Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ƒ/2.5
100 mm
1/500
1600
never seen that before.
U2 Unforgettable Fire was my first concert.
15 responses to “Bono without Glasses”
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Other gestures
"Since 2000, eight million more AIDS patients are getting antiretroviral drugs; eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa have cut their rates of death due to malaria by 75 percent, and the mortality rate for kids under five has fallen by 2.65 million per year—that’s 7,256 lives saved every day."
“This fantastic news didn’t happen by itself. It was fought for, it was campaigned for, it was innovated for. And this great news gives birth to even more great news. The number of people living on less than $1.25 per day has declined from 43 percent in 1990, to 33 percent in 2000, to 21 percent in 2010. If you live on less than $1.25 a day, if you live in that kind of poverty, this is not just data. This is everything.” If those trends continue, "2028 will see 0% of the population living in extreme poverty."
“The opportunity is real, but so is the jeopardy. We can’t get this done until we accept that we can get this done,” says Bono. “Inertia is how we screw this up. Momentum is how we bend the arc of history down towards zero.”
“Exit the rockstar, enter the evidence-based activist, the factivist,”
His 2013 TED talk went online today.
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Kind of very "Bono" to ear about these numbers. Starts the day with more hope. Thanks.
denis
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Love Bono (love his axeman the Hedge even more), but could he not afford better eyework? His surgeon should be shot!
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j777 — merci, with Africa as a common subject…
After Bono’s talk, I had dinner with Jason Pontin who recently published an interview of Bono, with an interesting memento on Steve Jobs:
"He told me he would love to spend more time on philanthropy and would get to it one day. He wasn’t interested in half doing it, as is obvious with his personality. Still, Apple very quietly has contributed more than $50 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria through the sale of (RED) iPods, Nanos, etc. They are the biggest corporate donor."
"I think a large part of the reason Apple and Steve Jobs have beguiled so many is that they are a gigantic company that put greatness ahead of the bottom line, believing that great profitability would follow in the long term. Steve was an extremely tough deal maker, and if that was the only side you saw, I can imagine that a more fearsome profile would emerge. But the reason why I, and others who got a glimpse of him personally, were such believers was his clear thinking. Great ideas to me are like great melodies. They are instantly recognizable, memorable, and have some sort of inevitable arc. In the music world, it’s hard to imagine there being a better melody to “I want to hold your hand.” In the tech world, it’s hard to imagine there being any better form or function to a lot of Apple’s products. It’s as if they’ve always existed. It’s that kind of inevitability Steve could spot. With Jony Ive’s designs, with Avie Tevanian’s operating systems, etc. In amongst the noise, the yearning for that clear tone, or in Apple’s case, pure white."
That last line sure resonated with me. When I tried to write an epitaph on Jobs, it crystallized for me… "Jobs felt a visceral agitation from the visual noise of imperfection."
And the tragic loss of Jobs before he got to phase 2 of his life inspired my Google talk on philanthropy… I was struck by the poignant observation of a Google founder that he does not want to have to wait for phase 2… How can we integrate more "good" into modern corporate governance?….
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Actually, rudeness about his eyework aside, the other (less rude) comments above remind me that I saw him without glasses or shades, at a distance of about 3 feet, in 1981. I saw U2 in Geneva when I lived there, they had a car wreck on the motoway on the way to the show, arrived very late, and The Hedge very gamely played the first 4 or 5 numbers without any effects pedals as they were being dragged out of the backup vehicle that got them to the show.
They sounded GREAT without any chorus / flange / delay – just a guitar Strat turned up loud (a Strat IIRC), bitey and sharp, a bassist who could barely string 2 notes together, a thunderoulsy good drummer, and a hell of a great singer. 3 feet from me, in the prime of his youth in a rather fetching pair of leather trousers. Who’d have guessed he’d go global, eh? I’m surprised they didn’t vote him Pope yesterday …
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" The number of people living on less than $1.25 per day has declined from 43 percent in 1990, to 33 percent in 2000, to 21 percent in 2010. If you live on less than $1.25 a day, if you live in that kind of poverty, this is not just data. This is everything.” If those trends continue, "2028 will see 0% of the population living in extreme poverty.""
aka inflation, no? decline of the dollar……
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[http://www.flickr.com/photos/philatkin] — You mean the Edge not the Hedge… =)
Some more Bono:
“The tools that technology provides mean we know more and we understand more about previously-thought-unsolvable problems. With this data informing our course we can describe the kind of world we want to live in and then without airy-fairyness or wishful thinking go after it. It’s the greatest opportunity that has ever been offered any generation.
But to maximize the massive effect technology can have, you need a network of efforts, a system of interventions, supported by citizens who share social capital. That’s what drives substantial progress sustainably. There is no silver bullet to ending extreme poverty and disease, no magic technology. That takes commitment, a lifetime of it, plus resources, political will, and people standing up to demand it. Technology provides the means, however.
Nelson Mandela once demanded we be the “great generation” to beat extreme poverty, noting how we have the technology and resources to achieve this extraordinary vision. And we do. We could achieve it by 2030, maybe before. The digital revolution that we are living through, the rapid advances in health and agrotechnology—these things have become core weapons in responding to Mandela’s clarion call. They enable people to get on with it themselves, to fight their way out of the condition they find themselves in.
boosting farming productivity in Africa is twice as effective at reducing poverty as anything else.”
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Steve- What a great idea!
Poverty in Africa: malaria kills more than one million people worldwide each year: 70 percent children under the age of five, 90 percent of them in Africa. But more 300 to 500 million infections each year. Living in a malarial region means getting sick once or twice a year. People are tired and too weak to work. There is a link between malaria and poverty that is visible in Africa.
Fantastic point you mentioned: "boosting farming productivity in Africa is twice as effective at reducing poverty as anything else." People need education on farming and education on malaria prevention! -
> U2 Unforgettable Fire was my first concert.
And there was no better concert during which to do math homework! (I don’t recognize him without the shades.)
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No, I really do mean The Hedge – referencign Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, but there seems to be no online evidence of the footage! Bonio, The Hedge and their mate String from the Police …
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