Maybe Bob Geldof is a well-off bullshit artist extraordinaire, selfish self-promoter, as the critics are charging. Or maybe it does help every now and again to remind people what the fuck goes on in the world.
I don’t know, although, it looks like M. and I are heading into SF to check out a webcast/broadcast event. Good little mult-culti couple that we are, we have both signed the petition at One.org. And, courtesy of my new boss, I have my oh so courant white bracelet reminding the world and world leaders to give a shit.
Maybe it’s the sunshine here in Cali, maybe it’s a day of music, and who doesn’t like music, right? Or maybe it’s because I’m working at a place that has it’s finger in the world-wide pie, but I’m feeling kind of hopeful. GW was probably lying or manipulating, but he did just say the US would do something.
Actually, it’s kind of surreal working in a place connected to Live8 and the G8 and global power. So, the G8 Summit is taking place in Gleneagles, Scotland. How weird is it to hear your co-workers saying “Yeah, I’m not going to Gleneagles, but so-and-so is,” and know that the white bracelet thang is connected to that letter promising some moolah to an international charity group I had to make sure I mailed my first week. Or, to be chatting with a dude in London, who happens to work at OxFam, about how his teenage daughter is basically pissed, “What good is having a dad at Oxfam, if he can’t get tickets to Live8?” Or to know that before Bush made his speech some folks in my boss’s world were all ready making plans to be there, because they knew what he’d be saying.
When I worked in the academic, biological, medical complex that is Boston’s research world, there was a certain cache to being an arm’s length from Nobel prizewinners, science celebrities and expert opinion-makers. But, that world is so fucking small potatoes and parochial compared to politics, money and the world. The funniest part is the “best and the brightest” of the academe in their myopic arrogance have no fucking idea what strings they ain’t pulling and aren’t even near. Boston may as well be Cleveland or Des Moines.
The plus side for yours truly is that in the smaller world of biomedical research the puffed up egos and inflated senses of self-importance made the workaday world pretty petty and exhausting. Think Napoleon, the early years; little people with urges to conquer the world but willing to conquer subordinates around them in the mean time.
In the corridors of actual power, I don’t think anyone has the time or inclination to worry whether I’m toeing some theoretical line. Nothing like nothing to prove to mellow out the sharpened knives of office politics.