If you give a teacher a cookie...
I was baking chocolate chip cookies last night, and I decided to turn on the TV and ha)ve a little background noise. Unfortunately I got suckered in to, of all things, Diane Sawyer interviewing Brad Pitt. Now, he's not my favorite. In fact, while I love his shiny shirt in Ocean's 12, he doesn't really do much for me. I have other actors I like better, but when you throw an interview with Bono in there, I'm totally hooked. (They played dirty though, by playing what may be my all time favorite U2 tune, One).
Anyway, refreshingly, try as Diane might, good ole Brad was determined to keep the interview about more important things than his recently broken marriage. He lobbied heavily for his recent cause, an organization called the One foundation, or something similar. (See site for more info: http://www.one.org). The whole point that Brad was attempting to make, through shot after shot of some of the worst living situations in the world, is that with a relatively small amount of money and influence, we could drastically change the way they live, their life expectancies, and their ability to survive. And so he asks us to petition President Bush to support his cause.
Good work Brad! Give them clean drinking water, education and medicine. I'm all for any cause that makes life better for people, and makes the world healthier and safer for all of us. But hold up a minute... have you been out of your fancy neighborhood in the US lately? Did you know that there are Americans who don't have food, or access to medicine? Have you seen the affects of disease and violence in our own country? Okay, maybe it doesn't look as dramatic. You don't have hoardes of little kids chasing you through the bad inner city neighborhoods, or even suburban ones. So lets think about what we want to ask Bush for. How about national healthcare for the people in our own country as well. How about making sure kids here have enough to eat too? Why does it have to be foreign or exotic for us to feel like we need to help?
Okay, down off my soapbox now... Please feel free to comment!
Anyway, refreshingly, try as Diane might, good ole Brad was determined to keep the interview about more important things than his recently broken marriage. He lobbied heavily for his recent cause, an organization called the One foundation, or something similar. (See site for more info: http://www.one.org). The whole point that Brad was attempting to make, through shot after shot of some of the worst living situations in the world, is that with a relatively small amount of money and influence, we could drastically change the way they live, their life expectancies, and their ability to survive. And so he asks us to petition President Bush to support his cause.
Good work Brad! Give them clean drinking water, education and medicine. I'm all for any cause that makes life better for people, and makes the world healthier and safer for all of us. But hold up a minute... have you been out of your fancy neighborhood in the US lately? Did you know that there are Americans who don't have food, or access to medicine? Have you seen the affects of disease and violence in our own country? Okay, maybe it doesn't look as dramatic. You don't have hoardes of little kids chasing you through the bad inner city neighborhoods, or even suburban ones. So lets think about what we want to ask Bush for. How about national healthcare for the people in our own country as well. How about making sure kids here have enough to eat too? Why does it have to be foreign or exotic for us to feel like we need to help?
Okay, down off my soapbox now... Please feel free to comment!
posted by Maren @ 7:36 PM
2 Comments:
At 3:52 AM,
Laurel said…
Yeah, getting to know people from a lot of countries which offer little or no higher education (such as Eastern Europe some parts of Asia, and Africa) has been an eye-opener. There are a small amount of people in this world who live a luxurious lifestyle, whereas the rest have struggles which would be unbelievable to most.
I'm not sure Brad Pitt is the perfect advocate for simple living and foreign aid, but it's good that some stars have a conscience.
At 3:06 AM,
Annelise said…
You go, Maren! I agree with you...especially these days. The United States needs a lot of financial support in those areas, too, and any money America has seems to be thrown towards other parts of the world, which creates a lot of controversy among Americans and foreigners. I have to admit, it's a lot different feeling being an American in Europe than it was 5 years ago.
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