Skip the applause and pledge
It takes a few days to get the gang ready, but the music industry was out in force and voice this evening for a huge telethon. Haiti needs and we have; what could be simpler?
At one point, sixteen of my local cable channels were online and in line. Performers, dressed down for the occasion, performed without applause. Famous faces sat down in cubicles and did their best to transcribe the donation offers from people like you and me. Kind of cool to see Stephen Spielberg chatting up a minister from the Midwest as he typed in the credit card info.
Here in Canada, the English side of the house allied with the south, while Quebec carried its own show. At one point, the tally out of Montreal showed better than $4,000,000.00 in pledges. I think my preference for “realness” goes with the effort locally. There are stronger ties to the citizens of Port-au-Prince due to common language, and the interviews were with people who had ties to Haiti. Hollywood can’t match that.
Hockey violence is back in the news, after a local player took a gratuitous elbow to the head. Not often that we watch convulsions as part of a sporting event. Even the minister of Education, Etc. has called for sanctions by the Junior A board of governors. Funny how football, or soccer, or basketball teams can put “big fellas” within hitting distance all game long without a fraction of the violence that hockey teams want us to believe necessary. Let’s see if the rule book will be amended in the direction of common sense.
