Harper to Bono: Drop dead

So, being a celebrity excludes a person from having a political voice?

I guess I'll wait for the little starving African kid to meet with the leaders of the world. I'm sure he'll have access.

 

I love the Henry Rollins line about U2 being the best band in the world.
"The Clash is the band U2 wishes they could be, but don't have the guts to be."

 

Who the hell is Henry Rollins?

 

Care to add Al Sharpton, Michael Moore, and Vincent D'Onoforio to this list as well, Grumpy? 

It cuts across the board with everyone, regardless of party line, hombre.  I will give Harper some credit for being honest and saying it without backing down from it.  For all other elected officials, they'll kiss up, lie through their teeth to someone like Bono, and "forget" everything that he said to them 5 minutes later. 

Bono has nothing on Paul Newman. Why? Because Newman doesn't go out flying all over the place and spending money to get a international leader to listen to him. Newman does it his way, away from the limelight and is more effective in getting his causes to the forefront. It's better to carry a big stick than run your mouth hoping you get an audience to do what you want them to do.

So, Fen, what do you prefer?  Someone lying in your face, or someone who will tell you that you're not on his priority list? 

Other than, don't make me call in a favor to Tony and Paulie and "cool" you off.  If that's your best, then Ragu is right: you better dial this bitch up a notch to have a good case.

We're not even to the 1/2-way point of the year and you're in the zone already. Turn the switch on in January, when it really counts.

 

BR -

Bono's response to the snub is never characterized in the dispatch that begins the thread. Also, if it's clearly wrong for a world leader to meet with Bono - on the assumption that any such meeting merely stokes his celebrity vanity - why did the busy presidents of Germany and the US meet with him?

And while Harper of course has every right not to bother meeting him, is Harper missing an opportunity to use Bono's fame as a force multiplier for whatever programs he envisions, if any? Does the fact that Bono is by far the more famous of the two, by a factor of magnitude, and draws more attention to these issues mean that in the end Bono is going to be the more important agent for change in Africa? Or is it just inherently wrong for a celebrity to leverage their fame for humanitarian purposes?

 

Was it wrong for the U.N. to have Angelina Jolie be a goodwill ambassador?
Bono has a larger stage and a bigger audience than Canada's PM, and frankly Harper should have listened to what Bono had to say, not so much as a vanity stroke, but by not meeting him it becomes a story, if Harper had met with Bono, it would have been a photo op, some B roll and some good publicity.
Now it just looks like Harper, who is PM of Canada, yeah Canada the least important country in the G8, is an ass. He can't accomodate the rock star/activist when the most powerful man in the free world did?
Not to offend any of the fine Canadians on the board, but c'mon Harper big-timed Bono? He should have taken that meeting and called every photographer and reporter within a 100-mile radius.
If it had been Bill Gates coming by to talk about malaria nets, would Harper have told him no?
I strongly suspect not.

 

If it takes Bono to make someone somewhere actually step up and find real solutions for the problems he addresses, more power to him.

 

Your fame only buys influence AFTER you've been elected governor of California.

 

There's the money quote right there. The software designer/philanthropist wouldn't get the same kind of disdain that the rock star/philanthropist does. There's a stigma of celebrity that some people just can't get past when talking about Bono's African work, which is unfortunate.

 

Well, geez, sorry to disturb you.
First of all, I guess I missed the 24 hours a week that Vincent D'Onofrio puts in on his radio program. If that's the best you have, you better get started earlier than next January, because you're already pretty far behind.
Nobody doubts Paul Newman's vast charitable work -- least of all, the Democratic party and half a dozen liberal causes, which have been the beneficiaries of it. But to dismiss what Bono's done in regard to the issues under discussion is just flat ignorant. If Harper wants to ignore him, it's because he'd rather ignore the issues, I suspect. That's his right.
As someone pointed out, as far as the story's concerned, there's no indication one way or the other about how Bono feels about the whole business, so this whole "pretentiousness" thing that so bothers Ragu -- fairly defined, I guess, as anyone who has a calling above what Ragu feels are the trivialities of their profession, except for Lance Williams, I guess -- is, for the moment, mindreading. Note to Ragu: the "Carrot Top" reference, and the accompanying analogy, is just flat stupid. Please do better. Of course, this is par for the all-politics-sucks course on major issues -- outside of the Scourge Of Steroids, that is.