From: GDHDTHSHS@SDSRSF.COM   
      
   'Bono, in his role as Mrs Jellyby in a 10-gallon hat, not only believes that   
   he has the solution to Africa's ills but he is also shouting so loud that   
   other people seem to trust his answers.   
      
   He travelled in 2002 to Africa with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'   
   Neill, urging debt forgiveness. He recently had lunch at the White House   
   where he expounded upon the "more money" platform and how African countries   
   are uniquely futile.   
      
   But are they? Had Bono looked closely at Malawi he would have seen an   
   earlier incarnation of his own Ireland.   
      
   Both countries were characterised for centuries by famine, religious strife,   
   infighting, unruly families, hubristic clan chiefs, malnutrition, failed   
   crops, ancient orthodoxies, dental problems and fickle weather.   
      
   Malawi had a similar sense of grievance, was also colonised by absentee   
   British landlords and was priest-ridden, too.   
      
   Just a few years ago you could not buy condoms legally in Ireland, nor could   
   you get a divorce, although (just like in Malawi) buckets of beer were   
   easily available and unruly crapulosities a national curse. Ireland, that   
   island of inaction, in Joyce's words "the old sow that eats her farrow", was   
   the Malawi of Europe, and for many identical reasons, its main export being   
   immigrants. '   
      
      
      
   http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1964947_1,00.html   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)