debt relief
Super-Serious Somalian Synopsis
OK, a guilty admission on our part: this site has never been known for being a hotbed of intelligent analysis of the day’s events re: “all things political”, so much as being a hotbed of who’s bedding Washington hotties (The answer? Me, of course. A sex-laced shout-out to Nicole W. in Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s office (D-IL). See you tonight, babe!). With that in mind, then, we thought we’d take a stab at being solemn, as opposed to sex-obsessed. Ain’t that noble? Here goes.
East Africa, it seems, is on the verge of crisis. According to today’s Guardian (UK), the Food Security Analysis Unit, an agency working on behalf of international aid agencies is now warning that the region “could be on the brink of catastrophe as food stocks in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Burundi, Eritrea and Tanzania also dwindle.”
Kenya’s president has appealed for £85m in aid on the matter. Though, seriously, let’s be honest…unless your regional plight is well-documented by a film starring Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, you’re as good as fucked.
Hmm.
See what just happened? We just broke out and made light of human suffering and the indignity of starvation by invoking film terminology, a trashy staple of pop culture. It’s almost as though it’s part of the “Blogger’s Coda”, this inability to take seriously any plight grounded in poverty or political oppression. But a sexual plight, however…let’s get talking!
Rachel Weisz: hotter in “The Mummy”, or as an activist in “The Constant Gardener”? Ralph Fiennes: hotter as a John le Carré character in the aforementioned film, or as the cheating “other man” in Neil Jordan’s spectacular take on the “End of the Affair”?
The answer: it’s all so hot, even food deprivation! At least according to this jaded, post-academic, trust-funded urban hipster. Really, folks…from the comfort of my million-dollar pad overlooking the Potomac, give me a copy of InTouch over Congressional Quarterly any day.
READ MORE: africa, celebrity weeklies, debt relief, low culture, somalia, united nations
Bush and Bono
My Irish half has been aching all week to end my troubles with Bono. I fucked up my first day on the job by assuming rumors of his Good Friday Agreement with Rick Santorum were true. (They were not. Also, that whole “intelligent design theory” as scooped by Newsmax? Less than reliable. You heard it here first.)
But the U2 frontman has struck up curious working relationships in the past (Sinatra, Pavarotti, Helms), and so it should neither shock nor appall that he’s just been invited to lunch at the White House.
“[Bush and Bono] had a very good discussion about some of our common priorities,” McClellan said. “Both share a deep commitment to combating aids, preventing malaria and expanding trade to lift people out of poverty.”
In all fairness, Bono is more Frumish than Hewitty in his support of the current president. (He made a sub-Zoo Tour appearance at the DNC last year, but an appearance all the same). We do know that McClellan isn’t lying about the admired committment to debt and AIDS relief in Africa; and if memory serves, Bono once described W. as quick and funny in a New York Times interview. Bob Geldof also sheepishly conceded that the aide cheques — while still not enough — are more frequent and fuller in amount now than they ever were with Clinton. So make of that what you will.
But don’t read too far into the bread-breaking, or whose idea it can have been. The bookish Laura was the one to request that Tony Blair invite Tom Stoppard and Ian McEwan to a British state dinner a short while back. And Reagan once had John Irving over, all the time thinking that “garp” was an impolite noise to make in front of “Mommy.”
Bush invites Bono to lunch at White House [Ireland Online]
READ MORE: AIDS in Africa, White House, bono, debt relief, george w. bush, lunch, u2