Entries from September 2008 ↓

Australia’s own Chaser news crew (they’re kind of like our ‘The Onion‘) had this article up a while ago, but I think it’s worth a revisit:

“For many years, my people and I have felt ignored,” said Eric Mbeke, 13, of Ethiopia, with what later proved to be his last breaths. “But now that Bono has taken up our cause, we know that not everyone is ignoring us, just the people who are in a position to do something about it.”

Oh snap.

We’ve all been given some sweet (but temporary) relief from a new U2 album seeing as it’s been delayed until next year.

Bono couldn’t wait to give you a preview of his insane wanktitude at U2.com though.

“This is our chance for us to defy gravity once again,” explains Bono, calling in from a break in recording sessions in the south of France. “We have what it takes, we have the songs, new rhythms and a guitar player who is not ready to re-enter earth’s atmosphere until he’s taken a slice of the moon!”

For the love of God. Is he done yet? No?

Shit.

“We’ve hit a rich songwriting vein,” he explains. “It gets a bit dark down here but looks like we’ve found diamonds not coal.”

Can someone make him stop it? Please?

He also mentions that the recording in Morocco was the first time the band have worked in a studio open to the sky: “On that track you can hear the sound of a swallows nest close to the building - it’s beautiful.”

I’m gonna go gas myself in the garage.

Remember that whole Product Red thing? No? Allow me and my good friends at Wikipedia to refresh your memory.

Product Red, styled as (PRODUCT)RED, is a brand licensed to partner companies such as American Express, Apple Inc., Converse, Motorola, Gap, Emporio Armani, Hallmark, Microsoft, and Dell. It is an initiative begun by U2’s frontman, Bono, and Bobby Shriver of DATA to raise money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Bobby Shriver has been announced as the CEO of Product Red, whilst Bono is currently an active public spokesperson for the brand.

So that would give the impression that they’d be raising a whole heap of money for those starving brown children, right? Well, they’re certainly ready to spend the money on making sure that you know that they’d love to help those starving brown children!

Allow those at AdvertisingAge to warm the cockles of your heart.

By any measure, the buzz has been extraordinary and the collective marketing outlay by Gap, Apple and Motorola has been enormous, with some estimates as high as $100 million. Gap alone spent $7.8 million of its $58 million outlay on Red during last year’s fourth quarter, according to Nielsen Media Research’s Nielsen Adviews.

So how much money has all this spending on advertising managed to net for the people who actually need it? Yeah. Not so much.

So you’d expect the money raised to be, well, big, right? Maybe $50 million, or even $100 million.

Try again: The tally raised worldwide is $18 million.

Apparently you people aren’t buying enough iPods to save the world.

I suggest investigating BuyLessCrap.org. They have this crazy notion that rather than but something you don’t need so that they can give a sliver of the profits as a donation, you might be helping more by, oh, I don’t know… donating.

Join us in rejecting the ti(red) notion that shopping is a reasonable response to human suffering.

We invite you to donate directly to the (RED) campaign’s beneficary The Global Fund and to… other charitable causes… without consuming.

Say… that’s just crazy enough to work!

Someone over at ThePoint.com has created a petition entitled “Bono - Retire from public life and we’ll donate a ton of money to fight aids“.

Seems reasonable to me. But I’ll let them explain:

OBJECTIVE:
To get Bono to retire from public life (so he’ll stop leading misguided counter-productive philanthropy efforts) ….and, simultaneously…. to make a huge donation to fight AIDS

MEMBER PLEDGE
We will give money to: Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria

They only pay if the petition is successful, but you don’t have to pay until it is.

Get pledging, people.

Technology Pt. 1.