cold war unicorns and bono

Ali has only just returned to our dubious shores and much to my extreme pleasure she came back with some great gifts for me and my boyfriend.
Firstly, as you can see she returned with these awesome cold war unicorns. Brilliant!
But more significantly, to my boyfriend's and my utter amazement, she bought us an Apple iPod Shuffle each. And not only that but, because they are the same colour, she had our names printed on the back of them so we don't get them confused.
Perhaps more interestingly, Apple claims they donate some money to 'the Global Fund,' to fight AIDS in Africa.' They don't say how much they donate and the (PRODUCT)RED™ campaign is dodgy for several reasons.
And here they are:

2) According to this article, orignially published by the Independent Online (who is also a partner of Product Red), as of January 2006, less than 1% of the Global Fund's revenue was received by big businesses (although the initiative was launched at the same time as that article was published). Having said that, none of the businesses affiliated with Product Red have divulged to their loyal consumers the percentage of profits they donate to the Global Fund. Why not? Surely they would want to show off. Well, it turns out, Product Red has spent more moolah on advertising than they have generated raising revenue and thus fighting AIDS. They managed to raise a measly $18million as of March 2007. Oops. So who's benefited here? Big business. Who would've thunk it?

"Philanthropy is like hippy music, holding hands. Red is more like punk rock, hip-hop; this should feel like hard commerce." He added: "People see a world out of whack. They see the greatest health crisis in 600 years and they want to do the right thing, but they're not sure what that is. Red is about doing what you enjoy and doing good at the same time."
What? So moral actions these days come down to commerce alone, which he also adds is sexy. Right-o, Sir Bono. Maybe for you.
A backlash to Product Red is the Buy Less Crap site, which encourages punters to actively donate to the Global Fund rather than more or less passively consume.
Fuck I hate Bono!
But having said all of that, if it's the difference between having an iPod that I didn't have to shell out a single cent for and not having one, I'll take the Product Red iPod any day. Does this make me a hypocrite? No, no it doesn't.
Thanks a heap, Ali!
now playing (in my iPod): the fall - powderkex
Labels: 'philanthropy', apple, evil bono, unicorns
1 Comments:
I read in the paper last week that Bono was 'distressed' and was 'having trouble sleeping at night' because of the situation in Burma.
Poor guy! How he must be suffering. We spend so much time feeling sorry for those selfish media-hogging monks that we forget to consider what Bono must be going through.
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