You know we give Bono a lot of grief on this site, but in this commercial for ESPN’s coverage of the 2010 World Cup–bar a few disagreements here and there–he is on point. Did I just say that. Just in this case of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXlBSlyU8xY

* BTW, ESPN has put a lot of money into promoting the World Cup, so it is also worth checking out the short “32 Teams, 1 Dream” videos they made and presented by Beninous actor Djimon Hounsou. I particularly like the ones for the six African qualifiers: South Africa, Cameroon, NigeriaCote d’Ivoire (I know the myth of Drogbacite continues) Ghana and Algeria.  What is striking about some of the team profiles are how political, or left progressive, they seem to be: Take the Algeria one where Hounsou brings up the Algerian war of independence and in the Honduras video where whoever wrote the script and produced it, basically condemns the coup against the democratically elected president.

Further Reading

Slow death by food

Illegal gold mining is poisoning Ghana’s soil and rivers, seeping into its crops and seafood, and turning the national food system into a long-term public health crisis.

A sick health system

The suspension of three doctors following the death of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s son has renewed scrutiny of a health-care system plagued by impunity, underfunding, and a mass exodus of medical professionals.

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.