(12-18-2005) Time names Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates Persons of Year - CNN*

[HelloAngel]

[SIMG]http://img.timeinc.net/time/images/covers/20060102_107.jpg[/SIMG]
Time names Bono, Bill and Melinda Gates Persons of Year

Ed. Note -- Wow! Really... Wow!

For more on this from TIME, go here to read "The Constant Charmer" on Bono, and here for a photo essay.


(CNN) -- The good deeds of an activist rock legend and one of the world's richest men and his wife carried the day in 2005, as Time magazine on Sunday named U2 frontman Bono and philanthropic couple Bill and Melinda Gates as its "Persons of the Year."

"Sudden disasters get the big headlines, but day after day other tragedies of avoidable dimensions unfold: The one child who dies of malaria in Africa every 29 seconds, the one person who is infected with HIV every 6.4 seconds, the 8 million who die every year because they are too poor to stay alive," Time's managing editor Jim Kelly writes.

"And who is proving most effective in figuring out how to eradicate those calamities? In different ways, it is Bill and Melinda Gates, co-founders of the world's wealthiest charitable foundation, and Bono, the Irish rocker who has made debt reduction sexy."

The Gateses, the magazine notes, "spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has."

In January, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation committed $750 million to improving access to child immunizations, accelerating introduction of new vaccines and strengthening vaccine delivery systems.

The foundation focuses on education, global health, improving public libraries and supporting at-risk families, according to its Web site. The Gateses awarded grants to schools in Texas, Colorado and Massachusetts, as well as the Lutheran World Relief program, which received $640,000 to help nomadic communities in Niger avert food crises.

Bono was one of the organizers behind this year's Live 8 concerts in nine cities worldwide. The concerts were aimed at getting the leaders of the world's nations leaders to come to the aid of impoverished Africa. They did so at the G8 summit, agreeing to double aid to Africa to $50 billion by 2010 and cancel the debts of the poorest nations.

"Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest," the magazine said.

In addition, Bono is a co-founder of the DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) organization, which fights poverty and HIV in the developing world. From that organization was spawned the ONE Campaign to Make Poverty History.

Time's list of "People Who Mattered" in 2005 ran the gamut from President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to a fictional villain, a spy and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Along with Darth Vader, CIA agent Valerie Plame and Pope Benedict XVI, Time tapped:


Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson


Texas Rep. and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay


Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad


Apple computer chief Steve Jobs


New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin


U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald


British Prime Minister Tony Blair


Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin


Chief Justice John Roberts


Peace activist Cindy Sheehan


Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice


"Commander in Chief" star Geena Davis


Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.


Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada


Rapper Kanye West


Teen golfer Michelle Wie, who turned pro in '05.

Time for Kids readers picked their "Person of the Year," choosing Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling in a narrow vote over seven-time Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong.

Pulling in third were "Heroes in Times of Need" -- those who worked to help people affected by 2005's string of natural disasters, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake.

Time's editors tapped former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush as their "Partners of the Year" who came together as emissaries and fundraisers, first for victims of the tsunami in south Asia and then for the victims of the other disasters.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/18/time.poy/index.html

 

[buzzkill27]

Wow,that's fantastic congrats to all of them!

 

[Dismantled]

whooo hoooooooooooo Bono you deserve this.

 

[Chizip]

they overlooked me again

 

[trevster2k]

Good to see recognition given to people who are trying to improve the lives of millions of people in abject poverty.

Great choice this year.

 

[mdw3935]

Recognition well deserved for 3 people who are doing great work for the world.

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

Way to go, Bono!

Don't worry, Chiz; there's always next year.

 

[Jamila]

This award has been long overdue for Bono and I'm overjoyed that it has finally arrived.


CONGRATULATIONS and THANK YOU, BONO for all that you are and for all that you do in our world.

It is a blessing to have you amongst us. May we learn to better follow your example of co-existence, tolerance and your willingness to sacrifice your personal time to make this world a more just place for the world's poorest people.


While Bill and Melinda Gates are very deserving people to share this award with Bono, I only wish that Bob Geldof would have been one of those people honored this year for his PIVOTAL work in Live8 and the MPH movement.


EXCELLENT NEWS!

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

 

[nurse chrissi]

Here is the full article guys - Being the that I am I subscibe


From the Magazine | Persons of the Year
The Constant Charmer
The inside story of how the world's biggest rock star mastered the political game and persuaded the world's leaders to take on global poverty. And he's not done yet
By JOSH TYRANGIEL
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Sunday, Dec. 18, 2005
The G-8 summit is an annual gathering of the world's most powerful people at which two things are always accomplished: an awkward group photo is taken and no one has any fun. On the July night that this year's summit began in Gleneagles, Scotland, Bono thought it might be nice to change things up a bit. U2 had scheduled a concert at a stadium in nearby Edinburgh, and Bono, as is his custom, invited pretty much everyone he thought would be interesting to drop by, which explains how George Clooney, Hollywood's leading lefty, and Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank and an architect of the Iraq war, ended up in the same room backstage. "It could have been a little uncomfortable," says Clooney. "In fact, I was kind of expecting it to be."

