have never lived in Africa?" he wrote. "Mr Geldof and Bono recognise their star power and its ability to cast light on the shadows of public debate. They don't presume to speak for Africans, or Canadians. They were here as global citizens, confronting a global issue.
"While Bono had to return to New York for his 50th party (it was a surprise), Mr Geldof persevered into Sunday night, reworking headlines and arguing with staff about placement."
Yet, the pair's contribution to Canadian journalism did not please some of the newspaper's readers.
"Just because these clowns travel around in private jets they get to pontificate on what they don't preach?" wrote one poster to the paper's website. "They are very good at wanting to spend other people's money."
Irish Independent
Bono, bloody Bono? - News & Gossip, Entertainment - Independent.ie
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Bono, bloody Bono?
Saturday May 15 2010
Andy Storey does not pull punches. Not when it comes to his views on Bono's campaigning work. The development studies lecturer at University College Dublin describes himself as "very critical" of the singer and activist. "His embrace of the powerful neuters what he can say. He is calling for increased aid but, at the same time, he is bolstering and legitimising the very people who are helping to maintain the huge disparity between rich and poor.
"He is a useful idiot for world leaders who like to look cool when photographed alongside him. And there's something utterly unseemly about Bono's obsequiousness with them."
On Monday, the U2 leader celebrated his 50th birthday. On the same day, Canada's leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, published a special Africa issue that was edited by Bono and Bob Geldof. It's not the first time major print media outlets have opened their doors to Bono, whose CV also includes guest editorship roles on Vanity Fair, The Independent and Libération.
"It's typical of the man's narcissism," Storey says. "Here is Bono, a privileged white rock star pontificating about Africa and making claims about the One Campaign, for instance, that cannot be verified."
While Bono has had to contend with criticisms levelled at his campaigning work since 1984 when he first spoke out on African poverty, his perceived status as poster boy for activism has lead to sustained attack from third-world commentators this year.
In her book, Dead Aid (reviewed by John Bruton on page 22), Zambian writer Dambiso Moyo is particularly scathing about Bono's contribution, while New York academic William Easterly has been so damning about the U2 man's aid work that he has earned the sobriquet, Anti-Bono.
A persuasive polemicist, Moyo's central thesis is that Western aid has made Africa's poor even poorer. She argues that the West's "pity industry" has not only facilitated corruption among the dictators given access to vast sums of unaccountable cash, but aid has also stifled investment and free enterprise.
She objects to how celebrities such as Bono have "inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent" and noted in an interview with The New York Times that on the only occasion in which she met Bono, at a party to raise money for Africans, she was the only African there.
This week, in a questions and answers session with The Globe and Mail, Bono refuted such suggestions. "I don't see colour. Irish people are generally migratory. Where ever we are, we feel at home and I just don't see it in terms of Africa. I don't ever see myself speaking on behalf of Africa. I'm a fan of Africa, I have fallen in love. I have perhaps gone a little native. I have spent a lot of the past years on the continent or talking about issues that deeply effect the continent.
"What we try to do, because we come out of pop culture, is take the issues that are so often obfuscated with arguments at a very high level for and against aid and we try to make them more accessible for people and to just remind people that there are some very achievable goals here."
Jamie Drummond, co-founder of Bono's One charity, says significant goals have already been met. "Thirty million more children are in school in Africa today because of aid flows and there are now over three million more people on anti retro-virals," he told Weekend Review in March. "Bono has a long track record in Africa and lots of people across Africa think he has a role to play."
John O'Shea, chief executive of Goal, endorses that opinion. "Bono has thrown himself into this area over a long time. He has embarrassed, shamed, cajoled and frightened a lot of world leaders into taking the issue of abject poverty seriously. "Bono has the ear of the world's most powerful leaders and that is a striking achievement. The world needs more advocates like him, whether they are singers or footballers or politicians. Awareness is key."
But an executive from another Irish charity takes a more critical view. "I don't doubt Bono's sincerity, but I have issues with his hypocrisy. This is a man who flies around the world by private jet and lives an incredibly privileged life and when you see him photographed with African people, we usually don't learn their names. It's like they are convenient objects in a photo shoot that reflects very well on him.
"And the decision of U2 to move their tax affairs out of the country really smacks of hypocrisy when you consider how well their enormous earnings could be used in the aid area. The Government is squeezing the amount of money it contributes to developing nations and taxes accrued from super-wealthy people would certainly make a difference."
Andy Storey was one of the most vocal opponents of U2's tax restructuring when the story broke in 2006. He is still angry. "It's hypocritical and it sticks in the throat. Can Bono not see the irony of it? I find it incredible that there hasn't been more of an outcry, but the silence speaks volumes. People, particularly in aid agencies, are afraid to put their heads above the parapet and criticise him."
A figure in one of the country's better-known NGOs believes this to be the case. "Bono certainly attracts a lot of criticism among aid agencies, but you'd be doing well to find anyone that will go on the record about their issues with him. Privately, people can be very catty -- recently, I heard one of our aid workers quipping about how Bono's music career has done very well out of global poverty when you think of U2's performance at Live Aid which moved them to a whole new level and so forth."
Concern's head of public affairs, Caroline Hickson, is broadly supportive of Bono's campaigning and notes that his approach has been very different to other celebrities. "Bono and someone like George Clooney in Darfur have put a huge amount of time into understanding the issues and they have worked over a sustained period of time in raising awareness," she says. "That's very different from other celebrities who piggy-back on to a crisis and don't invest much of their own time. For those people, you get the sense that they are at least partly doing it for the photo opportunity. After all this time, I don't think you can accuse Bono of that."
It's an issue Bono raised himself in The Globe and Mail this week. "I do accept the rather cringe-worthy photograph that often accompanies our work where you have rich rock stars next to the most vulnerable people in the world. We are sometimes embarrassed by this juxtaposition but if that's what it takes to divert attention to the arguments then I'll put up with the embarrassment."
Bono was unavailable to speak to Weekend Review this week, but, according to a close associate, the criticisms that have come his way will not stall his campaigning. "Africa is something he has been passionate about for more than a quarter of a century. He spends more of his time on the issue of poverty than he does on U2.
