November 14, 2004

• Agreed, sort of. Was the money actually donated? Was it here or on Metafilter that there was a huge argument-thread about this video? MeFi search sucks on all levels.... This video cost many many thousands to make and the talented folks who did the graphics will get more work because of it. All to "anti-promote" a mediocre song even by Sarah's standards. And they didn't factor in the cost of that gorgeous guitar she's playing (several thousands I'm sure ;). And there's a baby grand piano to her left: where the piano player? Sleeping in, I bet... that would have been a nice touch - to have him/her there with their back to the camera - given that I just got paid $1000 for three hours of studio work. Some musicians are grossly overpaid. World on fire indeed, but at least write a good song about it. And then please make a Victoria's Secret commerical...
• Are there any direct links? My QT hasn't been working as a plug in lately. actually, any advice on how to fix that (Opera browser) would be very welcome - I've reinstalled Qt twice now, and am just deeply annoyed.)
• Alas no. It's embedded and I'm sure the gesture relies on the hit count.
• Direct link to movie file
• You pirate you ;-)
• ok, this is specious at best...200 bucks for a pa in la? most are lucky to make 75 bucks for an 18 hr day...plus, undoubtledy they're using current exchange rates for most or these figure...a 2cent orange in africa is probably not that much different than a 50cent one here...c'mon sarah...why dont you stop whining and actually do something like u2
• if the world were really on fire sarah mclachan would escape in an expensive and extremely sophisticated space ship
• the fuel for the space ship is photogenic poor people
• Ahhhh....knee-jerk cynicism. Heaven help us should we ever run out, lest we lose our cherished ability to immediately identify cool people.
• Bollocks.
• When I knew her, she was less pretentious than most people I've met then or since. And as for the 'photogenic poor people', those images where provided by various aid agencies. The bastards.
• She may well be a very genuine person, and she's certainly a fine musician. Personally, while I respect the general desire to change human conditions for the better, I'm sceptical (I would prefer the term sceptical, but cynical is probably accurate too) of this sort of easy answer. You can't just throw money at people or nations and expect things to get fixed, even if the money is intended for specific and noble ends. Billions of dollars which would have helped rebuild or build infrastructure in Iraq have been straight-up "lost", for example, since the war there began. Moneyjane, when did you have occasion to meet her?
• She came over to Vancouver with a whole posse from Halifax, and a bunch of them ended up living at the Red House on 12th Ave. I lived at the Red House after she'd moved out, and was going out with a guy who'd produced an album for The October Game which was her Halifax band. Anyways, when she started touring Solace, we'd take care of her cats when her roommate was also away and couldn't do it. So what is the answer? Not giving $150,000? I highly doubt Sarah thinks that money is going to "fix" anything, but I imagine she does think that there are better things to do with it than make a standard music video. Which is the point. I've got an idea people think her music's too soft and that she's too 'white' to be able to be allowed to give away her $150,000 without being patronized. Geez...doesn't having South Asian family bump her cred any?
• Nobody in the entertainment biz has 'cred'.
• What I don't understand is, are people suggesting it would be better to not donate the money because it's not an impressive enough impact? What would you say to an average person who manages to scratch together a hundred dollars every month to donate? I doubt the response would be so acidic.
• No, the editting of the images was excellent, the images powerful. I've seen too many of those Saturday morning starving children ads that they have immured me, but this did hit me. I think it was the way the images were happy as well as sad - The image of starving children is too predicable - dancing children isn't. The single mother grabbed me, because she was an individual. I feel very cynical myself saying this, but it's more as a message to aid agencies trying to raise awareness/money - I think hope would bring in more money than despair. The viewer feels overwhelmed by the need of the world - but if they are told this little bit really will make a difference, than it is easier to feel like you have a choice, some agency. sexyrobot - Yes, there are issues of exchange rate, or rather, what are called "real wages" - the relationship of wages to cost. Thus, a two cent orange may be worth something like 50 cents in North America. However, her son's school fees are $200. That would mean $5,000 school fees, for a state school. How many in developed countries have to pay that kind of money for basic state schooling?