A few minutes before U2 was due to perform, Bono strolled in and plopped himself down—not on the couch or near it but on top of it, like a household pet. Then he began talking about the one interest that Clooney, Wolfowitz and almost everyone else who had come to Scotland that day had in common: persuading developed nations to help lift 1 billion people out of extreme poverty. Bono's precise words on the subject are lost to history. "I couldn't stop looking at him," says Clooney. "He's so affectless. You felt like you're in the living room with your buddy who just happens to be a global rock star and has the world's best interests at heart." Says Wolfowitz: "Pomposity and arrogance are the enemies of getting things done. And Bono knows how to get things done."

Those kinds of pleasant collisions happen a lot when Bono is around. Ashley Judd mixes in the greenroom at a U2 show with Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway scooter and an aborning machine that makes even the filthiest water drinkable. Bill Gates goes to a nightclub, gets called a "bad mother______" by Diddy and understands that it is intended as a compliment. Of course, if Bono were to rely solely on his ability to get powerful people in a room with famous people and then hit them with a speech about moral obligations, he would be little more than the lead singer in the war on global poverty—a nice title but limited in its power. "If you really want to be effective, you have to bring something to the table beyond just charisma," says Rick Santorum, a conservative Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. "The important thing is, Bono understands his issues better than 99% of members of Congress."

Knowing the facts is crucial—"Everybody hates a dilettante," says Bono—but so is knowing your audience. When he lunches with President Bush, as he did most recently in October, Bono quotes Scripture and talks about small projects in Africa that have specific metrics for success. Then he asks for more money to fund them. In the office of Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, he speaks of multilateralism and how development aid reminds the rest of the world of America's greatness. Then he asks for more money. In stadiums, he tells people that if they join together, they have a chance to make poverty history. Then U2 plays One.

Bono's great gift is to take what has made him famous—charm, clarity of voice, an ability to touch people in their secret heart—combine those traits with a keen grasp of the political game and obsessive attention to detail, and channel it all toward getting everyone, from world leaders to music lovers, to engage with something overwhelming in its complexity. Although it's tempting for some to cast his global road show as the vanity project of a pampered celebrity, the fact is that Bono gets results. At Gleneagles—where Bono and his policy-and-advocacy body, data, met with five of the eight heads of state at the summit—the G-8 approved an unprecedented $50 billion aid package—including $25 billion for Africa—and pledged near universal access to antiretroviral drugs for almost 10 million impoverished people with HIV.

Bono technically didn't achieve any of those things on his own, "but it's hard to imagine much of it would have been done without him," says Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin. Although politicians, academics and activists continue to differ over the best way to tackle poverty and disease in the developing world, Bono's contribution has been to forge, over the past decade, a surprisingly durable consensus on the need to do something. "The only thing that balances how preposterous it is to have to listen to an Irish rock star talk about these subjects," says Bono, "is the weight of the subjects themselves."

Ballast is not an attribute commonly attributed to pop stars. Bono, 45, spends his evenings lifting people to their feet, but offstage, he can be almost aggressively grounded. One morning a few days before the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death, Bono stands on the balcony of his New York City apartment overlooking Central Park. "You know what my least favorite John Lennon song is?" he says. "Imagine. At the root of it is some rigorous thinking about the way things could be, but people have stolen the idea and made it an anthem for wishful thinking. I'm against wishful thinking. I hate it."

Bono is prone to large pronouncements, but a significant part of his charisma stems from the fact that it isn't intimidating. There are rock stars who enter a room with the kind of sex display the Discovery Channel saves for sweeps weeks, but Bono is not one of them. He's handsome but short—5 ft. 7 in. in thick-soled shoes—and swings his arms wide when he walks, so he looks open and soft, like a pillow in a cowboy hat. It's not at all what people expect, and it sets them at ease.

 

[nurse chrissi]

part 2

Today, with U2 in town for a show at Madison Square Garden, Bono has the rare treat of staying in one of his homes, a three-story penthouse he purchased from Steve Jobs. (He also has places in Dublin and the south of France.) He lounges beneath a giant Christo drawing of The Gates (not Bill and Melinda but the Central Park installation), surrounded by art books. It's a lovely day to do nothing, but that's not really an option."I get very little time entirely alone," he says, moments before six people appear in the living room with videoconferencing equipment to discuss a soon-to-be-announced consumer campaign for African development. Tom Lantos, a Democratic Representative from California, swings by with his granddaughter. Bono and Lantos are close enough that the Congressman, a Holocaust survivor, has encouraged Bono to reference worldwide indifference to the genocide when describing governments' apathetic response to the spread of aids across Africa. "I am very sensitive to people abusing the analogy," says Lantos. "He's convinced me it's legitimate."

More than two decades since Bono entered the world stage as a mullet-haired front man, he commands attention like no other cultural figure alive. When he visits Capitol Hill, his movement through the halls is split-timed. His lobbyists feed him tips so he knows, for instance, that Kentucky's Mitch McConnell has a thing for Burmese dissident Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who inspired U2's song Walk On. The rest is intuitive. Bono arrives with no security, takes gifts (a leather-bound volume of Seamus Heaney for Patrick Leahy, a framed copy of the Marshall Plan speech for Colin Powell) to suit his host's taste. He poses for every staff picture, and his thank-you notes are handwritten and prompt. He wears whatever he pleases. "I refuse to be anything other than what I am," he says. "I literally get into the clothes at the end of the bed. If somebody doesn't take them off and wash them, things would probably get a bit high."

