In an interview first shown in February and repeated last night on CBS, 60 Minutes’ Anderson Cooper talked to Liam Neeson about losing his wife Natasha Richardson in 2009 and coping with grief.
He also paid tribute to friend Bono for something he said to Neeson’s son, Michael.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qowo9vAveTI&start=25&end=57]
Living with grief: A conversation between men (Anderson Cooper, CBS News)
He doesn’t have vertigo.
London artist Fin Dac paints the Edge and Bono on the first floor of the Gibson Hotel in the Point Village, Dublin last night.
Fair play, etc.
(Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland)
[The cover of the Italian edition of Harry Browne’s book on Bono]
Further to Bono’s controversial address at the EPP conference in Dublin last week.
Sympathy for the poor divil.
Even before Twitter and Facebook exploded in rage, the Irish journalists assembled at the Dublin conference centre were locked in an eye-rolling competition, captured and epitomised by Miriam Lord. With a few exceptions, a sardonic reaction to his speech was the best Bono could hope for in his home country.
…The muting may relate to how any call for any tax by Bono would be received in Dublin. But the fact is that a “Robin Hood” tax, quietly supported by his One campaign for years, would represent a rare victory for the public sector over the financial institutions that have cannibalised it for decades.
Yet in Ireland, appreciation for what he said was drowned out by those appalled he had the temerity to say it.
The vulgar abuse may stem from people’s belief that Bono spends entirely too much time schmoozing with politicians – but maybe he is their victim as much as he is their pal. The cover of the new Italian edition of my critical book about Bono pictures him with a barcode across his face, an image that invites the reader to view the book’s subject as both a product and as a prisoner.
Harry Browne, author of Frontman: Bono In The Name Of Power
Why did Bono Get So Much flak? (Harry browne, irish Times)
(Alegro)
[Bono addesses the European People’s Party Elections Congress in the Convention Centre this afternoon, top, and Bono with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Taoiseach Enda Kenny]
“I want to give an enormous, enormous shout out. The biggest shout out I have in my heart, to the Irish people for coming through. I’d love to say it was the Troika but I think it was despite the Troika. The Irish people bailed the Irish people out.”
“For all this progress, for all these achievements, nearly 60 years after the Treaty of Rome, Europe is an economic entity that still needs to become a social entity,” he said. “Europe is a thought that needs to become a feeling.”
“Right now, your ministers . . . and your members of the European Parliament are working on another law that could help transform the lives for the poor, and the rest of us, too.”
“It’s a law to inject daylight into the financial system to stop corrupt monies vanishing to ‘safe’ havens and combat money laundering,”
Ah fupping here.
http://soundcloud.com/gavanreillytodayfm/bono-speech-epp-dublin
Bono’s full speech courtesy of Gavan Reilly.
Watch here.
Irish people not troika bailed out State, claims Bono (Irish Times)
Pic via RTVE and Gente en Ideal.es
[Bono at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland yesterday]
Bono spoke to Pat Kenny on Newstalk from Davos this morning following a night with the Irish delegation.
Bono: “It’s all sorts and the Taoiseach and Minister Noonan are doing an unbelievable job with the IDA. That’s what I was doing last night. They had a load of people in the room, locked in a room…”
Both laugh
Bono: “…until they agreed to move their companies to Ireland: Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs was the theme last night. And I must say the two of them made me very proud to be Irish. And Barry O’Leary, the guy from the IDA – he spoke extremely well, very…without notes, just really beautiful about the country and then, you know I was really struck by..these two men spoke very modestly on our behalf. They’re actually very modest men themselves. And that I think struck everyone that was there. I made up for it by the way. But they were very modest. And the coalition – Labour deserves some [inaudible] too, you know. They’ve been through rough, rough times and they’re still there for a lot of people but, you know, you can see some light at the end of the tunnel.”
Later
Pat Kenny: “In Africa, good governance is the holy grail because it is a continent of unbelievable wealth, if only it could be tapped for it’s people, by it’s people.”
Bono: “You are exactly right and, you know, I should say something, I don’t know if people know this but Richard Bruton, Minister Bruton, was really pivotal in getting new legislation in Europe, to make it law, that any mining company, in the extractive industry, registered in the European Stock Exchange, have to publish what they pay for those mining rights. And you think, well, of course, what could be difficult about that? Well you see that is where corruption is, the declared amounts and the real amounts are often different by hundreds of millions. And there’s a transparency revolution breaking across the world right now because of technology, technology is turbo-charging that revolution, people know what’s going on in their government budgets, or want to know.”
Right so.
Bono in an interview with Anderson Cooper describes Nelson Mandela as a “lesson in humility”.
He also talks about Archbishop Desmond Tutu, “The Arch”.
As you do.
