That Was The Year That Was
A highly underwhelming selection for "Persons Of The Year" over at Time. Apparently, it was Good Samaritans who impressed the magazine most--Bill and Melinda Gates and Bono make the cover.
2005 wasn't particularly notable for personal charity, so they pretty much threw the award away this year. I guess this was just some sort of placeholder choice when Time couldn't figure out who should really get it (or didn't want to give it to Purple Fingers).
And even then, what dumb choices! In fact, Bill and Bono aren't really famous for charity. They both made it to the top in another field--that's where they deserve any reward--and have been able to parlay that into a less interesting and probably less important charitable endeavor. (Is it even charity in Bono's case? Getting rich countries to forgive poor countries' debts--is that charity or dubious financial policy? While we figure that out, I do assume Bono will let poor people in free at his concerts.)
posted by LAGuy @ 1:14 AM
1 Comments:
There were tragedies, here and abroad, and Americans helped out. (I might add that America was strongly criticized early in the tsunami-relief game for not giving enough.) There was no sea change in charity--this was Time's trendmongering.
As to forgiving poor countries' debts, it may work, it may not, but there are always two dangers that must be considered. First, the poor country may learn the wrong lesson--that you don't really have to pay what you borrow. Worse, even if the poor country learns the right lesson, those with money might be considerably more wary of lending any in the future.
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