Twenty years ago, the notion of Bono as a political player was almost unimaginable. In 1985, U2 played Live Aid, the Bob Geldof?organized concert for African famine relief. At the time, it was hailed as a massive success, and in the sense that it got people to briefly engage with another part of the world while watching Tina Turner dance with Mick Jagger, it was. After the concert, Bono and his wife Ali Hewson spent six weeks working at an orphanage in Wello, Ethiopia. The weight of famine, war and corruption—as well as the resentment many capable Africans feel toward uninformed foreigners with messiah complexes—overwhelmed him. As did the foolishness of thinking a day of singing was enough. But U2 was on its way to becoming the biggest band in the world, and Bono stuffed a deeper engagement with Africa into the warehouse of good intentions.

Then in 1997 he received a brief from a development advocate, Jamie Drummond, that pointed out that although Live Aid raised $200 million, Ethiopia alone paid $500 million in annual debt service to the world's lending institutions. After contacting Drummond, Bono signed on as a spokesman for Jubilee 2000, a church-based campaign born in England that asked governments to use the millennium as an occasion to cancel Third World debt. Bono, who spends most of his nontouring time in Dublin with Hewson and their four children, started flying to Washington for weekends at the World Bank with his friend Bobby Shriver, a son of Eunice and Sargent Shriver. Eventually, Bono's education was taken over by economist Jeffrey Sachs. After Bono's understanding of the issue went from fluency to mastery, he started speaking out, lobbying Bill Clinton's Administration to make debt relief a core aim of U.S. policy toward the developing world. It worked: midway through his presidency, Clinton agreed to erase $6 billion in debt.

Bono was very pleased with himself until he learned that he hadn't actually accomplished anything. Congress hadn't signed off. "When I first arrived in Washington," says Bono, "I asked, Who's Elvis here? Who do I have to speak to to change the world? Then I find out that even though the President says yes and even though he speaks with a twang, he's not Elvis. Congress is Elvis in America. No, Congress is Colonel Parker."

Through Shriver's brother-in-law Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bono met Ohio Republican John Kasich, a fiscal conservative known for his love of jam bands. "Our first rabbi on the right" is how Bono describes Kasich. Still, it took dozens of visits to the Hill for Bono to gain influence. At first, even Democrats wouldn't clear their schedules. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi offered some time while she waited for a flight at the mordantly depressing Dulles Airport. "In a short period, I saw a depth of knowledge that was hugely impressive and a depth of commitment to match," says Pelosi. "I mean, he came to Dulles." Republicans tended to be more skeptical, so Bono courted their staff members, most of whom were his age or younger and had grown up loving U2. "Washington is very hierarchical," he says. "It's all principal-to-principal meetings, but I'm from rock 'n' roll. If I want to have a drink with someone, they sound interesting, they're fun, I'm going to have a drink."

 

[nurse chrissi]

Part 3

At that point, Bono was relying on an improvised staff of Drummond and Lucy Matthew, another Brit from the nonprofit world, who would meet him wherever U2 was playing and open a policy desk at the local Kinko's. "He told us he was in this cause for life," says Matthew, "and it was time to become a real organization." Bob Geldof, one of Bono's closest friends, came up with the name data, a double acronym meant to position the group as a nexus between the nonprofit development world (debt, aids, trade, Africa) and the results-oriented political world (democracy, accountability, transparency in Africa.) The name was also directed inward: no wishful thinking, just facts in all their nasty complexity.

To ensure that data was divorced from the stigma of vanity, Bono refused to bankroll it. After coaxing $1 million grants out of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soros and software businessman Ed Scott, data got real office space and hired lobbyists—Tom Sheridan, a Democrat who had been a star of the domestic aids lobby, and Scott Hatch, a former Tom DeLay aide who ran the National Republican Campaign Committee. data employees churned out policy papers, while Hatch, Sheridan and Shriver organized intimate, bipartisan dinner parties (sample guest list: Senators Jesse Helms, Patrick Leahy and Orrin Hatch; former World Bank president Jim Wolfensohn; Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers) to cement relationships and encourage the sense that at least on one issue, everyone could break bread. Spouses were invited, and to spice things up, Bono might ask a friend from another sphere, like Jordan's Queen Noor, to drop by. "Your first responsibility is not to be dull," he says. "Why don't the poor deserve flash in their representation?"

All that helped prepare Bono for the most daunting challenge to his powers of persuasion: the Administration of George W. Bush. When Bush took office in 2001, development groups presumed that debt, aids and trade for Africa would be at the bottom of his agenda, largely because Bush said they would be. But Bono had forged too many productive odd pairings to simply give up. And as it turned out, a few White House doors were already open.

"The key to some extent is faith," says Mike Gerson, the President's assistant for policy and strategic planning. Gerson and Budget Director Josh Bolten are evangelical Christians who believe there's a biblical imperative to help the world's poor. Along with then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, they opened a dialogue with Bono and ultimately persuaded Bush to meet him. "I took my boys, 8 and 10, to their first rock concert—U2 here in Washington," says Gerson. "We met Bono beforehand, and he says, 'I'm so honored that you would pick me for your first concert. I'm a little hoarse tonight. I need you to do me a favor. If you hear my voice going out, I want you to pray for me.' He's just obviously a good guy."

Born to a Protestant mother and a Catholic father, Bono describes his faith as "promiscuous." He quotes Scripture and counts meetings with Pope John Paul II and Billy Graham among the most significant of his life. "I try to live it rather than talk about it because there are enough secondhand-car salesmen for God," he says. "But I cannot escape my conviction that God is interested in the progress of mankind, individually and collectively."

