Give a man a fish... Tony Blair has recently been focusing on drumming up financial support for Africa in the form of debt relief and economic aid. Apparently this push has proved successful, as a recent meeting of the G8 has agreed to forgive $40 billion owed by 18 countries, a majority of which are in sub-saharan Africa.
It seems to me that this is symbolic in nature, being roughly equivalent of the common accounting practice of writing off bad debt. However, many proponents of the plan believe that this will somehow reduce third world conditions in Africa or do something to put Africa on even ground with the rest of the world. This logic is ridiculous. First off, there isn't any real money to put to work. Forgiving a starving crackhead of the money he owes you doesn't leave him any money to buy food, and even if you give him money, he's going to buy crack... not food. If you can't see how that analogy relates to Africa, then you probably don't understand how tax cuts spur economic growth either.
Africa aside, I've been seeing trailers for a movie version of the War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise. In case you've never read the book, I'll explain it to you in three short sentences. Martians build ships to land on earth. Martians kick human ass. Earth bacteria kills Martians. The main character is more of an observer than a participant, so unless Steven Spielberg decided to change a good pit of the original plot, its basically a movie where Tom Cruise runs around for a few days until the Martians get sick and die. Who knows, maybe all that scientology focus on survival has prepared him for this role. Anyway, the last summer movie with a plot that didn't involve the protagonist doing anything worthwhile was Pearl Harbor. In case you missed it, the plot goes like this- Japan builds navy, Japan kicks US ass, Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck run train on Kate Beckinsale... sort of. Assuming War of the Worlds does run parallel to its original plot, both of these movies lack one thing- a point.
It seems to me that this is symbolic in nature, being roughly equivalent of the common accounting practice of writing off bad debt. However, many proponents of the plan believe that this will somehow reduce third world conditions in Africa or do something to put Africa on even ground with the rest of the world. This logic is ridiculous. First off, there isn't any real money to put to work. Forgiving a starving crackhead of the money he owes you doesn't leave him any money to buy food, and even if you give him money, he's going to buy crack... not food. If you can't see how that analogy relates to Africa, then you probably don't understand how tax cuts spur economic growth either.
Africa aside, I've been seeing trailers for a movie version of the War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise. In case you've never read the book, I'll explain it to you in three short sentences. Martians build ships to land on earth. Martians kick human ass. Earth bacteria kills Martians. The main character is more of an observer than a participant, so unless Steven Spielberg decided to change a good pit of the original plot, its basically a movie where Tom Cruise runs around for a few days until the Martians get sick and die. Who knows, maybe all that scientology focus on survival has prepared him for this role. Anyway, the last summer movie with a plot that didn't involve the protagonist doing anything worthwhile was Pearl Harbor. In case you missed it, the plot goes like this- Japan builds navy, Japan kicks US ass, Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck run train on Kate Beckinsale... sort of. Assuming War of the Worlds does run parallel to its original plot, both of these movies lack one thing- a point.
posted by Justin at 1:41 PM 
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