I think that Rolling Stone magazine is one of the most reprehensible rags on the market today.
But my wife has a life-time subscription (which she won before we ever met), and I occasionally flip through an issue to see what Rolling Stone is telling today’s kids is hip and cool.
Every-so-often—when Rolling Stone is not busy glamorizing the drug culture, encouraging kids to drop out of school, or bashing the men and women of our military—they do manage to publish an occasional interesting or humorous story or social commentary.
For example in Rolling Stone, Issue 969 >> March 10, 2005, Tim Dickinson wrote a surprisingly fair and balanced story about MoveOn.org, in which Rolling Stone (the world’s most liberal mag) suggested that MoveOn.org might be too liberal.
In a recent issue, Rolling Stone, Issue 976 >> June 16, 2005, Rob Sheffield has written a funny side-column about American Idols Bo Bice and Carrie Underwood. The best line from the piece, and the impetus for this post:
I can’t decide what’s more fascinating about Bo: (1) that he was in a band named Purge who opened for Warrant, or (2) that he wants people to know this, instead of shaving his head and wandering the earth like Caine in Kung Fu.
Of course, only three pages later, Geraldine Sealey has a three-page editorial (An Epidemic Failure) trying to convince us that America is the stingiest nation on earth when it comes to helping the world’s needy. Because…you know…it’s not enough that we already give more than twice as much as any other nation on earth.
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Norway gives over 5 times what the US does as a percentage of GDP.
percentage of GDP doesn’t buy as much food and medical supplies as actual dollars. Nice try at the liberal spin, though.
Well then it was never a contest in the first place- we’re the world’s largest economy- of course we gave the most money. We have 50 times the population as smaller countries that take a bigger chunk of their paycheck and give it to the poor.
But if we’re just looking for a way to pat ourselves on the backs that’s ok too…
Somehow, I think Americans (the people) are more generous than other people. Norway (the state) can give away money it didn’t earn and feel all warm and fuzzy.
Oh and look, it even says so on the page you cited:
As an aside, it should be emphasized that the above figures are comparing government spending. Such spending has been agreed at international level and is spread over a number of priorities.
Individual/private donations may be targeted in many ways. However, even though the charts above do show US aid to be poor (in percentage terms) compared to the rest, the generosity of the American people is far more impressive than their government. Private aid/donation has been through charity of individual people and organizations though this of course can be weighted to certain interests and areas. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note for example, per latest estimates, Americans privately give at least $34 billion overseas — more than twice the US official foreign aid of $15 billion at that time [...]
While Adelman admits that “there are no complete figures for international private giving†she still says that Americans are “clearly the most generous on earth in public — but especially in private — givingâ€. Hence these numbers and claims may be taken with caution, but even then, these are high numbers.
[...] I’ve taken Rolling Stone to task numerous times for their editorial style, in which they glamorize the drug culture, encourage kids to drop out of school, and unabashedly bash the men and women of our military. [...]