Something that made me laugh out loud this morning:
From an interview of U2's Bono on Larry King Live (Bono is actively involved in a movement to help combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa, url at http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0212/01/lklw.00.html):
KING: How old are your kids now?
BONO: I've got a 13-year-old, an 11-year-old, which are girls, Jordan and Eve. And I have two boys, Eli, who is 3-and-a-half, and John that's 1-and-a-half.
KING: I have a 3-and-a-half and a 2-and-a-half. There's nothing like little boys and little girls -- nothing like children.
BONO: Are yours boys?
KING: Yes, two boys. I've got two grown boys and a grown daughter, and two little baby boys.
BONO: I bet you my boys are tougher than yours.
KING: I'm Jewish -- bet my boys are smarter.
Another portion of the interview that I thought was poignant:
KING: What makes a kid get evil? What makes a man...
BONO: What makes man evil?
KING: Yes.
BONO: I think -- I mean, if you ask a big question like that, and you have to look into -- you have to be responsible and to follow those questions through to the people and study the people who have asked them over eons, over centuries. And you get to the great books of wisdom, and you get to the scriptures, in my case. And you know, I've -- listen, I am the worst -- I am at the very bottom of the list of the food chain of -- you know, I sort of need to practice a whole lot more Christian. But...
KING: ... Christian.
BONO: That's what I hold onto.
KING: You mentioned being Christian, and...
BONO: Trying to be.
KING: ... trying to be. Are you -- do you like organized religion? Are you a Catholic? Do you go to mass?
BONO: Who in Ireland could have too much respect for organized religion? We've seen it tear our country in two. My mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic. And I learned that religion is often the enemy of God, actually.
And religion is this sort of -- religion is the artifice, you know, the building, after God has left it sometimes, like Elvis has left the building. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.
KING: So, especially in Ireland, you've seen it fail.
BONO: Yes, yes. And now, we're watching it around the world. We're watching what religion can do. And you know, I think it's anathema, and see -- religion takes ideas. Religion often reduces the size of God. God is so big. It's a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we're small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.
KING: And so, we raise money in his name and go to war in his name.
BONO: Yes.
KING: If there is a God, he must be angry at a lot of this.
BONO: I think God is very angry at the moment, and I think there is -- I think it's shocking what is going on in the world. And I think it is an extraordinary moment.
Right now, I can tell you this. Our age will be remembered. This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to let people die because they can't get the drugs that you and I take for granted. That means -- you have to ask very hard questions of ourselves if we're doing that.
I'll be back with a Thanksgiving weekend recap in a while...
From an interview of U2's Bono on Larry King Live (Bono is actively involved in a movement to help combat the AIDS epidemic in Africa, url at http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0212/01/lklw.00.html):
KING: How old are your kids now?
BONO: I've got a 13-year-old, an 11-year-old, which are girls, Jordan and Eve. And I have two boys, Eli, who is 3-and-a-half, and John that's 1-and-a-half.
KING: I have a 3-and-a-half and a 2-and-a-half. There's nothing like little boys and little girls -- nothing like children.
BONO: Are yours boys?
KING: Yes, two boys. I've got two grown boys and a grown daughter, and two little baby boys.
BONO: I bet you my boys are tougher than yours.
KING: I'm Jewish -- bet my boys are smarter.
Another portion of the interview that I thought was poignant:
KING: What makes a kid get evil? What makes a man...
BONO: What makes man evil?
KING: Yes.
BONO: I think -- I mean, if you ask a big question like that, and you have to look into -- you have to be responsible and to follow those questions through to the people and study the people who have asked them over eons, over centuries. And you get to the great books of wisdom, and you get to the scriptures, in my case. And you know, I've -- listen, I am the worst -- I am at the very bottom of the list of the food chain of -- you know, I sort of need to practice a whole lot more Christian. But...
KING: ... Christian.
BONO: That's what I hold onto.
KING: You mentioned being Christian, and...
BONO: Trying to be.
KING: ... trying to be. Are you -- do you like organized religion? Are you a Catholic? Do you go to mass?
BONO: Who in Ireland could have too much respect for organized religion? We've seen it tear our country in two. My mother was a Protestant. My father was a Catholic. And I learned that religion is often the enemy of God, actually.
And religion is this sort of -- religion is the artifice, you know, the building, after God has left it sometimes, like Elvis has left the building. You hold onto religion, you know, rules, regulations, traditions. I think what God is interested in is people's hearts, and that's hard enough.
KING: So, especially in Ireland, you've seen it fail.
BONO: Yes, yes. And now, we're watching it around the world. We're watching what religion can do. And you know, I think it's anathema, and see -- religion takes ideas. Religion often reduces the size of God. God is so big. It's a gigantic concept in God. The idea that God might love us and be interested in us is kind of huge and gigantic, but we turn it, because we're small-minded, into this tiny, petty, often greedy version of God, that is religion.
KING: And so, we raise money in his name and go to war in his name.
BONO: Yes.
KING: If there is a God, he must be angry at a lot of this.
BONO: I think God is very angry at the moment, and I think there is -- I think it's shocking what is going on in the world. And I think it is an extraordinary moment.
Right now, I can tell you this. Our age will be remembered. This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable to let people die because they can't get the drugs that you and I take for granted. That means -- you have to ask very hard questions of ourselves if we're doing that.
I'll be back with a Thanksgiving weekend recap in a while...
posted by Bob at
10:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home