"He is aware of the criticisms and feels that some have validity but he is adamant that others are wide of the mark, particularly the arguments made in the Moyo book which seem so simplistic and brutal. This is someone, after all, who is advocating an end of western aid to Africa."
Yet, Bono himself has come around to the idea that old approaches to Africa don't work.
"A lot of people realise that the real way out of poverty is never aid, it's commerce," he told The Globe and Mail. "I didn't get into becoming an activist thinking like that but I've learned that. It's quite sad that I, as an activist, who came into this preferably prepared to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over my nose have ended up now myself aroused by the sight of cement mixers, the roads being built."
Meanwhile, the newspaper's actual editor, John Stackhouse, has had to defend the contributions of Bono and Geldof, after Canadians expressed mixed views towards the Africa issue.
"Why hand over the newspaper to two European musicians who have never lived in Africa?" he wrote. "Mr Geldof and Bono recognise their star power and its ability to cast light on the shadows of public debate. They don't presume to speak for Africans, or Canadians. They were here as global citizens, confronting a global issue.
"While Bono had to return to New York for his 50th party (it was a surprise), Mr Geldof persevered into Sunday night, reworking headlines and arguing with staff about placement."
Yet, the pair's contribution to Canadian journalism did not please some of the newspaper's readers.
"Just because these clowns travel around in private jets they get to pontificate on what they don't preach?" wrote one poster to the paper's website. "They are very good at wanting to spend other people's money."
Irish Independent
Bono, bloody Bono? - News & Gossip, Entertainment - Independent.ie
Saturday May 15 2010
Andy Storey does not pull punches. Not when it comes to his views on Bono's campaigning work. The development studies lecturer at University College Dublin describes himself as "very critical" of the singer and activist. "His embrace of the powerful neuters what he can say. He is calling for increased aid but, at the same time, he is bolstering and legitimising the very people who are helping to maintain the huge disparity between rich and poor.
"He is a useful idiot for world leaders who like to look cool when photographed alongside him. And there's something utterly unseemly about Bono's obsequiousness with them."
On Monday, the U2 leader celebrated his 50th birthday. On the same day, Canada's leading national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, published a special Africa issue that was edited by Bono and Bob Geldof. It's not the first time major print media outlets have opened their doors to Bono, whose CV also includes guest editorship roles on Vanity Fair, The Independent and Libération.
"It's typical of the man's narcissism," Storey says. "Here is Bono, a privileged white rock star pontificating about Africa and making claims about the One Campaign, for instance, that cannot be verified."
While Bono has had to contend with criticisms levelled at his campaigning work since 1984 when he first spoke out on African poverty, his perceived status as poster boy for activism has lead to sustained attack from third-world commentators this year.
In her book, Dead Aid (reviewed by John Bruton on page 22), Zambian writer Dambiso Moyo is particularly scathing about Bono's contribution, while New York academic William Easterly has been so damning about the U2 man's aid work that he has earned the sobriquet, Anti-Bono.
A persuasive polemicist, Moyo's central thesis is that Western aid has made Africa's poor even poorer. She argues that the West's "pity industry" has not only facilitated corruption among the dictators given access to vast sums of unaccountable cash, but aid has also stifled investment and free enterprise.
She objects to how celebrities such as Bono have "inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent" and noted in an interview with The New York Times that on the only occasion in which she met Bono, at a party to raise money for Africans, she was the only African there.
This week, in a questions and answers session with The Globe and Mail, Bono refuted such suggestions. "I don't see colour. Irish people are generally migratory. Where ever we are, we feel at home and I just don't see it in terms of Africa. I don't ever see myself speaking on behalf of Africa. I'm a fan of Africa, I have fallen in love. I have perhaps gone a little native. I have spent a lot of the past years on the continent or talking about issues that deeply effect the continent.
"What we try to do, because we come out of pop culture, is take the issues that are so often obfuscated with arguments at a very high level for and against aid and we try to make them more accessible for people and to just remind people that there are some very achievable goals here."
Jamie Drummond, co-founder of Bono's One charity, says significant goals have already been met. "Thirty million more children are in school in Africa today because of aid flows and there are now over three million more people on anti retro-virals," he told Weekend Review in March. "Bono has a long track record in Africa and lots of people across Africa think he has a role to play."
John O'Shea, chief executive of Goal, endorses that opinion. "Bono has thrown himself into this area over a long time. He has embarrassed, shamed, cajoled and frightened a lot of world leaders into taking the issue of abject poverty seriously. "Bono has the ear of the world's most powerful leaders and that is a striking achievement. The world needs more advocates like him, whether they are singers or footballers or politicians. Awareness is key."
But an executive from another Irish charity takes a more critical view. "I don't doubt Bono's sincerity, but I have issues with his hypocrisy. This is a man who flies around the world by private jet and lives an incredibly privileged life and when you see him photographed with African people, we usually don't learn their names. It's like they are convenient objects in a photo shoot that reflects very well on him.
"And the decision of U2 to move their tax affairs out of the country really smacks of hypocrisy when you consider how well their enormous earnings could be used in the aid area. The Government is squeezing the amount of money it contributes to developing nations and taxes accrued from super-wealthy people would certainly make a difference."
Andy Storey was one of the most vocal opponents of U2's tax restructuring when the story broke in 2006. He is still angry. "It's hypocritical and it sticks in the throat. Can Bono not see the irony of it? I find it incredible that there hasn't been more of an outcry, but the silence speaks volumes. People, particularly in aid agencies, are afraid to put their heads above the parapet and criticise him."
A figure in one of the country's better-known NGOs believes this to be the case. "Bono certainly attracts a lot of criticism among aid agencies, but you'd be doing well to find anyone that will go on the record about their issues with him. Privately, people can be very catty -- recently, I heard one of our aid workers quipping about how Bono's music career has done very well out of global poverty when you think of U2's performance at Live Aid which moved them to a whole new level and so forth."
