Amber Rose went to Ghana
October 7, 2011 By 1 Comment
50 Cent Wants to Help Africa
September 7, 2011 By 4 Comments
Remember when rapper 50 Cent announced that he would try to provide 1 billion meals over the next five years to poor Africans? His strategy: make some money while “helping” Africans. Watch the video. With every shot you purchase of his new energy drink, Street King, “a meal is provided for a child in need.”
No comment.
The inequality of news
June 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Simon Kuper in the FT Weekend, takes shots at “the news,” maybe also at his own newspaper:
… [N]ews has become news about rich people. Today’s economic inequality is reflected and driven by inequality of news.
Much of this news about rich people is produced by just a few English-language sources. A wire service will put out a story, a newspaper will get a scoop or BBC.com will run a headline, and within seconds the “news” gets parroted by websites, TV channels and newspapers from Warsaw to Waikiki. It saves them hiring their own reporters. Lady Gaga sings at a gay pride rally in Rome and the whole world simply reprints the story.
And so news becomes news about a small global elite of athletes, entertainers, royals and politicians …
Must Be Something in the Water
March 22, 2011 By 4 Comments
Seriously, this is not ironic. UNICEF is bottling Rihanna and other celebrities’ tap water and raffling it off.
This is all–to coincide with Water Week–to raise awareness about “… the lack of access to safe, clean water for nearly 900 million children and adults across the globe.”
Who dreams up these campaigns? We give up.
Clooney in Africa
February 25, 2011 By 8 Comments
The media buzz (including blogging, tumbling and retweeting, as well as Facebooking) around Newsweek magazine’s ridiculous cover story of film actor George Clooney (title: “On the ground with a new kind of statesman”) highlight the titilating; i.e. Clooney’s sexual conquests of “way too many chicks”). Too bad, since the piece is really about how Clooney has the access and time to jet off to be a presence in nations that may not need him.
In January alone, he’s balanced the rigours surrounding the Academy Awards, hanging out on Mexican beaches with his Italian model/actress-of-the-moment, and giving face-time to South Sudanese. There he is in Sudan (above), method acting Marlow by the river of his destiny.
Madonna: International Human Rights Defender
June 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
“The Power of Madonna! Malawi Releases Gay Couple After Madge Protests!”
“Madonna saves gay couple in Malawi.”
“Jailed Malawian Gay Couple Released After Madonna Petitions.”
“A Madonna Miracle? Malawi Releases Gay Couple After Material One Protests.”
Apparently, while we were sleeping, Madonna became the new UN Secretary General.
The Celebrity Scramble for Africa
April 8, 2010 By 4 Comments
Mother Jones magazine has an interactive map up which divides up the African continent by which celebrity claims which country.
The map was compiled by Dave Gilson, a senior editor at Mother Jones.
Some highlights: Clay Aiken claims Somalia, Sudan is a clash of egos (George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Mia Farrow and Dave Eggers), Angola belongs to Alyssa Milano and the late Lady Diana, Russell Simmons and Kim Kardasian (Botswana) and Matt Damon (Zimbabwe).
Oh, and according to Madonna’s publicist: “She’s focusing on Malawi. South Africa is Oprah’s territory.”
It also comes with a timeline tracing celebrity involvement in humanitarian causes since 1984 when Bob Geldof first got British pop artists together to perform a song for the starving Ethiopians.
– Sean Jacobs
Something About Clean Water
February 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
A group of celebrities (among them Jessica Biel, Lupe Fiasco and Santigold) decided to climb to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise awareness about the global clean water crisis. Okay, so they’re a group of B-List celebrities, but the idea sounds good. They finished the climb last month. The idea was simple: The celebrities get media attention and in turn the fickle mainstream media talks and write about the water crisis. Right?
Except as, Leah Lamb writes at Current TV, in the videos they post online we hear a lot about the state of their bowels and knees without once mentioning water issues.
Watch for yourself.
