{"id":2514,"date":"2007-06-12T10:16:25","date_gmt":"2007-06-12T16:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=2514"},"modified":"2012-05-15T16:47:41","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T22:47:41","slug":"fair-vanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/fair-vanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair Vanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a successful run as the guest editor of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/?p=1053\">The Independent<\/a> last year (thanks again to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/nanolog.blogspot.com\">Thomas<\/a><\/strong> for sending me a copy), <strong>Bono<\/strong> has taken the reigns of guest editor for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.u2.com\/news\/index.php?mode=full&#038;news_id=2133\">Vanity Fair<\/a> this month.<br \/>\nAccording to his &#8220;Letter from the Editor,&#8221; Bono did his best to rename the publication Fair Vanity, but gave up when a photographer(?) <strong>Grayden<\/strong> tried to rename his band, 2U.<br \/>\nThe issue has 20 different covers with various celebrities including <strong>Oprah<\/strong>, <strong>Muhammad Ali<\/strong>, <strong>Maya Angelou<\/strong>, <strong>Warren Buffett<\/strong>, <strong>George W. Bush<\/strong>, <strong>Don Cheadle<\/strong>, <strong>George Clooney<\/strong>, <strong>Bill and Melinda Gates<\/strong>, <strong>Djimon Hounsou<\/strong>, <strong>Iman<\/strong>, <strong>Jay-Z<\/strong>, <strong>Alicia Keys<\/strong>, <strong>Madonna<\/strong>, <strong>Barack Obama<\/strong>, <strong>Brad Pitt<\/strong>, <strong>Queen Rania of Jordan<\/strong>, <strong>Condoleezza Rice<\/strong>, <strong>Chris Rock<\/strong> and <strong>Desmond Tutu<\/strong>.<br \/>\nI&#8217;ll see if I can track some of them down. Or you can order copies straight from Amazon.com:<br \/>\n<iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=malesurvival&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=B000QJLTM8&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=malesurvival&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=B000QJLTLY&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?t=malesurvival&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;asins=B000QRIG3A&#038;fc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;lt1=_blank&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;bc1=000000&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;f=ifr\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the <span class=\"removed_link\" title=\"http:\/\/media.u2.com\/pdf\/bono_vanity%20fair_0607.pdf\">full letter<\/span>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nLet me explain what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing here, and there.<br \/>\nBy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean my day job as singer with Irish postpunk combo U2.<br \/>\nBy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I mean data\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe organization which campaigns on debt, aids, and trade in Africa.<br \/>\nBy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I mean the One Campaign in America\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich is becoming like the National Rifle Association in its firepower, but acts in the interests of the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poor.<br \/>\nBy \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I mean (Product) Red\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich piggybacks the excitement and energy of the commercial world to buy lifesaving aids drugs for Africans who cannot afford them.<br \/>\nAnd by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I mean Edun\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe missus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clothing line that wants to inject some dignity through doing business with the continent where every street corner boasts an entrepreneur.<br \/>\nThese all relate to the same place and the same idea: that Africa is the proving ground for whether or not we really believe in equality.<br \/>\nFor example, we are witnessing a general desire for and drift toward action on climate change, a very positive thing. But imagine<br \/>\nfor a moment that 10 million children were going to lose their lives next year due to the Earth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s overheating. A state of emergency<br \/>\nwould be declared, and you would be reading about little else.<br \/>\nWell, next year, more than 10 million children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lives will be lost unnecessarily to extreme poverty, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll hear very little about<br \/>\nit. Nearly half will be on the continent of Africa, where H.I.V.\/AIDS is killing teachers faster than you can train them and where you<br \/>\ncan witness entire villages in which the children are the parents.<br \/>\nAll over the world, countless children will die as a result of mosquito bites, dirty water, and diarrhea. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a natural catastrophe\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a completely avoidable one. Diarrhea may be inconvenient in our house, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a death sentence.<br \/>\nThis is happening at a time of great geopolitical unrest. The majority of people in the world no longer idolize Western ideals<br \/>\nof justice, freedom, and equality. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe we believe in them. I think the wider world needs to see a demonstration of<br \/>\nthose \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Western\u00e2\u20ac\u009d values, through pharmacology, agro-ecology, and technological help for those in extreme circumstances, in<br \/>\ntheir hour of need. These are dangerous times\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cheaper and smarter to make friends of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later. Ask the four-star general Colin Powell.