Concern's head of public affairs, Caroline Hickson, is broadly supportive of Bono's campaigning and notes that his approach has been very different to other celebrities. "Bono and someone like George Clooney in Darfur have put a huge amount of time into understanding the issues and they have worked over a sustained period of time in raising awareness," she says. "That's very different from other celebrities who piggy-back on to a crisis and don't invest much of their own time. For those people, you get the sense that they are at least partly doing it for the photo opportunity. After all this time, I don't think you can accuse Bono of that."
It's an issue Bono raised himself in The Globe and Mail this week. "I do accept the rather cringe-worthy photograph that often accompanies our work where you have rich rock stars next to the most vulnerable people in the world. We are sometimes embarrassed by this juxtaposition but if that's what it takes to divert attention to the arguments then I'll put up with the embarrassment."
Bono was unavailable to speak to Weekend Review this week, but, according to a close associate, the criticisms that have come his way will not stall his campaigning. "Africa is something he has been passionate about for more than a quarter of a century. He spends more of his time on the issue of poverty than he does on U2.
"He is aware of the criticisms and feels that some have validity but he is adamant that others are wide of the mark, particularly the arguments made in the Moyo book which seem so simplistic and brutal. This is someone, after all, who is advocating an end of western aid to Africa."
Yet, Bono himself has come around to the idea that old approaches to Africa don't work.
"A lot of people realise that the real way out of poverty is never aid, it's commerce," he told The Globe and Mail. "I didn't get into becoming an activist thinking like that but I've learned that. It's quite sad that I, as an activist, who came into this preferably prepared to be on the barricades with a handkerchief over my nose have ended up now myself aroused by the sight of cement mixers, the roads being built."
Meanwhile, the newspaper's actual editor, John Stackhouse, has had to defend the contributions of Bono and Geldof, after Canadians expressed mixed views towards the Africa issue.
"Why hand over the newspaper to two European musicians who have never lived in Africa?" he wrote. "Mr Geldof and Bono recognise their star power and its ability to cast light on the shadows of public debate. They don't presume to speak for Africans, or Canadians. They were here as global citizens, confronting a global issue.
"While Bono had to return to New York for his 50th party (it was a surprise), Mr Geldof persevered into Sunday night, reworking headlines and arguing with staff about placement."
Yet, the pair's contribution to Canadian journalism did not please some of the newspaper's readers.
"Just because these clowns travel around in private jets they get to pontificate on what they don't preach?" wrote one poster to the paper's website. "They are very good at wanting to spend other people's money."
Irish Independent
Bono, bloody Bono? - News & Gossip, Entertainment - Independent.ie
domo-kun
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Double post 
Irish Independand blabbing again.
Irish Independand blabbing again.
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Sorry
domo-kun
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Haha , shit happens , no worries!
last unicorn
Blue Crack Addict
Crap article, but it's coming from Irish media, so it's no surprise.
It's sad that people cannot stop bashing Bono even on his birthday, but I guess he doesn't care much about that.
No need to post it twice, though.
It's sad that people cannot stop bashing Bono even on his birthday, but I guess he doesn't care much about that.
No need to post it twice, though.
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
girlwcrimsonnls
The Fly
I didn't think that the author was agreeing with the hater's. The author clearly showed different views from both camps. Then again, they weren't agreeing with those that favor him either. Maybe the point of the article was not to share the authors personal view, just both ends of the spectrum when it comes to Bono.
thinks she just pointed out the obvious...
last unicorn
Blue Crack Addict
I guess I'm just slowly getting tired of all the negativity 
But you're right, there are also many positive opinions in the article. Of course Bono will always be critisized and he knows that. Irish media can be particularly harsh on him.
I just wanted the media to give him a break for his birthday instead of rehashing the same coments made by the same people over and over again.
But you're right, there are also many positive opinions in the article. Of course Bono will always be critisized and he knows that. Irish media can be particularly harsh on him.
I just wanted the media to give him a break for his birthday instead of rehashing the same coments made by the same people over and over again.
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Africa: Ban Ki-moon, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Bill Gates, Kofi Annan and Bono come together
By News on the Net Monday, May 17, 2010
press release, All Africa.com
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Global Fund’s Ambassador Carla Bruni-Sarkozy have come together in a new short film with philanthropist Bill Gates, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and rock musician Bono to voice their support for the Global Fund’s work. Released today, the film “The Global Fund: Together We Can Do Great Things” showcases the tremendous advances made in the fight against the three diseases since the inception of the Global Fund in 2002 and records their impressions of the journey so far.
Kofi Annan, one of the most prominent advocates of the Global Fund, reflects on the early vision of the Global Fund, recalling some initial skepticism. “When I first moved to the idea of a Global Fund, in fact I called it a war chest, quite a lot of people laughed it off saying “There he goes again, dreaming.” I love dreams. It always starts with a dream.
That dream became reality and since the Global Fund’s establishment in 2002 it has approved proposals totaling US$ 19.2 billion making it the main contributor to the health–related Millennium Development Goals.
The film is directed by Jonas Odell, the award-winning Swedish animator known for his trail-blazing short films, as well as his original music videos for U2, Franz Ferdinand, The Hours, the Rolling Stones and others. Through his signature technique of turning still photography into floating 3D journeys through landscapes and situations, Odell's direction brings a fresh approach to showcasing the Global Fund's work.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, emphasizes that "the creation of the Global Fund was one of the kindest, most important things to happen to help improve people's lives."
It is estimated that the programs supported by the Global Fund have saved 4.9 million lives in the past six years. Every day an additional 3,600 lives are being saved.
"I think it is fantastic to see how money provided by donors turns into real help, real medicine and saves the lives of real people," says Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cautions that, "there can be no let-up in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. If we ease up, these diseases will re-emerge. We either win this fight, or lose it. The success of the Global Fund is a test of global solidarity."
At its core, the fight against the three diseases and the success of the Global Fund has been about forging new partnerships on the principle that countries decide their own priorities. "No one can fight an epidemic alone, we all have to come together" stresses Prof. Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "There's truly an era prior to the Global Fund and an era after the Global Fund."
