The Telegraph punches – again – at the Live Earth concerts. And they also have a couple of very telling quotes from folks attending the British event at Wembley.
She provided the finale to yesterday's Live Earth concerts, even writing a special song to mark the worldwide musical event.
But instead of being lionised, Madonna found herself accused of hypocrisy last night after allegations that she has financial links to some of the world's biggest polluters.
The Ray of Light Foundation, a charitable fund established by the star to support her favourite causes and named after one of her biggest selling hits, has $4.2 million (£2.1 million) of shares in a string of companies including Alcoa, the American aluminium giant, the Ford Motor Company and Weyerhaeuser, an international forest products company. All have been criticised by environmentalists.
Alcoa was ranked number nine on a list of all-time toxic companies drawn up by the University of Massachusetts' political research institute in 2002. Other companies linked to the foundation, including Northrop Grumman, the global defence and technology giant, and Kimberly-Clark, the huge health group, appear on the same list.
The disclosure was made by America's Fox News network, which obtained the foundation's most recent tax returns for 2005.
Oh, gee, that will set off the left. Fox News! Eeek! But the best part of the story is the "man in the street" part:
Nick Du Rocher, 40, an insurance broker from Lewisham, southeast London, said: "I'm only here to see the bands, to be honest. I think Bob Geldof was absolutely right when he said people are already aware of global warming and a concert is not going to make any difference."
Carol Mayzes, 41, from Bexley, Kent, said: "I'm going to sound really hypocritical but my family and I are here for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and we're not really bothered about climate change."
And that is the problem that the sycophants could not see coming into this. This is not the epiphany; this is just a concert. And all the lecturing from various musicians will not change a lot of minds out there. The global media will puff and pontificate about it, but Du Rocher and Mayzes pretty well wrapped up what the average person will take away from the parade of hypocrites on display at the goregasm. The fact is that most of Gorezilla's current fans don't know or don't care that only a few years ago he was trying to drop the full weight of the Federal government on rock music lyrics. (Where do you think those parental advisory labels came from?) Now Gore sees fit to cuddle up to rock stars if he thinks it will sell Gorezilla 2.0. Just another batch of hypocrisy from the strip-mining energy hog with a green label.