Even as he softened Bush by appealing to his religiosity, Bono also began to talk about debt relief and poverty eradication in hardheaded, national-interest terms. After 9/11, data seized the opportunity to lobby for new policy. Africa is 40% Muslim, and Tom Hart, data's director of government relations, argued that it might be nice to make some friends there. When the Administration said money was tight, the policy experts scoured the ngo world and came back touting small programs with clear ways to measure progress. When the issue of corruption was raised, data proposed a scheme to nurture good governance. ("Start-up funds for new democracies, sir," was how Bono pitched it to the President.) In its relentlessness and flexibility, data had assumed the personality of its founder. Bono's network of contacts didn't hurt either. In 2003, when President Bush visited an aids clinic in Entebbe, Uganda, he was welcomed by a children's choir singing America the Beautiful. Then a woman named Agnes Nyamayarwo told the story of how she was unknowingly infected with HIV and passed the virus on to her son during his birth. aids drugs cost $40 a month in Uganda, but the government spends just $7 per person per year on health care; Nyamayarwo, a nurse, could not afford to keep her son alive. When she finished speaking, Bush embraced her. Nyamayarwo, it turns out, has been close friends with Bono since they met several years ago. Says Bono: "We've got people jumping out of the bushes at the Bushes!"

With advocates on the inside and in Congress, and not-so-gentle prodding elsewhere, the Bush Administration in 2003 launched the President's Emergency Plan for aids Relief (pepfar) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (mcc). In two years, pepfar has paid for antiretroviral drugs for 400,000 Africans with HIV, while the mcc aims to dispense foreign aid by rewarding countries for being accountable. Bono stood by the President when he unveiled the mcc, and complained loudly when he thought it was underfunded. (Soon after, mcc administrator Paul Applegarth was replaced; data swears it played no role.) "These are more than baby steps," says Bono, "but to get them to be strides we need more than applause or hisses from me. We need a movement."

<--pagebreak--> One of the ways to spark a movement is to create a defining moment. "We've been doing this now for a few years—pretending this is the one, this is the leap. And in fact, this year was the one. We've had 2005 in mind for quite a while," he says. As early as 2003, Bono and others had picked out a number of unrelated political events—a G-8 meeting that was to have as hosts British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown (dubbed by Bono the "John and Paul of global development"), a meeting of the World Trade Organization, a U.N. summit to review progress toward the Millennium Development Goals—all relevant to lifting people out of poverty. But they needed to be tied together and pitched as potentially world changing. "Politicians are performers of a kind, but they're not great at dramatizing a situation," says Bono. "These issues need tension, jeopardy and a sense of what-might-be to succeed. All of that is much more from our language than from theirs."

What followed was a tour de force of syndicalism. Several ngos in the habitually backbiting development community put aside their differences and launched integrated awareness campaigns (Make Poverty History in Britain, the ONE Campaign in the U.S.) aimed at educating people about global poverty and registering millions of supporters online. Blair announced a G-8 agenda with a goal of getting $50 billion in aid and 100% debt cancellation, and data lobbied the White House to be an active partner, reminding it that Blair had stood by the Administration in the past. To their surprise, they didn't have to do much pitching. Over beers with some friends from the Treasury Department, Drummond, Hart and policy director Erin Thornton actually heard the words "So, tell us why can't we do 100% debt cancellation?" Debt had been presumed a dead issue—"but all of a sudden these guys are telling us they think they've figured it out," says Hart. "We'd completely flipped roles. Very weird." There were details to iron out, and the Treasury guys insisted Bono not be told for a while (he is a poor secret keeper), but willingness proved 95% of the battle.

To cap it off, the G-8 would fall almost precisely on the 20th anniversary of Live Aid, and Bono wanted a concert to prove how far the movement had come. Bob Geldof "didn't want to repeat himself," says Bono, but six weeks before the summit he hit upon the idea of staging free concerts in each G-8 country. After a frenzy of persuasion, cities were lined up, sponsors found and bands, many of which already had concerts scheduled for the day, were persuaded to divert from their itineraries and play for free. "Charm, handsomeness and the fact that (Bono) wrote Where the Streets Have No Name goes you a long way," says Coldplay's Chris Martin, one of the headliners in London's Hyde Park.

Bono, meanwhile, launched a final burst of back-room politicking, greasing countless surreal encounters with people who had no business being in the same room together. Days before the summit, he visited 10 Downing Street and learned that the G-8's civil-servant negotiators, or "sherpas," who put deals into precise language, were feuding over how to pay for the proposed $50 billion aid package. "We were having a beer," Blair told Time, "and just decided we would talk to these people who'd done an incredible amount of work, to give them a sense of the importance of this." After introducing himself, Bono asked them to "please go that bit further," reminding them that "in 20 years, this week is one of the things you'll be most proud of in your lives." Says Blair: "These are all pretty hard-bitten people who have worked in international relations a long time, but they were very, very enthused by that spirit."

Just before the end of the summit—which was disrupted by the July 7 terrorist attacks in London—Bono dropped by President Bush's suite for a final nudge. "On so many issues it's difficult to know what God wants from us," Bono told Bush, "but on this issue, helping the desperately poor, we know God will bless it." On July 8, the leaders agreed to cancel the debt of the 18 poorest African countries and to increase aid by $50 billion by 2010. But some activists say it's not nearly enough. Dr. Kumi Naidoo, the South African who chaired Make Poverty History's international umbrella, felt that Geldof—who called the debt deal a "10 out of 10"—was too exuberant and pointed out that all the deal meant was that 50,000, the number of people dying unnecessarily each day, would drop to 37,000. Naidoo's skepticism underlines the limits of Bono's approach: all that was achieved at Gleneagles was a series of commitments—signed checks, not cashed ones.