Support from the private sector, such as the PRODUCT (RED) initiative, and rock musician Bono, a leading advocate for global health, has been crucial. "We can win the fight against the three diseases," he says. "We can turn the tide on TB… We have the tools to prevent and treat malaria. Death by mosquito bite?- No! not in the 21st century, we're not having that!"
Reflecting on the goal of an HIV-free generation by 2015, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy adds, "If we are to achieve the goal of eliminating transmission of the virus from mothers to children by 2015, there is still a lot of work to be done. But it is within our reach."
On 19 May 2010 the Global Fund will be launching the BORN HIV FREE campaign which aims to mobilize public support for its work and for a world where no child is born with HIV by 2015.
2010 will be a decisive year in the fight against the three diseases. In 2010 the international community will be reviewing progress on Millennium Development Goals but it is also the year when countries will have to renew their financial commitments to the Global Fund. At the conference of donor countries to be chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in October, countries will make financial pledges for the period 2011-2013. The results of this financial replenishment process will decide whether the world will be able to achieve the promise of the health-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
allAfrica.com: Africa: Ban Ki-moon, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Bill Gates, Kofi Annan and Bono come together
By News on the Net Monday, May 17, 2010
press release, All Africa.com
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Global Fund’s Ambassador Carla Bruni-Sarkozy have come together in a new short film with philanthropist Bill Gates, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and rock musician Bono to voice their support for the Global Fund’s work. Released today, the film “The Global Fund: Together We Can Do Great Things” showcases the tremendous advances made in the fight against the three diseases since the inception of the Global Fund in 2002 and records their impressions of the journey so far.
Kofi Annan, one of the most prominent advocates of the Global Fund, reflects on the early vision of the Global Fund, recalling some initial skepticism. “When I first moved to the idea of a Global Fund, in fact I called it a war chest, quite a lot of people laughed it off saying “There he goes again, dreaming.” I love dreams. It always starts with a dream.
That dream became reality and since the Global Fund’s establishment in 2002 it has approved proposals totaling US$ 19.2 billion making it the main contributor to the health–related Millennium Development Goals.
The film is directed by Jonas Odell, the award-winning Swedish animator known for his trail-blazing short films, as well as his original music videos for U2, Franz Ferdinand, The Hours, the Rolling Stones and others. Through his signature technique of turning still photography into floating 3D journeys through landscapes and situations, Odell's direction brings a fresh approach to showcasing the Global Fund's work.
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, emphasizes that "the creation of the Global Fund was one of the kindest, most important things to happen to help improve people's lives."
It is estimated that the programs supported by the Global Fund have saved 4.9 million lives in the past six years. Every day an additional 3,600 lives are being saved.
"I think it is fantastic to see how money provided by donors turns into real help, real medicine and saves the lives of real people," says Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon cautions that, "there can be no let-up in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. If we ease up, these diseases will re-emerge. We either win this fight, or lose it. The success of the Global Fund is a test of global solidarity."
At its core, the fight against the three diseases and the success of the Global Fund has been about forging new partnerships on the principle that countries decide their own priorities. "No one can fight an epidemic alone, we all have to come together" stresses Prof. Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund. "There's truly an era prior to the Global Fund and an era after the Global Fund."
Support from the private sector, such as the PRODUCT (RED) initiative, and rock musician Bono, a leading advocate for global health, has been crucial. "We can win the fight against the three diseases," he says. "We can turn the tide on TB… We have the tools to prevent and treat malaria. Death by mosquito bite?- No! not in the 21st century, we're not having that!"
Reflecting on the goal of an HIV-free generation by 2015, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy adds, "If we are to achieve the goal of eliminating transmission of the virus from mothers to children by 2015, there is still a lot of work to be done. But it is within our reach."
On 19 May 2010 the Global Fund will be launching the BORN HIV FREE campaign which aims to mobilize public support for its work and for a world where no child is born with HIV by 2015.
2010 will be a decisive year in the fight against the three diseases. In 2010 the international community will be reviewing progress on Millennium Development Goals but it is also the year when countries will have to renew their financial commitments to the Global Fund. At the conference of donor countries to be chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in October, countries will make financial pledges for the period 2011-2013. The results of this financial replenishment process will decide whether the world will be able to achieve the promise of the health-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
allAfrica.com: Africa: Ban Ki-moon, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Bill Gates, Kofi Annan and Bono come together
lauramullen
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Rocking the Globe
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/18/rocking-the-globe/#idc-container
Kevin Van Paassen / Globe and Mail
Despite an edict by Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, designed to limit gawking, that newsroom staff “only come in to the building if you must be on-site,” several senior managers, including Stackhouse himself, brought their kids in on Saturday to watch as the Globe’s guest editors—Bono and Sir Bob Geldof, pop stars from, respectively, U2 and the Boomtown Rats—stitched together the Monday edition.
In a move one might have never imagined for Canada’s grey paper of record, the celebrity duo took control, producing an edition devoted to Africa and labelled “The African Century.” Suddenly, here was Zooropa, black and white and read all over, rather than the dreary Mop and Pail. “I think people were excited to get their picture taken with them,” says an editor. The carnival atmosphere afforded many at the Globe a first glimpse of co-worker offspring in a newsroom not known for conviviality. “Preteens, kind of thing,” says a staffer. “People who probably didn’t know who Bono was. Do you really need to do that? Like—you’re kind of here to work.” Says a reporter: “It just felt like another generation’s rock star. And the editors who are old—like, who are in their 40s—they got really excited about it. This was really their show.”
And it was a show. Greeted on the sidewalk outside the Globe offices at 444 Front Street West in Toronto by Stackhouse and Globe publisher Phillip Crawley at noon Saturday—Bono’s schedule wouldn’t permit his presence on Sunday, when the Monday paper is usually assembled—Bono and Sir Bob and half a dozen handlers followed their Canadian hosts into a newsroom crammed with between 30 and 40 people—“more than needed to be there,” says a staffer (Globe editors and reporters spoke to Maclean’s on the basis of anonymity). “It seemed like a little kids’ soccer game—like, wherever the ball goes, all the kids go,” an editor says. “Wherever Bono and Geldof went, everybody followed—in a crowd.”