Interview in full here.
Global warming, dude.
Even in 1985, taxation was at the forefront of Bono’s thoughts.
“It’s the governments of our countries responsibility to look after our money as we give them money in tax. And it seems to be an either or situation. Either they invest in life or they invest in death. And for the cost of MX missiles or Star Wars or offensive Defence budgets, we could turn those deserts in Africa into fertile land. The technology is with us. It is here. It is possible to do it.”
“So what I hope this as a public thing will affect public opinion which will ultimately affect the politicians and the policy makers. Bob Geldof says “I don’t know what to do but I’m gonna do something”. Wow! You know, I like that.”
Bono in interview with Paul Gambaccini on BBC following U2’s performance at Live Aid, July 1985.
Unearthed by KillianM
Meanwhile…Bill Gates And Bono On Their Alliance Of Fortune, Fame And Giving (Forbes)
Bono and the lads stopped by Sinead O’Connors for tea Bray seafront earlier today to shoot images for their new album cover. The album is due for release in 2014.
Not shown, ice-creams being scoffed.
Previously: Cosy Impressions
via Ian Donnelly
In addition:
Zing.
Review of Browne’s Bono book (Irish Times letters page)
Previously: Unputdownable
Harry Browne, writes:
The Press Ombudsman, Prof John Horgan, recently decided on my complaint against your newspaper’s June 15th review of my book The Frontman: Bono (In the Name of Power).
He wrote: “[T]he complainant’s assertions that this review contained breaches of Principles 1 and 2 and part of Principle 4 of the Code of Practice were sufficiently well documented to require a remedy.”
My well documented assertions were about breaches of three core journalistic principles: “truth and accuracy”, “distinguishing fact and comment” and “respect for rights”, particularly the right not to be subjected to unfounded accusations.
The ombudsman also decided that, “on balance”, a missive from me on your letters page would be sufficient remedy for a litany of breaches in a 1,300-word article, covering most of a page in your Weekend Review.
On that point I respectfully disagree with Prof Horgan. There is a vast imbalance in size, authority and web-searchability between that slot and this one. And it is your job, not mine, to correct errors in The Irish Times.
Nonetheless, now that his decision is made, your readers should learn, belatedly, of my well-documented complaint.
The Frontman is a deliberately critical but scrupulous polemic about Bono. A leading scholar of Africa and human rights, Alex de Waal, says the book “acknowledges Bono’s practical contributions to a more humane version of global capitalism, but demonstrates how good intentions can be no alibi for fronting for the status quo”.
Your newspaper’s review, however, paints The Frontman as a “mean-spirited” screed, in which a Politically Correct Catholic-nationalist sectarian (me!) throws around absurd and half-baked accusations willy-nilly in a breathless effort to show that “in every possible way Bono is WRONG” (sic capital letters).
The factual errors in your review range from the trivial (no, I don’t contradict myself about whether Bono is actually “cool”) to the sickeningly serious (no, I don’t say he deserved to be the victim of sectarian bullying as a teenager).
To be sure, my book is hard on Bono. But it doesn’t say, as your caption suggests, that he personally prolonged the Troubles!
It doesn’t credulously take the word of a single dubious source to state that Bono doesn’t give “all that much” to charity. Indeed it doesn’t criticise the level of Bono’s charitable giving.
It doesn’t attack Bono for “publicly disagreeing in Africa with someone who wasn’t white”. Unless, that is, you believe those words accurately summarise a passage in which I criticise Bono for shouting “Bollocks!” and “That’s bullshit!” at Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda.
I don’t say Bono is WRONG for “not being black”. Or that he is “a heartless Ayn Rand disciple”. (The Frontman locates Bono’s politics within the trajectory of “heartful” liberalism.) Or that he – no, enough, you already know all this, and others should be getting the picture.
The Irish Times chose to (slowly) dispute my well-documented corrections from the time I first submitted them on June 14th, the day after the article appeared online and before it had gone to print. You continue to publish it on your website, in effect repeating your errors.
You and your writers are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts. One can only wonder why you invented a few with which to discredit me and defend Bono.
Harry Browne
The Irish Times responds:
The Editor writes: Press Ombudsman John Horgan ruled as follows in rejecting Mr Harry Browne’s complaint:
“The Press Ombudsman has decided that The Irish Times made an offer of sufficient remedial action to resolve a complaint by Mr Harry Browne that the newspaper’s review of a book he wrote about Bono . . . contained erroneous statement (Principle 1)*, comment or conjecture reported as fact (Principle 2) and unfounded accusations (Principle 4) . . .” (*Principles from Press Council Code of Practice)
The full Press Council upheld the Ombudsman’s decision on Mr Browne’s appeal.
Previously: Critic Proof