<br \/>\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the context for what you could call a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153swarm-of-bees strategy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: ganging up on these problems from every side.<br \/>\ndata is an advocacy and policy operation based in Washington, D.C., London, and Berlin and targeting the G-8 capitals.<br \/>\nThe One Campaign to Make Poverty History (a member of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty) is an umbrella<br \/>\ngroup of American NGOs and activists from across the political spectrum who believe these issues are about justice, not charity.<br \/>\nNearly three million Americans so far have signed the One Declaration, pledging to help the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s poor. Students and<br \/>\nteachers, NGOs and C.E.O.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, punks and churchgoers \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 the only place that hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been active is the shopping mall.<br \/>\nSo myself and <strong>Bobby Shriver<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dchairman of data and a hero on the issue of debt cancellation, who sold an arcane economic issue to congressional members on both sides of the aisle\u00e2\u20ac\u201dstarted (Product) Red. So called because red is the color of emergencies\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe only way to describe the aids epidemic. We believed that to ignore the neon and creative force provided by the corporate world was to ignore the truth about where most of us live and work. A few years ago I was with the great <strong>Robert Rubin<\/strong>, former U.S. Treasury secretary under <strong>President Clinton<\/strong>. He said if we are serious about our stuff, we will have to improve on two fronts: (1) publicizing the scale of the problem and (2) showing that the problem can be solved. He added that, if we were serious about both, we would need the kind of marketing budget Nike or Gap has at its disposal.<br \/>\nHe was right. Without our corporate partners\u00e2\u20ac\u201dAmerican Express, Apple, Emporio Armani, Converse, Gap, and Motorola\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwe could never afford such bright neon, or the acres of bold billboarding. These companies are heroic (and\u00e2\u20ac\u201dshock, horror\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwe want them to make money for their shareholders because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what makes (Red) sustainable). In the first nine months, $25 million has gone directly from (Red) partners to the Global Fund, which grants money to health-care organizations around the world to fight aids, tuberculosis, and malaria. That is more than Australia, Switzerland, and China contributed last year, combined.<br \/>\nAs you read this\u00e2\u20ac\u201dhistoric\u00e2\u20ac\u201dissue of Vanity Fair, the Global Fund is benefiting, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the main reason we kidnapped this<br \/>\npublication\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s extraordinary photographers and storytellers. We needed help in describing the continent of Africa as an opportunity,<br \/>\nas an adventure, not a burden. Our habit\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand we have to kick it\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis to reduce this mesmerizing, entrepreneurial, dynamic<br \/>\ncontinent of 53 diverse countries to a hopeless deathbed of war, disease, and corruption. Binyavanga Wainaina\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s piece on Kenya<br \/>\nis an eye- and mind-opener. From here, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s needed is a leg up, not a handout. Targeted debt cancellation and aid mean 20 million more kids are going to school, and 1.3 million Africans are on lifesaving aids drugs. Amazing.<br \/>\nSo now I hope you better understand the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153here,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d i.e., my signing up as guest editor.<br \/>\nLastly, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve always imagined that if I hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been a singer I would have been a journalist. But in truth, my bandmates saved<br \/>\nme from disappointment, as I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m no natural editor. The fact that we have 20 covers for one issue bears testament to that. I am flat<br \/>\nout of hyperbole to describe <strong>Annie Leibovitz<\/strong>\u00e2\u20ac\u201da devoted mother who set out on a world tour to photograph these cover stars\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand inchoate in the company of such a team of wordsmiths and imagemakers.<br \/>\nAnd then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Graydon, a true rock star. (Checklist: mad hair, natty dresser, de rigueur unrepentant smoking, etc. I looked like his manager.) He is the dramatist that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been looking for. By the way, he tried to change the name of our band to 2U\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit was his last defense against my challenge to call this issue Fair Vanity.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u201d B o n o<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a successful run as the guest editor of The Independent last year (thanks again to Thomas for sending me a copy), Bono has taken the reigns of guest editor for Vanity Fair this month. According to his &#8220;Letter from the Editor,&#8221; Bono did his best to rename the publication Fair Vanity, but gave up &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/fair-vanity\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Fair Vanity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,3,20,15,5,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-misc","category-newsandpop","category-nigeria","category-politics","category-take-action"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-Ey","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}