The newsroom tables and counters stood draped with tablecloths commemorating the merger, in 1936, of the Globe and the Mail and Empire, a special touch. In what some described as yet another Globe first—after Bono and Sir Bob ceased quibbling over which words and which colours to include on the wallpaper-like textual front page, after the catered sandwiches, some three hours after their arrival—beer was served: Harp Lager, from Bono and Sir Bob’s native Ireland, and Molson Canadian. (Unfortunately, Bono’s stay was too tightly scripted to permit him a libation; his people whisked him away to New York and a surprise 50th birthday party.) “Honestly, it doesn’t take much for people to break out of their shell at the Globe when you’ve got a couple of rock stars in the building,” says an editor. “It’s a pretty staid place on the best of days. To have people smiling and laughing and actually talking in the newsroom is a victory in a way.”
Arrangements between the Globe, Bono and Sir Bob, and ONE, the advocacy group the pair helped establish to fight against extreme poverty, were months in the making, according to a Stackhouse column on Monday. Yet senior editors didn’t hear of it until four weeks or so in advance, and were asked to keep it quiet. This was nothing like the Globe’s 2004 “China Rising” special edition: planned far in advance and wholly consumed with the emergence of a new China, it pulled together the reporting of 10 on-the-ground journalists and two dozen more staffers in Canada. “Get ready for China’s century,” the Globe said then. Yet it now has another contender for dominance—“The African Century,” as A1 put it on Monday. Last week, announcing the Bono-Sir Bob coup by general email, Stackhouse added something of a justification, writing that Monday’s edition would be “a kickoff for two months of coverage around the G8-G20 summit in southern Ontario in late June.”
Predictably, Globe-brand angst ensued, as did debate over the benefits of handing the paper’s editorial reins over to an advocacy group. “It was pretty unprecedented,” says an editor. “Star power aside, we’re turning the editorial direction of the paper over to a charity, to a non-profit. People had to swallow hard.” He adds: “The fact it’s such a one-off made it easier to take.” Others were more passionate. “It violates journalistic principles,” says a staffer. “We could have interviewed them and stayed in total control. But we’re not. Rock stars? Would we have given it to a diplomat or even a Nobel Prize winner who had accomplished as much in Africa? No.” Who’s next, wondered another: “Can Lady Gaga be far behind?”
Still, in an interview this week Stackhouse argued the paper’s partnership with Bono, Sir Bob and ONE gave the paper access to new expertise and opened the doors to a panoply of star contributors. More than that, “their star power draws attention,” he says. “They know that, we know that. It gets people reading and engaged in a subject that they might not otherwise pay attention to.” He adds: “I was very clear going in, that I had a veto over anything they did in the Globe.”
This isn’t the first time the duo has used celebrity clout to shape a mainstream media outlet’s message. In the years since 2005, when the G8 pledged in Gleneagles to write off debts owed by the poorest countries and double aid to Africa by 2010, Bono and Sir Bob have been “trying to put their feet to the fire,” says ONE’s European director, Olly Buston. One tactic has been to approach key newspapers in countries poised to host a G8 summit and offer up Bono and Sir Bob’s services as guest editors. One or the other—or both—men have in this way come to edit the Independent in the U.K., widely considered left-leaning, Italy’s centrist La Stampa, and Germany’s Bild, a populist daily, Vanity Fair and the Asahi Shimbun (“Geldof is one of the best copy editors you’ll find,” Stackhouse told Maclean’s). “It’s about using Bono and Bob’s celebrity to capture media space, which we then invite others to speak into,” Buston says. Referring to Monday’s Globe, he adds: “You wouldn’t usually get that much coverage of Africa in a paper of record.” Buston rejects the notion handing editorial control over to Bono, Sir Bob and ONE undermines editorial integrity. “It’s very transparent, isn’t it?” he says. “All the time we’re all being lobbied and buffeted. I think what this is trying to do is just balance that a little bit—to encourage a debate about Africa at a key moment.”
But some editors at the Globe worried on Sunday, when Sir Bob arrived to put the paper together according to his discussions with Bono and Globe editorial staff the previous day, that his attempts to “rebalance” might push the paper over altogether. Sir Bob “was spouting these figures off the top of his head and saying we should use them,” one editor recalls. The figures would have to be fact- checked, he was told. Later, Geldof, a tall lanky man who wandered around the newsroom clutching a book of stats from the 2005 Gleneagles summit and who had a habit of bending over to reveal a striking case of plumber’s butt, rewrote the headline on page three, above Bono’s interview with U.S. President Barack Obama, to read: “Barack ’n’ Roll.” Those in the newsroom said the headline—a “clanger,” according to one—made Stackhouse uncomfortable. “That’s not a headline the Globe and Mail’s going to write,” says an editor. “I was surprised John was willing to let that go,” says another. But Geldof defended it, going back and forth with four or five editors. “He just wanted to take the Globe out of its comfort zone, to show people that there were a couple of new guys in town and things were different that day.”
Toward the end of the evening, according to an editor close to the process, Stackhouse quietly told a designer to remove a ONE logo that had found its way onto the front page.
Sir Bob spent all Sunday at the Globe, leaving sometime just short of midnight, a 10-hour day. He’d been a passionate advocate and a details-oriented quibbler, even writing a reply to seven-year-old Natalie Hasham, of Mississauga, Ont., in Letters to the Editor (“Dear Natalie, What an amazing girl you are . . . ”). Now, with things winding down, some in the newsroom puzzled over what this Africa edition meant. “It felt a little bit like a souvenir edition,” says one editor.
More urgently, some editors wondered if they might get a chance to raise a pint with the famous Dubliner. Sir Bob, though, was knackered. “By the end of the night, I think he was sort of exhausted and was saying, ‘Is there any place you can get something to eat around here?’ ” says an editor. “And somebody said, ‘Yeah—you can get a sandwich at the Shell next door.’ ”
The show was over
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/18/rocking-the-globe/#idc-container
Kevin Van Paassen / Globe and MailDespite an edict by Globe and Mail editor-in-chief John Stackhouse, designed to limit gawking, that newsroom staff “only come in to the building if you must be on-site,” several senior managers, including Stackhouse himself, brought their kids in on Saturday to watch as the Globe’s guest editors—Bono and Sir Bob Geldof, pop stars from, respectively, U2 and the Boomtown Rats—stitched together the Monday edition.
