Anyone remember that little jingle from French class? How about the one about Bonhomme Carnival? Oh… such good times.

Anyway, onto the post. During a period of downtime at work today, I browsed through some of the news that was getting fed to my terminal and I spotted “Bono” in one of the headlines. Naturally, I was curious and what I found was very interesting. Here is a link to the article, for those who would like to read it before I make my commentary on it.

Prior to reading this article, I was a big fan of the things Bono was doing for global poverty. From the Make Poverty History campaign to the cancellation of debt by the G8 countries, he has been making a big splash in the world of foreign aid. And based on what I had read and heard, the conditions under which aid was given were fairly well-defined; for example, only governments that demonstrated a lack of corruption were given debt relief. So it seemed to me that it was being done responsibly. That said, I would have to disagree with the author when he suggests that Bono is doing more harm than good when he petitions for more foreign aid.

I will agree, though, that extremely lofty goals have been set. And some of them are misguided. Obviously, those of us who are more fortunate cannot solve the poverty issue in one foul swoop; things need to be done incrementally and we need to be realistic with the objectives that are set (and their timelines). This whole situation reminds me of Kennedy’s pledge to send a man to the moon. The goal was astronomical (pun half intended), and I think that it was a miracle that they actually landed in the 60s. I mean, think about the (lack of) technology that they had then. It is still unbelievable.

We can’t expect the same kind of luck this time around. Even though there is all of this talk of our “global village”, this village of ours is fueled by capitalism. It is, in general, all about the almighty dollar (or yen or pound or Euro or…) and the idea of helping other people out barely registers unless there is something offered in return. (And before I sound all high and mighty, I should say that I am very much guilty of this awful mentality.)

The solution to this is as complex as the problem… perhaps more so. As a society, we have little to no experience doing this, so that could explain why efforts, to date, have seemingly faltered. We do, however, know a two things:

1. Handouts do not work.
2. The longer we wait, the worse things will get.

The second of these points can explain why there are so many agencies trying to do so much all at once. It seems that there is such a rush to eliminate poverty that an insufficient amount of time has been spent on thinking about the way to do it.

In a very general sense, I think the solution is, as the author suggests, containment. It doesn’t really do the world a lot of good if we are healing a bunch of people while others are being infected. The first priority is to keep those who are healthy that way. I know that it can sound awfully cruel and inhumane to give preference to the healthy over the ill but, with limited resources and the long-term goal in mind, I don’t really see any way around it. (And don’t pull the “What would Jesus do” thing out… if Jesus were walking the earth, I could fully see Him healing everyone at once in the miraculous event that I contended probably wouldn’t happen.)

I am rather disappointed that the capitalistic approach to the poverty issue is the one with which I am siding. The reality, however, is that we have to make the most out of the money being poured into this cause. Not only that, but we have to pay attention to the invisible problem that affects the world in the long term as opposed to the terrible, visible problem that afflicts the world now. Don’t get me wrong… I completely value human life and my heart really aches for those who are suffering of extreme hunger, malaria, AIDS, and God knows what else around the world. I just don’t think that we can get the best of both worlds here.

It sucks. It totally, totally sucks.

Camera vs. guitar. Who wins?

Also, on a somewhat related note, I just spent a ridiculous amount of money today. Yikes.

Happy Friday, everyone! I’m full of chocolate right now so I’m kinda energetic but I’ll try and calm myself down for a few minutes so that I can record some recent observations of mine:

1. You know those light switches outside the the bathroom for which they are designed? They have “prank the person inside” written all over them. I mean, come on.

2. I’ve started to watch Heroes based on a recommendation from a fairly new friend of mine. As I realize that it is meant to be fictional, I won’t be too critical of the concept or the plots. Has anyone else realized how convenient everything is in that show? It’s like House or CSI all over again. Nevertheless, I’m sufficiently far into the series that I need to find out what happens next. There goes another hour of my week…

3. Somewhat related to the above. I think being able to manipulate time would be so ridiculously awesome.

4. A few weeks ago, I was walking on the upper east side of the island before a show (Wicked, I think) and I caught a reflection of myself in a window. I was wearing a dress shirt under a red sweater, nice jeans, and dress shoes. (I am reminded of this as I am wearing something similar today.) In my left hand was a Starbuck’s chai tea latte. Almost immediately, a word jumped into my head: yuppie. I still don’t know how I feel about that.

5. After having my midterm review (which went quite well), I’m starting to think about whether I would come back to New York on a more permanent basis. I think there is a distinct possibility for the opportunity to do so. This thought scares me. As cool as this city is, I really don’t know how I’d manage away from the folks back in Canada for a long period of time.

6. I cannot stand the politics of America. The two-party system is such a disaster, and it’s surprising how it has lasted this long. Perhaps it speaks to the ignorance and/or arrogance and/or stubbornness of the people here, but it seems that it is always a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils come election time. On TV, politicians are more than eager to point out the evil in the other candidate; so many commercials go on and on about how so and so is going to ruin the entire country and your own, personal life if (s)he gets elected, then save the last four seconds to say that the message was approved by some guy. This fearmongering is not anything new (indeed, TV networks thrive on it here), but I fail to see how it helps the country. Just because people have something from which to run doesn’t really help them unless they have something to which they can run. An n-party system would do wonders here. Having choice is usually not a bad thing, and these people need a choice.