• wo mu si-- I don't know about anyone else, but I wasn't saying that. I don't think giving a few hundred every month is worse than giving nothing at all, but it probably wouldn't make a big difference; it's easy to be thus seduced into thinking you've done all you reasonably could, too, and counting yourself then among the righteous, which I would say is a deleterious way of behaving. moneyjane-- Charity is a classically lauded act and value, but sometimes I think it tends to come into the world more as a palliative measure than anything else. People who are uneducated and hungry don't just need some large quantity of grains or a new generator (though they clearly need many things including food), they need infrastructure, education, and probably profound governmental change, things which are more difficult by far to give through charity but likewise more valuable. Honestly, I think that's the answer, and it's difficult and complicated. Many nations whose citizens are thus deprived tend to be exceedingly corrupt, and charity is often diverted into the coffers of people like the late Yasser Arafat. I think what could be considered the Marxian take on this might be the correct one: the system has to change before anything meaningful can happen.
• Nobody in the entertainment biz has 'cred'. Oh. Of course. Stupid entertainment people with lots of money, giving it away. Dear African Dudes, Here is my $50. As I am a regular joe, I know that not only will my $50 buy more food and farm stock than some lousy entertainer's $150,000, but that you will be wicked proud of me for giving it to you because it shows that you and me, we're like the same, and stuff, both being, like regular people. Your first world homie, Jason
• clockzero "...they need infrastructure, education, and probably profound governmental change, things which are more difficult by far to give through charity but likewise more valuable. I don't think Sarah Maclachlan's able to run for governmental office in other countries, but I agree she should really lay off helping to feed and educate people until she's actually willing to put in a real effort.
• moneyjane- I don't think Sarah McLachlan is the one who should be running for office in other countries anyway. I have respect for her efforts, but I'm simply not convinced that the sort of charity she's advocating will do much more than help the relatively well-off feel better about themselves. I mean, how is this money going to get to the people who need it? It will have to go through intermediary agencies which may or may not have the best interests of the needy at heart. Maybe it will just be stolen by bandits the nation cannot or will not control. Maybe it will be stolen by the government itself. This would not be her fault; she did not make the world, and she is obviously trying to make it better. I think the people featured in those clips deserve real effort.
• I have respect for her efforts, but I'm simply not convinced that the sort of charity she's advocating will do much more than help the relatively well-off feel better about themselves. Good to know. Tell these kids about it;
• I mean, c'mon; the world's going to shit in a shopping cart - is snidely picking at the efforts of those who, through circumstance are able to help others more than you can really saying anything about third world developmental strategy? Or is it more about thinking rich people suck because well, they just do. Or something. Jesus H. Another 'agree to disagree' area for me.
• MJ- I admit the first thing I said was snide, but that's only because it was a joke. As for the child soldiers: how long will they receive such support? A month? A year? The rest of their lives? There is no context or detail for exactly what will be done for, or to, these children. From War Child's website: "Change starts with you!" No, it doesn't. You'd have to be incredibly arrogant to think that the fate of people you don't know who live thousands of miles away is actually dependent on you holding meetings about social justice with the other bourgeois messiahs in your neighborhood/dorm. Which is not to say that grass-roots social justice initiatives which take place on the other side of the world can't help, but I don't think they're the first step. And would that real effort be something you're doing? No. I never claimed it was. Or is it more about thinking rich people suck because well, they just do. Or something. I don't have a problem with rich people. More from WC: "By learning about these issues you move one step closer to a world that is more understanding, compassionate and that will perhaps one-day be conflict free ." Heaven forfend. There was a page, http://www.warchild.ca/projects_detail.asp?ID=17, on their website which described how they gave the Burmese refugees videography training. These are people who are not even living in their own country; I am not so confidant they have access to clean water, let alone video editing equipment. Compare this approach to an appraisal by the Asia WSJ: http://www.burmafund.org/Pathfinders/Research_Library/Humanitarian%20Crisis,%20Aid%20and%20Governance.htm These people need a new government, not camcorders and introductory courses in information management.
• Way to stand up, moneyjane. (You're right.)