In a move one might have never imagined for Canada’s grey paper of record, the celebrity duo took control, producing an edition devoted to Africa and labelled “The African Century.” Suddenly, here was Zooropa, black and white and read all over, rather than the dreary Mop and Pail. “I think people were excited to get their picture taken with them,” says an editor. The carnival atmosphere afforded many at the Globe a first glimpse of co-worker offspring in a newsroom not known for conviviality. “Preteens, kind of thing,” says a staffer. “People who probably didn’t know who Bono was. Do you really need to do that? Like—you’re kind of here to work.” Says a reporter: “It just felt like another generation’s rock star. And the editors who are old—like, who are in their 40s—they got really excited about it. This was really their show.”
And it was a show. Greeted on the sidewalk outside the Globe offices at 444 Front Street West in Toronto by Stackhouse and Globe publisher Phillip Crawley at noon Saturday—Bono’s schedule wouldn’t permit his presence on Sunday, when the Monday paper is usually assembled—Bono and Sir Bob and half a dozen handlers followed their Canadian hosts into a newsroom crammed with between 30 and 40 people—“more than needed to be there,” says a staffer (Globe editors and reporters spoke to Maclean’s on the basis of anonymity). “It seemed like a little kids’ soccer game—like, wherever the ball goes, all the kids go,” an editor says. “Wherever Bono and Geldof went, everybody followed—in a crowd.”
The newsroom tables and counters stood draped with tablecloths commemorating the merger, in 1936, of the Globe and the Mail and Empire, a special touch. In what some described as yet another Globe first—after Bono and Sir Bob ceased quibbling over which words and which colours to include on the wallpaper-like textual front page, after the catered sandwiches, some three hours after their arrival—beer was served: Harp Lager, from Bono and Sir Bob’s native Ireland, and Molson Canadian. (Unfortunately, Bono’s stay was too tightly scripted to permit him a libation; his people whisked him away to New York and a surprise 50th birthday party.) “Honestly, it doesn’t take much for people to break out of their shell at the Globe when you’ve got a couple of rock stars in the building,” says an editor. “It’s a pretty staid place on the best of days. To have people smiling and laughing and actually talking in the newsroom is a victory in a way.”
Arrangements between the Globe, Bono and Sir Bob, and ONE, the advocacy group the pair helped establish to fight against extreme poverty, were months in the making, according to a Stackhouse column on Monday. Yet senior editors didn’t hear of it until four weeks or so in advance, and were asked to keep it quiet. This was nothing like the Globe’s 2004 “China Rising” special edition: planned far in advance and wholly consumed with the emergence of a new China, it pulled together the reporting of 10 on-the-ground journalists and two dozen more staffers in Canada. “Get ready for China’s century,” the Globe said then. Yet it now has another contender for dominance—“The African Century,” as A1 put it on Monday. Last week, announcing the Bono-Sir Bob coup by general email, Stackhouse added something of a justification, writing that Monday’s edition would be “a kickoff for two months of coverage around the G8-G20 summit in southern Ontario in late June.”
Predictably, Globe-brand angst ensued, as did debate over the benefits of handing the paper’s editorial reins over to an advocacy group. “It was pretty unprecedented,” says an editor. “Star power aside, we’re turning the editorial direction of the paper over to a charity, to a non-profit. People had to swallow hard.” He adds: “The fact it’s such a one-off made it easier to take.” Others were more passionate. “It violates journalistic principles,” says a staffer. “We could have interviewed them and stayed in total control. But we’re not. Rock stars? Would we have given it to a diplomat or even a Nobel Prize winner who had accomplished as much in Africa? No.” Who’s next, wondered another: “Can Lady Gaga be far behind?”
Still, in an interview this week Stackhouse argued the paper’s partnership with Bono, Sir Bob and ONE gave the paper access to new expertise and opened the doors to a panoply of star contributors. More than that, “their star power draws attention,” he says. “They know that, we know that. It gets people reading and engaged in a subject that they might not otherwise pay attention to.” He adds: “I was very clear going in, that I had a veto over anything they did in the Globe.”
This isn’t the first time the duo has used celebrity clout to shape a mainstream media outlet’s message. In the years since 2005, when the G8 pledged in Gleneagles to write off debts owed by the poorest countries and double aid to Africa by 2010, Bono and Sir Bob have been “trying to put their feet to the fire,” says ONE’s European director, Olly Buston. One tactic has been to approach key newspapers in countries poised to host a G8 summit and offer up Bono and Sir Bob’s services as guest editors. One or the other—or both—men have in this way come to edit the Independent in the U.K., widely considered left-leaning, Italy’s centrist La Stampa, and Germany’s Bild, a populist daily, Vanity Fair and the Asahi Shimbun (“Geldof is one of the best copy editors you’ll find,” Stackhouse told Maclean’s). “It’s about using Bono and Bob’s celebrity to capture media space, which we then invite others to speak into,” Buston says. Referring to Monday’s Globe, he adds: “You wouldn’t usually get that much coverage of Africa in a paper of record.” Buston rejects the notion handing editorial control over to Bono, Sir Bob and ONE undermines editorial integrity. “It’s very transparent, isn’t it?” he says. “All the time we’re all being lobbied and buffeted. I think what this is trying to do is just balance that a little bit—to encourage a debate about Africa at a key moment.”
But some editors at the Globe worried on Sunday, when Sir Bob arrived to put the paper together according to his discussions with Bono and Globe editorial staff the previous day, that his attempts to “rebalance” might push the paper over altogether. Sir Bob “was spouting these figures off the top of his head and saying we should use them,” one editor recalls. The figures would have to be fact- checked, he was told. Later, Geldof, a tall lanky man who wandered around the newsroom clutching a book of stats from the 2005 Gleneagles summit and who had a habit of bending over to reveal a striking case of plumber’s butt, rewrote the headline on page three, above Bono’s interview with U.S. President Barack Obama, to read: “Barack ’n’ Roll.” Those in the newsroom said the headline—a “clanger,” according to one—made Stackhouse uncomfortable. “That’s not a headline the Globe and Mail’s going to write,” says an editor. “I was surprised John was willing to let that go,” says another. But Geldof defended it, going back and forth with four or five editors. “He just wanted to take the Globe out of its comfort zone, to show people that there were a couple of new guys in town and things were different that day.”
