Live 8

I’ve got a backlog of posts to put up here, but I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the whole Live 8 thing.

It’s a nice idea that with a concerted effort and focus from the world’s well-off that we could actually do something to “eliminate” poverty. But after the warm-fuzziness of such notions wears off, what exactly do we mean by it? Do we have to come up with some international standard that defines poverty? Because there’s certainly a big difference between a low-income family in Canada that is considered to be living in poverty (say, by Statistics Canada) and some of the African families spotlighted this weekend. So as a nation, are we willing to say to our less well-off citizens that they should just suck it up while we send aid to the “real” poor and desperate?

In any case, it’s going to be that “haves” that decide what gets doled out to the “have-nots”. How much are people really prepared to part with, because such a monumental undertaking doesn’t happen for free — will they give up part of their share of the pie? What happens if we define an acceptable standard of living and find we don’t have the resources to attain it for 6+ billion people?

Anyway, here are some highlights from the media. In the irony category, we have this (link):

By end of day, irate food vendors outside the gates were reporting huge losses and hundreds of hotdogs and buns had to be thrown away. The vendors say the losses were because of the numerous vendors who operated without permits.

Once we have that poverty thing taken care of, we’ll tackle educational standards and media awareness (link):

Marty Gradwell from Whitby, Ont., said he came to the Canadian gig “to rock out and enjoy the start of a warm summer.”

Asked what prompted the worldwide music extravaganza, he could only venture a guess.

“For AIDS in Afghanistan, is it?”

May Marty be forever Google-y associated with his firm grasp of the world around him.