Yeah, that’s certainly rather creepy.

How much did La Ono get for that, do you suppose?

Will celebrities need to include their wishes for future representation in their wills, to advise heirs and executors what they’ll speak for, and what they won’t?

“Yes, Apple. Yes, Repower America. Yes, ONE.”
“No to Clean Coal, the RNC, Sarah Palin, and NAMBLA.”

I don’t have a link but recall seeing something that Paul Newman made legal provisions for how his image was to be used (or not used) after he died.

Paul Newman was a fucking genius, wasn’t he?

I think it;s best to have the local natives decide what’s the best thing for them since they live with the challenges everyday. Forcing the wrong type of aid to serve some idealistic notion is just that, wrong.

And yes it is creepy.

I think you’ll see more of that now since the explosion of visual media software and access to images at a click of the mouse.

BTW Caroline Kennedy talked to AP. I got the story on NBC. It was described as Caroline “opens up.” In fact, she said stuff like her mother and father would want her to do this. So in this interview where she opens up she still managed to not enunciate a stand on any policy issue. Well, except she was against 9/11 and for Obama. The more she runs this contentless campaign the more she shows it is all about celebrity and entitlement.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28392406/

Wow … talk about yer heavy-hitter endorsements there. Caroline’s calling out the big guns now.

Go Nadler.

Creepy does not even come close to it. I found it utterly destabilising.

Also BTW the NewsHour is interviewing Robert Merton who won a Nobel in Economics just before he did Long Term Capital Management, the first time a derivatives based enterprise went splat (1998). Why they would be asking this guy anything about anything is beyond me.

Which is real nice, except potable water, food and vaccines are a more pressing concern for kids in under-developed and developing nations./blockquote>

I guess the “real nice” quip is snark. Water, food, and medicine are real issues, but in every case a big part of addressing them involves education. There’s plenty to learn from the One Laptop Per Child experiment. But so much of the commentary about it is superficial “finger wagging” attacking the rationale rather than examining how these computers can play a role. It’s this kind of self-righteous post I find creepy, not the ad.

Actually,I am speaking from a sincere point that kids need to be healthy in order to receive the benefits of technology.

Giving people food and clean drinking water is the first order of business no matter what. Kids don’t learn if they are hungry. Why do you think we provide hot lunches and breakfasts for poor kids even in this country? They cannot learn unless they are not hungry. Clean water qualifies.

Any missionary worth their salt knows this and the first job always is to make sure people have enough to eat. Then, after that, you can talk to them about school and church and government or whatever. But you have to feed them first.

I agree with you. Especially tribes of indigenous peoples who have had very little contact with the ‘outside’. Most of them would rather be left alone to enjoy their own lifestyle. They aren’t asking for anything except to be left alone.

Cool video. It is chilling to hear Lennon talking about future stuff for sure!

Here in Maine we have in place a laptop policy for every 7th and 8th grader to use during the school year:

http://www.state.me.us/mlte/about/index.htm

It’s been pretty successful.

It is simplistic to imagine (!) that a project like this will solve everything. And yes, basic needs MUST be met first. http://www.MillenniumPromise.org

At the same time, in an our interconnected world, access to two-flows of information is critical to realizing human rights and dignity. The three to four million deaths in Central Africa in recent years are out of the public consciousness because there are no TV cameras there.

Yes to: food and water AND appropriate technology (wells and latrines) AND microcredit AND literacy-numeracy AND radios AND laptops.

Communication and education are a basic human needs, too. So far as I can tell, donations to OLPC are not affecting the funding for other needs; it seems niggardly to object to the project on those grounds. Improved communication and education might even help people find ways to address those other needs.

It’s not an either/or, but the starting place is health and nutrition, otherwise those computers won’t have kids to use them.

I am of two minds about OLPC
I agree that food and water are priorities before education, but I do not think that OLPC should be slammed for supporting the higher needs.
As you said, it is not an either/or.
And we cannot wait until every child is clothed and fed before we educate those who are.
As for Lennon’s wishes, Yoko is the arbiter.
And I sincerely doubt he would have it any other way.

Full Disclosure – I went for the Buy One Give One last Christmas – One laptop for my daughter, one for a child in Bolivia.
I do not regret it.
I look to other needs as well, and as a straight charitable donation I would have chosen differently.
But the OLPC is a unique and admirable project.
The amount of time and thought which went into the design and production resulted in a powerful educational tool.

I don’t think it sounds that much like him, a bit too fast and clipped to me.

LOL!

Sounds more like Ron Nasty from the Rutles…
Seriously, it seems like a fantastic cause but this ad is absurd and poorly executed, (not to mention just a bit ghoulish).

Potable water, food, and vaccines are all delivered drawing on technology. Securing these necessities requires that people become better at integrating technology and society.

In many ways the roll out of the One Laptop Per Child has been a failure. But that does not negate the very useful thinking that has gone into the project and which continues about how to make technology better provide for people’s real needs. Education is the keystone and One Laptop Per Child makes fundamental contributions to education that are not easily dismissed.

All over the world there are children who do not go to school because their parents cannot raise the fees. And all over the world the economic calculation is that there is more to be gained by keeping children, especially girls, out of school than to enroll them. One of the goals of One Laptop Per Child is to increase school enrollments. There are many reasons to think this could help, and solid data from the field about One Laptop Per Child confirms more students enroll.

The benefits over the lifetimes of children who go to school far exceed the short term gains of their immediate employment in the economic sphere. Children who go to school have children later, are less poor and are healthier. Clean water, enough food, and medicines are all enabled when more of the poor attend school.

Development isn’t something that can be given, even if the world decided it wanted to, and we most certainly have not decided that. Development emerges from local solutions. Communications infrastructure enables many possibilities for local development previously too cumbersome.

Most schools have no electricity. Many schools have no roofs. These children go home to homes without light for the most part. The One Laptop Per Child allows children and adults to read at night, to write and create, when they could not before. It allows students to have access to books, in places where there are few books in schools. It allows local people to create their own content to teach their children. One Laptop Per Child enables local networks to develop.

It’s just not happening that the people of the world are delivering potable water, food and medicines to people who need them. One reason is that water and food realistically ought to be primarily local. Information technology in general is very important in general to enabling this sort of local development. One Laptop Per Child in particular is a program that has thought carefully about the many interrelated challenges the world’s poor face. The program addresses many of these challenges integrally. Yes of course there are issues unresolved, but to point to them as unnecessary toys misses the what One Laptop Per Child is about.

Absolutely