RoR: Forum

Good stuff Peter. And good on bFM. Sure is time the hippies moved on from the group hugs at Wembley and tried thinking about consequences. A peeve of mine is the infantile ... can't find the word ... an attitude that they will do it different this time, meaning those in the past who've had a go weren't as competent or motivated. Somehow their plans - being big - will succeed cos they're big.

I mean why not just pick off one wee African state and quietly get on with sorting that for starters on a smallish fund. Oh no, we'll fix all Africa! And bang out a few songs while we're at it!

Got nothing against banging out a few songs...

Ok, enough already. But you did good.

- Sam

[With apologies to the mothers of Mozambique for the excessive do-gooder behaviour of these Anglo Saxon rock stars.]

[and rock used to have such promise...]

Post 1

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 3:36pm

Thanks Sam. Good on bFM indeed. I was very happy to be able to talk intelligently for fifteen minutes on perhaps Auckland's most influential 'underground' radio station, and to be encouraged to do so.

Of course it's not possible to fix Africa in fifteen minutes, and nor is it just by strumming a guitar. Unlike Bono and Sir Bob, at least some of us are thinking before we open our mouths.

Post 2

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 4:03pm

Way to go, PC! (Hope you're doing those speech exercises I gave ya!! :-))

Post 3

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 6:51pm

If you don't get a shiver where your spine should be when you hear 'Do They Know It's Christmas'....your loss.

Pink Floyd getting back together- WITH Roger Waters no less!? It was another good interview with a good message but you're totally hung up on all of the bad and none of the good.

I challange your view that the effort was wasted. Live Aid was always about 'us' first. It was a watershed in Western awareness, in the internationalism of civilisation. Got us to wake up and smell Africa and the world.
The advance of civilisation, the new awareness, has always been more important and will outlast and outshine all the side-effect of multi-million dollars worth of SPIN OFF humanitarian aid.

And at any rate, I don't agree the money went to the wall, but that is far from the point.

There's a world outside your window, and it's a world of dread and fear.

Post 4

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 7:15pm

RICK: "I challenge your view that the effort was wasted."

I never put the view that it was "wasted." I pointed out that the efforts of Live Aid went to help Mengistu's Stalinist social engineering and murdering. As another song says, why feed the enemy?

RICK: "If you don't get a shiver where your spine should be when you hear 'Do They Know It's Christmas'....your loss."

Actually when I hear it, I feel nausea where my lunch should be. There you go. I reserve the shivers for music. :-)

Have you heard PJ O'Rourke's analysis of the 'We Are the World' love-fest? Do a Google search and find it, it's hilarious.

LINZ: "(Hope you're doing those speech exercises I gave ya!! :-))"

Erudite electrician Elliot Wellington is constantly in my thoughts. As is the memory of Tibor waving 'slow down' semaphore signals at me as I speak. :-)

Post 5

Friday, July 1, 2005 - 7:55pm

Hoy,-

RICK: "I challenge your view that the effort was wasted."
I never put the view that it was "wasted."

Well then, I challenge my imaginary view that it was wasted!

Give War a Chance (1993):
We are the world (solipsism)
We are the children (average age near forty)
We are the ones who make a brighter day (unproven)
So let's start giving (logical inference supplied without argument)
There's a choice we're making (true as far as it goes)
We're saving our own lives (absurd)
It's true we'll make a better day (see line 3 above)
Just you and me (statistically unlikely)

"That's three palpable untruths, two dubious assertions, nine uses of a first person pronoun, not a single reference to trouble or anybody in it and no facts. The verse contains, literally, neither rhyme nor reason."

Actually when I hear it, I feel nausea where my lunch should be. There you go. I reserve the shivers for music. :-)

Bah. I thumb my nose in your general direction. My VCR is going to be running hot tonight.

Post 6

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 6:50am

Rick,

If you want to volunteer to assist in my work in South Africa, give me a private note; otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and putting more pollution into the environment.

Sharon

Post 7

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 6:58am

Peter,

I regret not being able to access your link; but I'm energized to see you on the Activism page. Thanks.

Sharon

Post 8

Monday, July 4, 2005 - 6:17pm

He energizes me, too. Spooky. I might have to get him around to my house for a rousing chorus of "Kumbaya".

Post 9

Monday, July 4, 2005 - 9:11pm

"I might have to get him around to my house for a rousing chorus of "Kumbaya"."

O Lord!

Post 10

Monday, July 4, 2005 - 11:48pm

Madam,-

Rick,

If you want to volunteer to assist in my work in South Africa, give me a private note; otherwise you're just spinning your wheels and putting more pollution into the environment.

Sharon

The other morning Bob Geldof had on the stage a woman he claimed Live Aid had saved from death and now she was thriving. Bob had just been tipping his hat to Bill Gates as one of the creators of the modern world, Gates had just finnished making a speech. Bob was about to hand the mic to Madonna, but he still had the attention of 200,000 people in Hyde Park who were feeling pretty good and looking forward to more.

Suppose you Sharon, in that moment, were in those shoes with that mic at that moment with that audience. I'm not asking for an essay or a speech, but if it were up to you what would you have said right then? (Go home Live 8 Loosers?)

What Pink said: "Don't let them tell you that this stuff doesn't work. You work. You work very well indeed."

I think I've said my piece on this issue but you might want to make me think otherwise. Otherwise, I'm quite done.

Post 11

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 1:46am

Rick,

You're missing the gist. I'm not against Geldof; I'm against his simplistic message. He wants to throw money at Africa; and history has shown it's not giving a good return. Giving debt relief permits even more political corruption. Africa needs new ideas, and actions to match them.