What would help get some of those checks cashed is a sustainable political movement, and Bono knows that. "I once asked Bill Gates what his long-term goal was for data," says Bono. "He said that one day he hoped people could run for office on this stuff." Bono anticipates that the celebrity-studded ONE Campaign, which gained pledges of support to ending global poverty from 2 million people, will someday become "the n.r.a. for the world's poor," but for now it's what economists call a risk-free choice; there's no fee to join and interest tends to rise and fall based on world events. "I really believe the movement is our future," says Bono, "but it's not here yet."

Which is why he can't stop working, even if it means confronting the outer limits of his power. On an afternoon in late November, the rock star is idling in a car outside a Dunkin' Donuts near Ottawa on his way to a round of arm twisting with Canadian lawmakers. Prime Minister Paul Martin, the only member of the G-8 running a budget surplus, has refused to do something Bono and data had long hoped he would: commit to giving 0.7% of Canada's gnp to development aid. Many European countries made formal commitments to that figure in 2005, adding billions to the future overall aid pot, but Martin has said the numbers don't add up yet for Canada. (The U.S. gives 0.1%). Bono was hoping to change Martin's mind before the end of the year.

 

[nurse chrissi]

last part - Part 4

During the two-hour drive from Montreal, where U2 played the previous night, Bono flips through manila folders full of briefing papers to prepare for meetings with Canada's opposition leaders. He fires a few croaky-throated questions at Drummond—"What is this soft-lumber argument between Canada and the U.S.?"—and tries out phrases for the media scrum that will start the day, imagining how they will play in the Canadian papers. "'Make-or-break month for Martin, says Bono,'" he sighs. "Not exactly poetry."

Mostly, he's trying to find a reservoir of energy. "The day after a show, a giant hole opens up," he says between sips of coffee, "and if I'm not careful it swallows me." Outside Parliament, Bono signs autographs and meets briefly with leaders from Canadian ngos. Then he is led to a lectern and hit with the obvious: How does he feel about Martin's refusal to commit to boosting Canadian aid? Bono riffs a bit, hoping to stumble onto something inspirational. Then he says, "I'm crushed." Flashbulbs pop. "Crushed makes it personal," Drummond whispers in agony. "And it's past tense, like we've failed. It takes the air out of the room." In minutes the quote is on Canadian news websites. On the way out, Bono shakes his head. "Crushed. That was shite." A few days later, Martin says that as soon as he can find a responsible way to get to 0.7%, he will. He says he understands Bono's frustration. "He's doing what he ought to do. He's out there pushing."

At some point—perhaps soon—Bono may have to decide how hard he can keep pushing. Because he's one of the most energetic people on the planet, Bono rarely has a down moment, but on the rare occasions when he removes his sunglasses, thick scrolls of tissue are visible under his eyes. For months his exercise routine has been compromised by a prolapsed disk in his back. "It's annoying to me that I'm overweight now," he says. He speaks to his children every other day while he's on the road, a nontraditional arrangement but one they've known all their lives. Still, he misses his family profoundly. The band, which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March and once again led the concert industry in gross revenues in 2005, has got used to his being an unpredictable presence. "The good news from our point of view is that he prefers working on music more than anything else," says guitarist the Edge. "And also he's unelectable."

For a man who expresses himself on a grand scale nightly, Bono is surprisingly stunted when it comes to talking about how he deals with the pressure he has brought upon himself. "I don't talk about this stuff to anybody," he says. "Of course, I don't talk about it to the band—it's boring enough for them onstage. When I go home, I don't want to talk about it. When I'm with my mates, I just don't. I think about it, and I allow occasionally enough time to think about it in moments of reflection. It's one of the things that's really unhealthy. It's been a very long year."

It might be possible to imagine Bono shedding his title as the world's greatest activist and reverting to his previous role as its biggest rock star—except that his happiness and peace of mind so obviously depend on being both. After the disappointment in Ottawa, Bono spent four days in Acapulco with absolutely nothing important to do and returned to the road a new man. "I'm like a camel. I store up sleep in my hump," he says. U2's never-ending Vertigo tour has come to Boston, and from his palatial suite he has the panorama of a city blanketed in snow and capped by an endless blue sky. After a quick traipse through Boston Common, it's time to go to work.

One way to get leaders to keep a $50 billion aid commitment is to protest in the streets. Another is to show them that aid has a logic. The schedule for the day is relatively low wattage; no world leaders, no movie stars, just discussions with academics and development experts at Harvard and M.I.T. who might feed data good policy ideas and catalytic facts. At Harvard, Bono is greeted by president Larry Summers, an early Bono skeptic while Treasury Secretary under Clinton but now a true believer. (It is something to see the president of Harvard greet a rock star with a soul hug and a "Hey, man, what's up?")

