persons of the year?

"For being shrewd about doing good, for rewiring politics and re-engineering justice, for making mercy smarter and hope strategic and then daring the rest of us to follow, Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono are Time's Persons of the Year."

i am not clear as to how i feel about this situation. on the one hand, i have adored bono for years. i like his music and i like his positivity, (for lack of a better word.) i also like my pc. i was pried away from my mac by lower prices, the business world and compatibility issues but i have adapted and i enjoy the modern conveniences and nuances of the information age.

on the other hand, i do not care for the wealthy class and clearly, these two cats are as wealthy as it gets. time calls the three of them, (melinda gates, bill's wife, being included,) "good samaritans." this is the news magazine passing judgment, (and it may be correct.)

still, just the other day i saw something on tv while watching a football game about how much cash the nfl and its partners have donated in charity this year and i was disgusted, completely and thoroughly disgusted.

i am sick of corporations lauding themselves for their charitable donations. i don't care if it is microsoft or general motors or the nba.

i don't give money to charity and i am not apologizing for it. i barely get by as it is. i would love to give money to charities i deem worthy of a donation but as it is, corporations are constantly trying to gouge me to increase their own profit margins and pad their coffers.

fuck them. fuck the corporation. it is time for us to get a grip on these institutions used to hide small, evil men.

when i hear about the massive donation this or that corporation made to some charity or another, (likely another entity not to be trusted,) i imagine the profit margin that allows for such a gift. it is the same with marketing campaigns.

marketing costs money so when i see a company spending a lot of marketing dollars, it pisses me off. imagine that profit margin. imagine how much they are over-charging you for their product. fuckin' creeps. (at least bono and u2's only royalty for their ipod commercials was in exposure and to mac's credit, they did not pay a whopping amount of cash to the artist.)

most people i associate with cannot go to a ball game, (nba, nfl, and the mlb, specifically, with the nhl and mls not far behind,) because they are priced out of the market. (forget season tickets.) i rely on gifts from the corporation to go to games.

i love to see a game and will enjoy most sports but i cannot afford to purchase my own tickets. my company has season tickets for the dodgers and i usually get those four seats 2-3 times per year. (the people i invite received the gift from the corporation just like i did.) i have relatives who often kick me down tickets to go see games that are paid for by their corporations.

i would like to buy myself a ticket to go see a game but by and large, i can't afford it. from all this i deduce the profit margins of corporations are too high.

so is bill (and melinda,) gates the good samaritan or the richest man in the world and are these mutually exclusive clubs? he got that rich by having a healthy profit margin, even though i love my yahoo music engine i listen to on my pc with windows xp. he has certainly spent a lot of money in advertising, (and paid the stones at least a couple of times.)

is there a rationale that suggests he needed to spend the advertising dollars to crush his competitors so he could be in the position to be the good samaritan? would the same sort of rationale exist for the profit margin? in order to grow the business, does the corporation have to behave in the ways we have come to expect, (i.e. high profit margins, large advertising budgets...)?

surely u2 and bono could have behaved more altruistically by demanding smaller profit margins for their records. but how reasonable is that? i think it is fair and reasonable to want to get to a place where you do not have to worry about money, or, that is, to worry about paying bills. I don't begrudge anyone who wants to work as hard as the guys in u2 do for making more money than me.

i like that u2/bono started www.one.org. it gives the individual both a chance to give to charity and a chance to "act locally," (as they say.) further, i trust this particular charity more than i do others because of the people involved. his work with data and jubilee 2000, (to say nothing of the live aid famine relief efforts,) is wonderful stuff. bono is truly a good samaritan. further, he works so hard, that is, his time is in such high demand, i admire his dedication.

bono has become the stuart smalley of crusading rock stars. he seems to lack the ability to offend. and i think back to when he was the young, angry rock star and i realize his anger was always against something everyone could agree with him on, (except perhaps a handful of north irish, protestant, terrorists.) i would this aspect of him were different, but then, he would not be bono.

it pains me he does not rage against agents of injustice, especially gven his position. but then, woulld he be in his position if he did? (that is a rhetorical question. no. he would not.)

i wish bono's reaction was not this big "i am so humbled," thing. it seems faux to me, which is oddly often other's complaint about him and something i am apt to defend him on usually. but this time, it is as if he is claiming to be unaware of who he is and what he does, as if there are a host of others in the world who are as effectively doing good in so many areas. then again, he has been so effective at controlling his image, i feel like i'm demanding perfection by being even this slightest bit critical.

so time's criteria for person of the year is based on who has affected the world most in that year. i remember the year it was the ayatollah khomeini, which reminds me the person is not expected to be admirable. w/ that in mind, i come full circle and can agree that time has made reasonable choices. cheers to these three and time's momentary diversion.