Toward the end of the evening, according to an editor close to the process, Stackhouse quietly told a designer to remove a ONE logo that had found its way onto the front page.
Sir Bob spent all Sunday at the Globe, leaving sometime just short of midnight, a 10-hour day. He’d been a passionate advocate and a details-oriented quibbler, even writing a reply to seven-year-old Natalie Hasham, of Mississauga, Ont., in Letters to the Editor (“Dear Natalie, What an amazing girl you are . . . ”). Now, with things winding down, some in the newsroom puzzled over what this Africa edition meant. “It felt a little bit like a souvenir edition,” says one editor.
More urgently, some editors wondered if they might get a chance to raise a pint with the famous Dubliner. Sir Bob, though, was knackered. “By the end of the night, I think he was sort of exhausted and was saying, ‘Is there any place you can get something to eat around here?’ ” says an editor. “And somebody said, ‘Yeah—you can get a sandwich at the Shell next door.’ ”
The show was over
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
From U2: A Song for Spidey
May 18, 2010, 3:40 PM
By PATRICK HEALY
The rock band Carney on Tuesday unveiled a new song by U2, “Boy Falls from the Sky,” an emo-like mix of ballad and hard, aching energy that is intended as a major number in Act II of the coming Broadway mega-musical “Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark.” Bono and the Edge wrote “Boy” and a dozen more songs for the show, their first Broadway musical, which has suffered production delays because of financial problems but is expected to begin performances in New York this fall.
Reeve Carney, the singer-frontman of the band that bears his name, is set to play Peter Parker and Spider-man on Broadway, though he did not act in character while performing “Boy” at a luncheon honoring the musical’s director, Julie Taymor. It was the first time that Mr. Carney had performed a U2 song from “Spider-man” before several hundred Broadway artists and producers; his singing voice sounded both younger and sharper-edged than Bono’s.
In the musical, Peter Parker sings the number after his love interest, Mary Jane, has been abducted and his superpowers are gone. The song was by turns romantic and introspective, with lyrics like “you can change your mind/you can’t change your heart” and “I did not have to move so far/to find myself alone.”
From U2: A Song for Spidey - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com
May 18, 2010, 3:40 PM
By PATRICK HEALY
The rock band Carney on Tuesday unveiled a new song by U2, “Boy Falls from the Sky,” an emo-like mix of ballad and hard, aching energy that is intended as a major number in Act II of the coming Broadway mega-musical “Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark.” Bono and the Edge wrote “Boy” and a dozen more songs for the show, their first Broadway musical, which has suffered production delays because of financial problems but is expected to begin performances in New York this fall.
Reeve Carney, the singer-frontman of the band that bears his name, is set to play Peter Parker and Spider-man on Broadway, though he did not act in character while performing “Boy” at a luncheon honoring the musical’s director, Julie Taymor. It was the first time that Mr. Carney had performed a U2 song from “Spider-man” before several hundred Broadway artists and producers; his singing voice sounded both younger and sharper-edged than Bono’s.
In the musical, Peter Parker sings the number after his love interest, Mary Jane, has been abducted and his superpowers are gone. The song was by turns romantic and introspective, with lyrics like “you can change your mind/you can’t change your heart” and “I did not have to move so far/to find myself alone.”
From U2: A Song for Spidey - ArtsBeat Blog - NYTimes.com
Catman
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
We already have the name from the new musical's song.
last unicorn
Blue Crack Addict
The name of the song has been known for some time now.
I have no idea if we'll ever get to see that musical, but I pray we'll get to hear the music that Bono and Edge have written for the show.
I have no idea if we'll ever get to see that musical, but I pray we'll get to hear the music that Bono and Edge have written for the show.
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Okay,so,let's wait.
ClaytonsKitten
ONE love, blood, life
Sadly, the way things are here in the US, economy-wise, I doubt we'll see the Spidey musical that's been on the back burner since like, 2005. And tbh, we may not ever see the music, at least, not in it's current form.
Someday, they may take a line, or a chorus, and use it towards a future U2 album. And that's going to be all we see.
Someday, they may take a line, or a chorus, and use it towards a future U2 album. And that's going to be all we see.
lauramullen
Blue Crack Distributor
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- Aug 9, 2002
- Messages
- 52,111
Bono Interviews Barack Obama
May 18, 2010 by Elizabeth Willoughby
Will the 21st century be the African century? This is the question ONE's founders Bono and Bob Geldof examined by guest editing one of Canada’s top newspapers, the Globe and Mail, as part of a month of Africa content on the Globe’s website.
During a previous interview with American President Barack Obama, Bono had the upcoming guest edit in mind when he posed some questions to include in the special edition. The Q&A looked briefly like this:
Bono: You’re going to be in Canada in June for the G8. It’s not straightforward to get eight people to agree on anything, let alone eight countries. What do you think you can achieve?
Obama: It is one hallmark of the G8 in recent years that, collectively, we have put issues of global poverty and development at the centre of our agenda. This is a sign of how far we’ve come and makes clear that one of the issues that the world’s largest economies agree on without reservation is that development is a priority…
Bono: What impact do you think the US Food Security Initiative will have and what are the roadblocks you are coming up against?
Obama: One of the important facts about the Food Security Initiative is that it was shaped by developing countries. The challenge now is to translate principles into action. …It’s still early, but we expect that by the time the summit kicks off, we’ll be able to say that we’ve allocated resources to country plans and to research and development, that we’ve launched a new trust fund headed by the World Bank, and that we’re at the table with resources, technical advice and support, and the willingness to invest as partners.
Bono: These are tough economic times at home. What do you say to people who question whether the U.S. should be investing time and resources in helping people in other countries?