After lunch with professors and vague talk about collaborations down the road, Bono and his team head off to M.I.T. to meet with the Poverty Action Lab, a new group that specializes in objective modeling, one of Bono's turn-ons. Michael Kremer, a Gates (as in Bill and Melinda) Professor of Developing Sciences, opens with an example of the kinds of problems the lab examines: Why don't poor children go to school? Health, it turns out, is a major factor. One quarter of the world's children have worms. Treating them costs only $3.50 a student. "So you treat every kid, and in areas where you do that, school absences fall by 25%. They fall in neighboring schools too," says Kremer, "because the worms don't spread. It's a fantastically good buy." Erin Thornton, data's policy director, asks how the lab directs its research. It doesn't, and that's why the lab is interested in finding partners who can offer guidance and channel the studies to decision makers.

Finally Bono can't restrain himself. "Do you know we've been chased down hallways with the words 'measurable results'? What you have here is the stuff that can change the world! What we need to do ..." and for a minute he is off. There are rhythmic pauses between his phrases, some of which have been rounded smooth by dozens of similar meetings, while others are hitting the air for the first time and are charged with tension. The overall effect is musical. Bono is taking a room filled with economists, mathematicians and policy experts and levitating it. When he finishes, the room hovers in silence for a moment. Then there is laughter, as if everyone had just got off an amusement-park ride. "Facts," he says, "are very beautiful." But only Bono can make them sing.

 

[nurse chrissi]

 

[one4u2]

 

[nurse chrissi]

"We Just Go Off"
That's how Bono described the late-night sessions he and the Gateses have when they get together. In an interview with Josh Tyrangiel in Omaha last week, the rapport between the rocker and the tech lords was easy and their curiosity about one another's worlds genuine.
By JOSH TYRANGIEL
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Sunday, Dec. 18, 2005
TIME When you first had Bono over for dinner, in 2002, were you aware of his celebrity or nervous about it?

MELINDA GATES: We'd certainly never had a rock star to the house before, but the whole reason we got together is because we have this joint cause. [To Bono] I have to be honest, we kind of came a lot later to your music than other people.

BONO: It was fresh not to be seen as a celebrity but as a piece in the puzzle of how we communicate the jeopardy of all those lives—and the opportunity of helping if we can just agree on something. It was nice not to be asked how the Achtung! Baby sessions went in Berlin.

M.G.: The first U2 concert we went to was in Seattle quite a bit later, and when you came out onstage, our reaction was quite different from your other fans'. It was more like "Oh, my gosh, does he know that all these people are here watching him? Oh, I hope he's O.K."

TIME Are you bigger music fans now?

BILL GATES: I've always been a music fan. Paul [Allen, Microsoft's co-founder] played guitar and made sure I knew all the Jimi Hendrix songs. He's a real music nut. Not many people create a music museum. [Allen founded Seattle's Experience Music Project.]

B.: You couldn't not listen to music if Paul Allen was your partner. So Jimi Hendrix helped form [slipping into a monster-movie voice] "the Brain of Bill!"

B.G.: Paul would always say, "Are you experienced?" And it would mean different things at different times.

B.: We can ask Melinda about that.

[Laughter]

TIME Maybe next year. All of you deal with quite serious scientific and political issues, but there must be an emotional toll. Who's more likely to get angry or frustrated by the situation?

B.G.: World health is something where, when you first realize the situation, it's pretty stark and even a bit depressing—just the magnitude of the inequity. But the more you work on it, you see the improvements that are taking place—that decade by decade new medicines are getting there. Maybe not as fast as they should, but you see the trajectory.

M.G.: When you visit a new country, you think, Oh, my gosh, maybe this is the time that I'm going to go somewhere and feel like there's no hope. But I don't think we've ever been in a situation where there hasn't been some glimmer.

B.: I get angry all right—but at myself and our inability to tell the story, to get the news out that this need not be a burden but instead an adventure. But that anger is much more than made up for by the nobility of these people and their entrepreneurial nature. And then you see what a new medicine can do. Three years ago, the idea that nearly half a million Africans would be on antiretrovirals paid for by the U.S.A. was absolutely preposterous. That more than repays the anger.

TIME You all have high-profile, time-consuming day jobs. Do you draw clear lines between your day jobs and this stuff?

B.: It's tricky if you're recording a vocal to get called out because there's a finance minister on the phone. It's hard explaining that to the rest of the band. I've got to be careful because music is what's given me the license, and I have to serve it. I have crossed that line and gone too far. I'm trying to figure this out as we speak. It's not easy. The thing you've really got to watch is that it's always a life-or-death issue, so you can play martyr. If somebody doesn't play Live 8, it's like, "You're killing Africans!" [Laughter]

M.G.: That didn't work very well?

B.: I didn't do that, but I thought about it.

TIME Bono's an equal partner in his day job. [To the Gateses] Does anyone tell you, "Hey, can you come and mind the store, please?"

M.G.: We definitely step back once a month and say, Did we as a couple spend time on the right issues, be it the foundation, Microsoft, our children? And if it ever gets where it feels like it's not the right balance, then we reshuffle.

TIME When the subject turns away from poverty and global health, what do you guys all talk about together?

B.: We just go off. If you hung out with us, it gets quite jazz. We're united by deep curiosity. So from stand-up comedy to quantum physics, there's nothing we don't cover. For me, that's what makes [good] company.

B.G.: The night after that concert where we stayed up till almost 3 a.m., we talked a lot about how history shapes things. Some of us were more optimistic about the future than others.

B.: That'd be me then.

 

[financeguy]

Predictable choice. More ego massaging for people that don't really need it.

They should have given it to the doctors working in Iraq.

 

[wizard2c]

reply

A good positive choice.

