Niamh_Saoirse
Rock n' Roll Doggie FOB
MY father slogged hard to put five of us through college back in the days of fees and there isn't one doctor among us. So generally, I tend to be against the handing out willy nilly of doctorates to people who've never attended a lecture.
Most people getting a legitimate college degree have attended at least one lecture a year, the one where they tell you what's coming up in the exam. I also think it's a bit unfair when they give honorary degrees out to rock stars. The only bad thing about being a rock star is that it usually means you have to forgo a third level education.
Most of us, when we piddled round in bands as kids, came to that crunch point where it was a choice between college and the band and our parents told us in no uncertain terms that college was a better bet. To find out now that we could have done the band thing and got a degree afterwards anyway is irritating to say the least.
But I think I can say, on behalf of all of us who spent four years in the college bar getting our degrees, that the doctorate Bono got from Trinity on Friday was well deserved. In fact technically, Dr Bono has even fulfilled all the requirements to become a doctor. Med students traditionally spent years drinking, singing, fathering children and generally having a good time before being rewarded with their degree sometime in their early 40s. Just like Bono.
What's more, Dr Bono has surely effected more healing in his short time on earth than most qualified MDs. If I may get sentimental for a moment, I bet even the hardest-hearted among you has at some stage been touched by U2's music. At different points in my life, I have been not only touched but possibly even healed by it. Most recently, at the opening of the Special Olympics, one of the most emotionally charged events this country has ever witnessed, there was only one band that could do justice to the occasion and only one song they could do it with. When U2 played One backed by the orchestra, you realised that if ever humanity had a national anthem, a world anthem, this was it. "We're one, but we're not the same. We've got to carry each other, carry each other." Share the feeling indeed.
On a practical level, Bono's activism is beginning to infect even the most cynical of us. This is, as he says himself, more than a rock star with a cause. His grasp of his issues and his ability to operate in the real world of international politics sets him apart from many a rock star with a conscience. Anyone who witnessed the blinder he played against Miriam O'Callaghan on Thursday night's Prime Time couldn't fail to feel safe to be in the same world as this guy.
Perhaps what he demonstrated best was his eschewal of traditional outdated lefty notions. We need left-wing activism he said, but we also "need to whisper coherence, to give rigorous argument when we get in the room". At a time when anti Americanism, and an anti George Bush stance is the only correct position among the rock fraternity, Bono has demonstrated a grown up world view where, as he says, the right are not the bad guys. Indeed Bono, in his music and in his politics, has always had the courage to be unfashionably pro-American, as he has always been unfashionably capitalist.
He broke left/right divide on Prime Time by admitting that corruption is a huge problem in Africa, he admitted he lets George Bush use him, he admitted that much of his work was succeeding because of self-interest, the only real constant in history. He had an answer to everything Ireland's toughest interviewer had to throw at him. He got away with quoting Colin Powell to her. He even got away with telling Miriam O'Callaghan to "check your head".
So arise Dr Bono. More than just a thorn in the side you are, in the words of the Bible via Johnny Cash, a whole thorn tree in the whirlwind. You did good and we're all very proud of you. And most importantly you've promised us that musically the best is yet to come. We can't wait. Because you're not bad at that either
Most people getting a legitimate college degree have attended at least one lecture a year, the one where they tell you what's coming up in the exam. I also think it's a bit unfair when they give honorary degrees out to rock stars. The only bad thing about being a rock star is that it usually means you have to forgo a third level education.
Most of us, when we piddled round in bands as kids, came to that crunch point where it was a choice between college and the band and our parents told us in no uncertain terms that college was a better bet. To find out now that we could have done the band thing and got a degree afterwards anyway is irritating to say the least.
But I think I can say, on behalf of all of us who spent four years in the college bar getting our degrees, that the doctorate Bono got from Trinity on Friday was well deserved. In fact technically, Dr Bono has even fulfilled all the requirements to become a doctor. Med students traditionally spent years drinking, singing, fathering children and generally having a good time before being rewarded with their degree sometime in their early 40s. Just like Bono.
What's more, Dr Bono has surely effected more healing in his short time on earth than most qualified MDs. If I may get sentimental for a moment, I bet even the hardest-hearted among you has at some stage been touched by U2's music. At different points in my life, I have been not only touched but possibly even healed by it. Most recently, at the opening of the Special Olympics, one of the most emotionally charged events this country has ever witnessed, there was only one band that could do justice to the occasion and only one song they could do it with. When U2 played One backed by the orchestra, you realised that if ever humanity had a national anthem, a world anthem, this was it. "We're one, but we're not the same. We've got to carry each other, carry each other." Share the feeling indeed.
On a practical level, Bono's activism is beginning to infect even the most cynical of us. This is, as he says himself, more than a rock star with a cause. His grasp of his issues and his ability to operate in the real world of international politics sets him apart from many a rock star with a conscience. Anyone who witnessed the blinder he played against Miriam O'Callaghan on Thursday night's Prime Time couldn't fail to feel safe to be in the same world as this guy.
Perhaps what he demonstrated best was his eschewal of traditional outdated lefty notions. We need left-wing activism he said, but we also "need to whisper coherence, to give rigorous argument when we get in the room". At a time when anti Americanism, and an anti George Bush stance is the only correct position among the rock fraternity, Bono has demonstrated a grown up world view where, as he says, the right are not the bad guys. Indeed Bono, in his music and in his politics, has always had the courage to be unfashionably pro-American, as he has always been unfashionably capitalist.
He broke left/right divide on Prime Time by admitting that corruption is a huge problem in Africa, he admitted he lets George Bush use him, he admitted that much of his work was succeeding because of self-interest, the only real constant in history. He had an answer to everything Ireland's toughest interviewer had to throw at him. He got away with quoting Colin Powell to her. He even got away with telling Miriam O'Callaghan to "check your head".
So arise Dr Bono. More than just a thorn in the side you are, in the words of the Bible via Johnny Cash, a whole thorn tree in the whirlwind. You did good and we're all very proud of you. And most importantly you've promised us that musically the best is yet to come. We can't wait. Because you're not bad at that either