I have discovered that the rural education system is ineffective because of the almost exclusive use of the rote-method. When existing classrooms are stocked with manipulative materials; and the teachers are trained in active-learning methods; children begin to take responsibility for their learning. In one year, and with an expenditure of about $30,000, we have launched a programme involving five elementary schools and nine preschools; serving about 2000 children, so far.

The special feature of this programme is the personal involvement of retired professionals who live in the deeply rural, impoverished, community for two or three months each year; and maintain contact and moral support by telephone after the field visits. Having westerners among them is very motivating for the adults who are living under mediaeval conditions.

In about fve years, this community will be ready for some serious economic intervention by capitalistic entrepreneurs who are looking for a workforce. At the moment I am seeing tourism and eldercare as two sources of potential employment.

By working directly with motivated teachers, the existing school board is bypassed; and things proceed on North American time; limited only by the energy of the volunteers who finance the enterprise themselves.

I would have asked Bono and Geldof  to come into the rural locations and work among the poor. Mother Teresa set the example.

Your compassion has to have a tough skin in Africa. By beginning in early childhood we are able to improve the life chances for the whole community over time. Once  a child has begun to think for herself; and has the habit of taking personal responsibility over small issues; there's no going back to passivity. By working in the communities, the volunteers develop a programme that responds to the needs of those particular people; and introduces the idea of personal initiative to adults.

You can begin to see how complex helping Africa is. It is also very exciting; but it is a commitment and a process; not a one-off.

So, Rick, do you know any retired folks with a few extra dollars; who might like an extreme vacation?

Perhaps you'd like to see for yourself? I know a few villages.

Sharon

Post 12

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 2:29am

You can begin to see how complex helping Africa is. It is also very exciting; but it is a commitment and a process; not a one-off.

Good on you Sharon.

You are right. In terms of a cultural change toward individualism and self-responsibility, education is the key. It's important here in the west as well.

Post 13

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 5:45am

Sharon,-

Rick,
give me a private note; otherwise you're just spinning your wheels
You're missing the gist. I'm not against Geldof; I'm against his simplistic message.

Yes. Back away very slowly and my keyboard wont have to bite you.

My "gist" is that Live Aid and Live 8 aren't so bad as the Oscar-The-Grouches are making out. I've been very pleased with the phenomena and can't let all the hammering go by without a word. I'm expressing my consciousness.

Perhaps you'd like to see for yourself? I know a few villages.
Sharon

Remind me next year. Could happen.

Post 14

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 5:57am

Marcus,

Thank you for understanding, I have tears from your thoughtful words.

Once you go to Africa; and see that the cure is in the indigenous villages, at the grass roots; it calls you so compellingly that you cannot stay home in North America living the post-modern life that by comparison seems so banal.

The secret is to motivate young at heart retired people who have benefitted from a good education. They have the time, energy, wisdom and the multifarious skills needed to help educate people whose ignorance is so deep and so wide; one has to look at them as innocent infants; as having the problem-solving skills of a seven-year-old child, at most..

REMEMBER THOUGH, I am speaking of the rural people, who have not been jaded by the slothful life promoted on TV. They do not see the decadence of tourists. The poor souls who live in the cities and squalor of the townships, have the same issues and MORE. They are more difficult to help; but they too, are ripe for picking by the proper aid.

This is my invitation to Objectivists. Take your show on the road; take your ideals to Africa; build Utopia. Build real capitalism. The credit and debit cards are the means of ignoring the government. Use your entrepreneurship to help the indigenous people see how things should be. They are masters of learning by rote. They know how to imitate to the nth degree. Just don't ask them to think for themselves; they have no knowledge of that; they are not stupid; they need to be brought along gradually. Give them the education they are lacking and stand back.

The people you help will hold you in awe. It's a mission that will make you think you should live forever.

Sharon

Post 15

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 6:19am

Rick,

Are you as young as you seem; or is this an old photo?

I admire your tenacity; your heart is in the right place. Do you have issues with injustice that are speaking to you? Think of the injustice of those corrupt politicians who want to live like the queen of England; at the expense of their constituents. Do you really want to give them one more penny?

I did not watch the Live8 DAY. But I imagine it to have been like a Spielberg movie manipulating the emotions of the spectators who are ashamed of the way they live their lives; and therefore feel that they should do something to help. This is a beginning; but I thought we had moved beyond that. Will those feelings inspire acts of true benevolence?

Maybe it's the Baby-Boomers who were supposed to be listening; listening to people with projects like mine. Was anything like that promoted as a solution? Send them my way; I know how to put people to work.

Don't ever take your heart off of your sleeve, Rick. The cynical will never be agents of change. Do give me a call.

Sharon

Post 16

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 9:54am

Sharon,

"it calls you so compellingly that you cannot stay home in North America living the post-modern life that by comparison seems so banal."

I do not feel so compelled. Your life is banal perhaps. You and Mother Teresa.

"..help educate people whose ignorance is so deep and so wide; one has to look at them as innocent infants;"

I think your ignorance is as deep. Your contempt for these people is palpable.

Post 17

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 10:59am

Mike,

Do your remarks imply that to choose teaching as a profession is a contemptable act?

Sharon

Post 18

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 12:39pm

Sharon,

"Do your remarks imply that to choose teaching as a profession is a contemptible act?"

No. I implied nothing of the sort. I said you showed contempt for the African people you seem so anxious to help.

You also insult American people by implying their lives are "banal" and they have nothing better to do than to run off to Africa and teach rural Africans. If I were considering doing something like that, I would be put off by an organizer that described my life as banal:

" Drearily commonplace and often predictable; trite"

Please. Unless you only want dreary people, don't look for people living dreary lives.

Post 19

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 - 2:27pm