 

[Jamila]

If I understood Time's rationale for this choice it went something like:

while the world is full of painful situations, it is not so much what happens in our world as it is OUR RESPONSES TO THE PAIN IN OUR WORLD.

Time felt that these three exemplified that positive philosophy.

I agree.

 

[guitard]

The online article I read looks a little different from the one previously posted.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Good Samaritans

For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year.

By NANCY GIBBS
Posted Sunday, Dec. 18, 2005

These are not the people you expect to come to the rescue.

Rock stars are designed to be shiny, shallow creatures, furloughed from reality for all time. Billionaires are even more removed, nestled atop fantastic wealth where they never again have to place their own calls or defrost dinner or fly commercial. So Bono spends several thousand dollars at a restaurant for a nice Pinot Noir, and Bill Gates, the great predator of the Internet age, has a trampoline room in his $100 million house. It makes you think that if these guys can decide to make it their mission to save the world, partner with people they would never otherwise meet, care about causes that are not sexy or dignified in the ways that celebrities normally require, then no one really has a good excuse anymore for just staying on the sidelines and watching.

Such is the nature of Bono's fame that just about everyone in the world wants to meet him—except for the richest man in the world, who thought it would be a waste of time. "World health is immensely complicated," says Gates, recalling that first encounter in 2002. "It doesn't really boil down to a 'Let's be nice' analysis. So I thought a meeting wouldn't be all that valuable."

It took about three minutes with Bono for Gates to change his mind. Bill and his wife Melinda, another computer nerd turned poverty warrior, love facts and data with a tenderness most people reserve for their children, and Bono was hurling metrics across the table as fast as they could keep up. "He was every bit the geek that we are," says Gates Foundation chief Patty Stonesifer, who helped broker that first summit. "He just happens to be a geek who is a fantastic musician."

And so another alliance was born: unlikely, unsentimental, hard nosed, clear eyed and dead set on driving poverty into history. The rocker's job is to be raucous, grab our attention. The engineers' job is to make things work. 2005 is the year they turned the corner, when Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest; now those countries can spend the money on health and schools rather than interest payments—and have no more excuses for not doing so. The Gateses, having built the world's biggest charity, with a $29 billion endowment, spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has, including nearly half a billion dollars for the Grand Challenges, in which they asked the very best brains in the world how they would solve a huge problem, like inventing a vaccine that needs no needles and no refrigeration, if they had the money to do it.

It would be easy to watch the alliance in action and imagine the division of labor: head and heart, business and culture; one side brings the money, the other side the buzz. But like many great teams, this one is more than the sum of its symbols. Apart from his music stardom, Bono is a busy capitalist (he's a named partner in a $2 billion private equity firm), moves in political circles like a very charming shark, aptly named his organization DATA (debt, AIDS, trade, Africa) to capture both the breadth of his ambitions and the depth of his research. Meanwhile, you could watch Bill and Melinda coolly calculate how many lives will be saved by each billion they spend and miss how impassioned they are about the suffering they have seen. "He's changing the world twice," says Bono of Bill. "And the second act for Bill Gates may be the one that history regards more."

For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are TIME's Persons of the Year.

As it happens, they have arrived at the right time, as America stirs itself awake from the dreamy indifference with which the world's poor have forever been treated. In ordinary times, we give when it's easy: a gesture, a reflex, a salve to conscience. The entreaties come on late-night TV from well-meaning but long-discarded celebrities who cuddle with big-eyed children and appeal to pity and guilt. Maybe we send off a check, hope it will help someone somewhere stay alive for another day. That is not the model for the current crusaders or the message for these extraordinary times.

This was already a year that redefined generosity. Americans gave more money to tsunami relief, more than $1.6 billion, than to any overseas mission ever before. The Hurricane Season from Hell brought another outpouring of money and time and water bottles and socks and coats and offers of refuge, some $2.7 billion so far. The public failure of government to manage disaster became the political story of the year. But the private response of individuals, from every last lemonade stand to every mitten drive, is the human story of 2005.

"Katrina created one tragedy and revealed another," Melinda Gates said in a speech after the hurricane. "We have to address the inequities that were not created by the hurricanes but exposed by them. We have to ensure that people have the opportunity to make the most of their lives." That just about captures the larger mission she and her husband have embraced. In the poorest countries, every day is as deadly as a hurricane. Malaria kills two African children a minute, round the clock. In that minute a woman dies from complications during pregnancy, nine people get infected with HIV, three people die of TB. A vast host of aid workers and agencies and national governments and international organizations have struggled for years to get ahead of the problem but often fell behind. The task was too big, too complicated. There was no one in charge, no consensus about what to do first and never enough money to do it. In Muslim parts of Ethiopia, aid workers can't talk to teenage girls about condoms to prevent AIDS; but in Tanzania they're encouraged to. How you cut an umbilical cord can determine whether a baby risks a fatal infection, but every culture has its own traditions. They cut with a coin for luck in Nepal and a stone in Bolivia, where they think if you use a razor blade the child will grow up to be a thief. There is no one solution to fit all countries, and so the model the Gates Foundation and Bono have embraced pulls in everyone, at every level. Think globally. Act carefully. Prove what works. Then use whatever levers you have to get it done.

