“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,” announces TIME on its Web site today.
The story about Bill and Melinda Gates is “From Riches to Rags.”
The story about Bono is “The Constant Charmer.”
And there’s a conversation with the three. A snippet:
TIME When you first had Bono over for dinner, in 2002, were you aware of his celebrity or nervous about it?
MELINDA GATES: We’d certainly never had a rock star to the house before, but the whole reason we got together is because we have this joint cause. [To Bono] I have to be honest, we kind of came a lot later to your music than other people.
BONO: It was fresh not to be seen as a celebrity but as a piece in the puzzle of how we communicate the jeopardy of all those lives—and the opportunity of helping if we can just agree on something. It was nice not to be asked how the Achtung! Baby sessions went in Berlin.
M.G.: The first U2 concert we went to was in Seattle quite a bit later, and when you came out onstage, our reaction was quite different from your other fans’. It was more like “Oh, my gosh, does he know that all these people are here watching him? Oh, I hope he’s O.K.”
TIME Are you bigger music fans now?
BILL GATES: I’ve always been a music fan. Paul [Allen, Microsoft’s co-founder] played guitar and made sure I knew all the Jimi Hendrix songs. He’s a real music nut. Not many people create a music museum. [Allen founded Seattle’s Experience Music Project.]
B.: You couldn’t not listen to music if Paul Allen was your partner. So Jimi Hendrix helped form [slipping into a monster-movie voice] “the Brain of Bill!”
B.G.: Paul would always say, “Are you experienced?” And it would mean different things at different times.
B.: We can ask Melinda about that. … (Read all.)
P.S. There’s also a photo essay: “In The Name of Love,” “U2’s lead singer made debt relief the thing to do.”
I love Time‘s choice. It’s about giving. I could show attitude about some of the giving or unintended consequences, but I’m not in the mood to do that. I’m just gratified that Time decided to feature people who think about and try to do good. God knows this world needs all the constructive, outward-directed thinking and doing that we can all muster. (More at CNN.com.)
However, if you must have snark, go straight to Michelle Malkin, who says, “TIME’S LAME CHOICES — Okay. I don’t question that the rock star and the world’s biggest philanthropists are doing good for the world. (Interesting, isn’t it, that Bill Gates didn’t deserve the honor when he was actually creating something, but only earns Time magazine’s highest praise when he’s giving his money away. …”
I Agree!!!
These folks need props, not for themselves, but for the quality of the staffs that they have assembled to do their work.
And Ted Turner deserves props for shaming Bill Gates into philanthropy with Turner’s gift to the United Nations.
Was it Ted Turner that turned BG ijto a giver? We, at my household, had suspected that MG had the hand in it
Melinda has been the best thing that’s every happen to Bill.
I must be the worst cynic in the world 🙁
But giving Bono BG and MG too much credit for philantropy somehow seems if not wrong.. at least , not right. I don’t feel that we should be in the situation where mega rich people can get their “feel-good” kicks from helping the needy. If they were all that hot and all that smart they’d figure out ways to funnel that massive wealth and prestige into making it more possible for the average person to give. Super powerful People like Bono and Bill Gates should not exist.
Yes.. they ARE giving and helping goose the “powers that be” into helping as well. It needs to be done.
That’s why I feel like such a stick in the mud for my trepidation. However, I just can’t shake it. Give anyone too much power (money, influence, fame, whatever) and my knee jerk reaction is to distrust them 🙁
and money that Bono and the Gates have donated over a long period of time to help the least of us, I don’t believe we’re talking “feel good kicks”. Feel good kicks is dropping coins when the Salvation Army rings the bell, or making a publicy appearance on a telethon.
The average people already give, look at the stats of charitable giving to income. It’s the wealthy and the super wealthy and the obscenely wealthy who feel no compunction to give at all.
In addition to the $30 billion that the Gates have donated for AIDs research, public health and education, Bill Gates spoken against the tax cuts. Bono continues to bring worldwide attention to debt relieve and global poverty. While personally I am no fan of Bill Gates or Microsoft, I say if the Bill Gates, Ted Turners, Oprah Winfreys, and Bonos of this world can show that it is not only our ability, but our duty to help the least of us, I say more power to ’em. At a time where our government is selling every man for himself, need all the high profile examples of philanthropy that we can get.
Wonderfully said, Debra. What did Dennis Kol… I can’t spell his last name … use all his riches for? Shower curtains, etc.
An ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David with a “vodka-spewing penis”.
Classy folk, eh?
Yeah, your probably right. Like I said , though, it’s just my knee jerk reaction 🙂 ..and it does need to be done. However, i just hate the idea that people like Gate’s and Bono are needed. That’s the real complaint.
They are necessary. But, if we lived in a fair world they wouldn’t exist.
Some get them by becoming devotees of the corporate lackey politicians, others get it by being thankful that a few rich people are permitted to drop selected drops into selected buckets.
Under the circumstances, and with the prognosis being what it is, I cannot begrudge them anything that makes them feel good any more than I would begrudge a terminal cancer patient morphine.
You are not a cynic, you are just a realist.
Some pundits question effectiveness of good intentions. So the natural question is, how effective were Bono and the Gates with their philantrophy? For example, what did Bono achieve with his buddying and complimenting Bush? Is it another example when the annual name givers award inefficiency?
So I am snarky about this choice too. Ironically, right this year the Gates were dethroned as the top philanthropist.
It is not that I am all sceptical about good intentions. In fact, I see it as brainwashing when ideologists say that humans cannot be genuinely good by their nature, expect perhaps people like Mother Theresa, rich philanthropists or smiling evangelists. It is such a biggotry of low expectations to tell a regular person that he is not rich or famous enough to be genuinely good.
businesses large enough to start creating some philanthopists that can pull us out of 70 years of New Deal Depression.
The convicted Abusive Monopolist is lauded for giving away some of his ill-gotten gains.
Never liked U2 all that much, never hated them, either, don’t give a dam about Bono. U2 had the loudest concert I’ve ever heard miles from Autzen Stadium.
The 2001 installation of the Shrub regime’s attitude was signaled unequivocally by John Ashcroft’s appointment as Attorney General with an immediate cave-in on a won case by Reno’s Justice Department against Microsoft. It’s the first defining moment of these clowns, and in this story it’s being ignored because the convicted Abusive Monopolist chose to give up some of his ill-gotten gains to well deserving charities.
So what do Windows computer users get in return? An operating system so flawed as to allow your computer to be owned by whomever wrote the latest trojan/virus to be clicked on by whatever random innocents do something foolish like surf the internet.
And a bought and paid for administration in Washington D.C. Pity Microsoft had so much money.
Perhaps things have improved since Windows 3.1. I don’t know firsthand.
How disappointing these comments are to me. I guess some some the glass half empty and some see the glass half full. I’m not sure about the Gates contibution to society woes other than the money but I am not going to sneeze at anyone that gives 30 million to good causes such as AIDS research,
As far as Bono is concerned the man is a true humanitarian. He WALKS the talk not just writes the check. He has founded two foundations One.org and DATA to make Africa a better place. He is fully aware of all the monies that were siphened off by the corrupt governments of Africa in the 90s. Now he is making sure the monies get into the right hands. He has traveled to Frica several times and not just for photo ops.
Again, I applaud anyone that gives of themselves or financially whether it is a buck in the can for the Salvation Army or millions to help the starving in Africa.