• While we're not immediately able to give "these people" a new, honest government or peace or clean water or adequate health care or any of the other requisites of a life approaching our own level of luxury and privilege, we can at least try. Sarah McLachlan's effort is commendable, as is any act of charity. Sure, every last nickel may not make it to those who are the intended recipients. The motives for charitable contributions may not always be entirely atruistic but, goddammit, you can't just sit back and cynically carp at someone who makes an honest effort. And what MJ said, every word of it.
• These people need a new government, not camcorders and introductory courses in information management. Unless, of course, giving those camcorders and instructions on how to use them helps to bring about that new government. It's about raising awareness. It's about remembering when you didn't want to eat your lima beans and your mother said "children are starving in asia," and you said "fine, send them the lima beans," and then remembering that you can now send those previously abstract children lima beans, among other things.
• Look, I am as cynical, if not more so than most, but cynicism without appreciation for when someone is actually trying to do something helpful is just a big bucket of wank. It's saying, "look, I know the world is really shitty for a lot people in Africa, and is actually pretty fucked-up for all people in so many ways, so the safest way to think about it is that really, I can't do anything, I can't help anybody, and hearing about them makes me feel shitty because it's proof that life sucks, and will continue to suck until I finally drop dead. So I feel justified in attacking others who are helping because helping means it isn't going to go away, that I'm going to keep on hearing about it, and it depresses the shit out of me." No shit. Understood. I think it happens to us all. But it's an emotional reaction, not a logical one. Yes. Life blows. Always has, always will, in the larger sense. But you suck it up and do the best you can; or, at the very least let others do the best they can without trying to hijack their altruism to protect your own comfortable hopelessness.
• but, goddammit, you can't just sit back and cynically carp at someone who makes an honest effort. I don't take issue with Ms. McLachlan herself, but rather with what happens to the money and its intended beneficiaries after it is raised and distributed. If you would rather not think critically about how help is actually implemented in the real world, go right ahead. I think people who are needy deserve to have any plans for their benefit carefully and sensibly considered. Perhaps you do not agree. I don't think that people should not try at all to do charitable things. I was merely trying to bring the actual methods of charitable contribution up for debate. "Unless, of course, giving those camcorders and instructions on how to use them helps to bring about that new government. It's about raising awareness." I don't think shooting amateur films is going to effect any change, but only because I can't imagine how that would work. Raising awareness? Of what? In whom? I'm sure the UN, for example, already knows what's going on in Burma. MJ- Thank you for trying to put yourself in my shoes. I don't see how I was being illogical or alogical, though, even if I was reacting emotionally. I do appreciate the efforts and motivations of people like Sarah McLachlan, who perhaps care very deeply about the world and its inhabitants, but I am not able to turn off the part of my mind which analyses things simply because I admire someone's intent. I would not stand in the way of anyone who wanted to make the world a better place.
• It's always much easier to find a reason not to do something than it is to find a way to do it properly. I guess I was just bitching about cynicism in general, a trait that I have, and that I'm not fond of, much like all my other bad habits. So, a question; you've got a few bucks to spare, and/or you have some time/skills to volunteer. How can they best be put to use?
• That's true, although there are some things which are arguably only worth doing correctly. This may or may not be one of them.
• "if the world were really on fire sarah mclachan would escape in an expensive and extremely sophisticated space ship" Damn that is funny. You should have stopped right there, clockzero.
• Perhaps.
• here's a dollar clockzero, go start an aid agency that will be 100% effective, because obviously no one can do it better than you, since you seem to know how everyone else is doing it wrong. Oh... what's that? You're aren't going to? You are perhaps, talking out of your ass?
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• concrete forest- If I pointed out to you that the pants you were wearing had a rip in the back, would you demand that I either sow you a pair which would never rip or shut up about it? I'M not going to start an aid agency, and I never claimed that I personally knew how to run one in such a way that would be optimal. I don't feel obliged to be capable of stepping in in any situation which I think is not ideal, and for you to insinuate that I must be is just childish. You are perhaps, talking out of your ass? What exactly is that supposed to mean? Honestly, I'm puzzled.
• Coincidentally, today is National Philanthropy Day in Canada