The challenge of "stupid poverty"—the people who die for want of a $2 pill because they live on $1 a day—was enough to draw Gates away from Microsoft years before he intended to shift his focus from making money to giving it away. He and Melinda looked around and recognized a systems failure. "Those lives were being treated as if they weren't valuable," Gates told Fortune in 2002. "Well, when you have the resources that could make a very big impact, you can't just say to yourself, 'O.K., when I'm 60, I'll get around to that. Stand by.'"

There have always been rich and famous people who feel the call to "give back," which is where big marble buildings and opera houses come from. But Bill and Melinda didn't set out to win any prizes—or friends. "They've gone into international health," says Paul Farmer, a public-health pioneer, "and said, 'What, are you guys kidding? Is this the best you can do?'" Gates' standards are shaping the charitable marketplace as he has the software universe. "He wants to know where every penny goes," says Bono, whose DATA got off the ground with a Gates Foundation grant. "Not because those pennies mean so much to him, but because he's demanding efficiency." His rigor has been a blessing to everyone—not least of all Bono, who was at particular risk of not being taken seriously, just another guilty white guy pestering people for more money without focusing on where it goes. "When an Irish rock star starts talking about it, people go, yeah, you're paid to be indulged and have these ideas," Bono says. "But when Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, they know he's done a few spreadsheets."

The Gates commitment acts as a catalyst. They needed the drug companies to come on board, and the major health agencies, the churches, the universities and a whole generation of politicians who were raised to believe that foreign aid was about as politically sexy as postal reform. And that is where Bono's campaign comes in. He goes to churches and talks of Christ and the lepers, citing exactly how many passages of Scripture ("2,103") deal with taking care of the poor; he sits in a corporate boardroom and talks about the role of aid in reviving the U.S. brand. He gets Pat Robertson and Susan Sarandon to do a commercial together for his ONE campaign to "Make Poverty History." Then he heads to Washington, where he stops by a meeting of House Democrats to nuzzle them about debt relief before a private lunch with President George W. Bush, whom he praises for tripling aid to Africa over the past four years. Everyone from Republican Senator Rick Santorum to Hillary Clinton used Bono's October concert as a fund raiser. "He knows how to get people to follow him," Stonesifer says. "We are probably a good complement. We're more likely to give you four facts about the disease than four ways that you can go do something about it."

Bono grasps that politicians don't much like being yelled at by activists who tell them no matter what they do, it's not enough. Bono knows it's never enough, but he also knows how to say so in a way that doesn't leave his audience feeling helpless. He invites everyone into the game, in a way that makes them think they are missing something if they hold back. "After so many years in Washington," says retired Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, whom Bono recruited to his cause, "I had met enough well-known people to quickly figure out who was genuine and who was there for show. I knew as soon as I met Bono that he was genuine. He has absolutely nothing to gain personally as a result of his work. In fact, he has opened himself to criticism because he has been willing to work with anyone to find help for these children who have taken his heart."

This is not about pity. It's more about passion. Pity sees suffering and wants to ease the pain; passion sees injustice and wants to settle the score. Pity implores the powerful to pay attention; passion warns them about what will happen if they don't. The risk of pity is that it kills with kindness; the promise of passion is that it builds on the hope that the poor are fully capable of helping themselves if given the chance. In 2005 the world's poor needed no more condolences; they needed people to get interested, get mad and then get to work.

 

[yimou]

 

[u2girlcj]

If I understood Time's rationale for this choice it went something like:

while the world is full of painful situations, it is not so much what happens in our world as it is OUR RESPONSES TO THE PAIN IN OUR WORLD.

Time felt that these three exemplified that positive philosophy.

I agree.

Me too!!
And I think the cover photo just couldn't be more perfect to prove the point that everyone can come together and be important in the battle. Plus, it positions Bill & Melinda as more than just a "wealthy couple" - challenging other wealthy people to do more with their money just as it challenges other celebrities to do more with their fame.
Love it!

 

[INDY500]

Does this mean Bono now doesn't have to grab a big-ass crow bar and whoop some Time-Warner skull?

 

[alexdescending]

thank you VERY much for posting these articles!

 

[tiny dancer]

I'll be so looking forward to be getting this issue in the mail on Tuesday. For all the years that I have subscribed to Time they have never let me down.

 

[macfesto]

 

[U2dork]

Yay! Yes, thanks for posting the articles. I'll have to grab a copy at the bookstore later...

 

[drumkeeran]

HOLY WOW!!!

Quite deserving, as this actually puts the world awareness of poverty and positive steps to DO SOMETHING about it as the TRUE "people of the year".

I'm just in awe that TIME recognizes this to this degree!! Let's here it for the amount of press this will get and the increased awareness this will raise.

God bless!!

 

[PopFly]

It should be noted that TIME's person(s) of the year isn't always a positive distinction, as it is supposed to go to the person who has made the most newsworthy impact on the previous year --- this is why the likes of Hitler and the Ayatollah have won in the past.

It is only in recent years that the award has become a 'person of the year' distinction, i.e. when Rudy Giuliani won for 2001 instead of Bin Laden. However, all of that aside, congrats to Bono and the Gates'.

 

[angelordevil]

Predictable choice. More ego massaging for people that don't really need it.

They should have given it to the doctors working in Iraq.

Here, drink this! Quickly!!

I agree, the doctors in Iraq are very deserving of our praise. However, I do think this year's choices are great ones. Instead of it being "ego massaging" I really believe these three are trying to make a tangible difference in the world.

They're surfing the celebrity thing for good, when they could be quietly riding on the backs of giant turtles next to their own private islands, or counting money on the beach.

Three thumbs up