Second -- really? You think he hasn't put any money -- not to mention his time -- into his causes? You really think that?

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Sometimes a celebrity's fame is worth more than a specific sum of money would be.

PS - Moff, I hope you'll forgive me for not liking Bono and being too serious since I'm defending your band! ;)

PPS - I don't think anyone's called me "serious" before! Whee!

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This is rather enlightening as well: [www.bloomberg.com]

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Anyway, neither of us has more than an assumption to go by, but yours seems predicated on some pretty bizarre behavior -- generally, people give money first, long before they actually get directly involved in a cause. (And even if Bono isn't giving any of his money, just calling what he has done "awareness" is pretty weak when he's not making PSAs but meeting with heads of state. His pet issue, Africa, is one of the only things Bush ended up getting much right on, and yes, some of it was because Bono was fighting for it, and pushing the president's religion in his own face.)

@Lee Waters: Oh, I was being tongue-in-cheek, too. ;-)

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I mean, wow, dude -- it's no wonder more famous people aren't involved in good causes. If you try to do some good and then do anything less than saintly from that point on, you're somehow a worse person than all the celebrities who don't ever lend their time or money to anything worthwhile.

Bono and U2 haven't ever pretended not to be capitalists (I like how an article on Bloomberg.com makes that word sound like a pejorative), and they've always been very clear that they don't think they're saints. That so many people are eager to accuse them of it probably says more about those people, as is usually the case when people are throwing stones.

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I mean, no, his charitable efforts don't coincide with the release of albums -- U2's media coverage increases as they get closer to releasing new albums, and Bono's coverage increases as a result of that; and he's never shy about promoting his activism. But he ends up going on at length about third-world debt relief to journalists who want to talk about music, not using questions about Africa to market his CDs. And U2 haven't released anything in four and a half years and he's kept plenty busy working on Africa stuff in the interim. He started doing it in the mid-'80s, even before The Joshua Tree came out and they were international superstars, after he took a break from music to do relief work in Ethiopia.

I'm just saying, he's logged the hours, and the record shows he uses his music as a platform to talk about the issues, not the other way around. God forbid rich and famous people should get involved in making the world a better place. That's something we need less of. :-p

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And there would have been all sorts of logistical problems trying to write about U2 for io9 back in the '90s.

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