Obama: I can sum it up very simply: Development is a strategic and moral imperative for the United States. … Our collective challenge is to pro-actively shape the world we want to see in the future by seeking, very deliberately, to accelerate development. The return on this investment is potentially enormous…
Bono: What do you think we can do to support this rising generation [of African entrepreneurs]?
Obama: … The continent is vibrant and not simply a place of enormous need. This simple fact reminds us that, while we must continue our efforts to meet the pressing needs of so many, we should be just as focused on what it takes to create vibrant market economies that will tap and unleash this creativity.
(See the Q&A in its entirety here.)
The tables were turned on the guest editors when the two had to answer questions posed by Globe and Mail website viewers such as why it takes two white men to lead discussions on Africa. But neither Bono nor Geldof see their efforts to end poverty as a specifically African or color issue. They see it as an unnecessary human condition and have dedicated themselves to change it.
For more on the Globe and Mail’s Africa feature, click here.
Read more: http://www.looktothestars.org/news/4422-bono-interviews-barack-obama#ixzz0oL6QcF4f
May 18, 2010 by Elizabeth Willoughby
Will the 21st century be the African century? This is the question ONE's founders Bono and Bob Geldof examined by guest editing one of Canada’s top newspapers, the Globe and Mail, as part of a month of Africa content on the Globe’s website.
During a previous interview with American President Barack Obama, Bono had the upcoming guest edit in mind when he posed some questions to include in the special edition. The Q&A looked briefly like this:
Bono: You’re going to be in Canada in June for the G8. It’s not straightforward to get eight people to agree on anything, let alone eight countries. What do you think you can achieve?
Obama: It is one hallmark of the G8 in recent years that, collectively, we have put issues of global poverty and development at the centre of our agenda. This is a sign of how far we’ve come and makes clear that one of the issues that the world’s largest economies agree on without reservation is that development is a priority…
Bono: What impact do you think the US Food Security Initiative will have and what are the roadblocks you are coming up against?
Obama: One of the important facts about the Food Security Initiative is that it was shaped by developing countries. The challenge now is to translate principles into action. …It’s still early, but we expect that by the time the summit kicks off, we’ll be able to say that we’ve allocated resources to country plans and to research and development, that we’ve launched a new trust fund headed by the World Bank, and that we’re at the table with resources, technical advice and support, and the willingness to invest as partners.
Bono: These are tough economic times at home. What do you say to people who question whether the U.S. should be investing time and resources in helping people in other countries?
Obama: I can sum it up very simply: Development is a strategic and moral imperative for the United States. … Our collective challenge is to pro-actively shape the world we want to see in the future by seeking, very deliberately, to accelerate development. The return on this investment is potentially enormous…
Bono: What do you think we can do to support this rising generation [of African entrepreneurs]?
Obama: … The continent is vibrant and not simply a place of enormous need. This simple fact reminds us that, while we must continue our efforts to meet the pressing needs of so many, we should be just as focused on what it takes to create vibrant market economies that will tap and unleash this creativity.
(See the Q&A in its entirety here.)
The tables were turned on the guest editors when the two had to answer questions posed by Globe and Mail website viewers such as why it takes two white men to lead discussions on Africa. But neither Bono nor Geldof see their efforts to end poverty as a specifically African or color issue. They see it as an unnecessary human condition and have dedicated themselves to change it.
For more on the Globe and Mail’s Africa feature, click here.
Read more: http://www.looktothestars.org/news/4422-bono-interviews-barack-obama#ixzz0oL6QcF4f
Jeannieco
Rock n' Roll Doggie Band-aid
^^Cool. Thanks for posting that Laura! 2 men I admire most in the world.
bonocomet
Blue Crack Distributor
Yeah I've had that song Boy falls From the Sky stuck in my head for years now! Very catchy tune I think. By the way, we have known the names of seven of the Spider-Man songs for over a year now when Bono and Edge played the songs for an audience (of journalist I think.)
They are:
1. Rise Above
2. Boy Falls From The Sky
3. Turn Off The Dark
4. Bouncing Off The Walls
5. Bullying By Numbers
6. Pull The Trigger
7. If The World Should End
There was an 8th song played but the title wasn't mentioned.
last unicorn
Blue Crack Addict
^ I'm very curious about the Spiderman Songs. I hope there will ba an album with Bono/Edge or, even better, the whole band performing them, not just the musical cast.
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Thanks Laura for posting the interview!
Andreianloth
Blue Crack Addict
Clayton agrees to sale of NY apartment
Wednesday, 19 May 2010 16:49
U2's Adam Clayton and his former personal assistant have reached an agreement over the sale of a New York apartment, the High Court heard today.
Mr Clayton has brought proceedings against his former assistant Carol Hawkins over allegedly misappropriating large sums of money from Mr Clayton to acquire a number of assets.
Earlier this month, Mr Clayton's lawyers told the court they wanted to apply in New York for a freezing order on an apartment, which is Ms Hawkins' main asset.
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Today the court was told the parties had agreed the apartment at 300 Rector Place in Manhattan could be sold.
Under the agreement, the proceeds of the sale would be held in a bank account in the joint names of solicitors for both sides and the signature of both parties would be needed for any transaction.
RT? News: Clayton agrees to sale of NY apartment
Wednesday, 19 May 2010 16:49
U2's Adam Clayton and his former personal assistant have reached an agreement over the sale of a New York apartment, the High Court heard today.
Mr Clayton has brought proceedings against his former assistant Carol Hawkins over allegedly misappropriating large sums of money from Mr Clayton to acquire a number of assets.
Earlier this month, Mr Clayton's lawyers told the court they wanted to apply in New York for a freezing order on an apartment, which is Ms Hawkins' main asset.
Advertisement
Today the court was told the parties had agreed the apartment at 300 Rector Place in Manhattan could be sold.
Under the agreement, the proceeds of the sale would be held in a bank account in the joint names of solicitors for both sides and the signature of both parties would be needed for any transaction.
RT? News: Clayton agrees to sale of NY apartment
BonoFox1
Blue Crack Supplier
BonoFox1
Blue Crack Supplier
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