Planet Gore on National Review Online: Live Earth Aftermath

re: The Times was underwhelmed, noting that concerts are an unwieldy vehicle for this message. Spectator editor Matt d'Ancona was there, and he seemed to enjoy the music, but had this useful neologism for us: //Call it 'nan-archy': the anarchy of rock'n'roll grafted onto the spirit of the nanny state. The Red Hot Chili Peppers bounce and rave pleasingly in front of a huge rolling message board which instructs us to recycle our old mobiles, not to wash our towels too often, and to 'rethink' how we bring our shopping home. There was a time when some members of this band struggled to live more than a day at a time. Now their horizons stretch beyond rehab and they tell us how to live the rest of our lives. Yes, it's Nan-archy in the UK. //Is it really any wonder people didn't tune in? What little I saw of the concerts on TV (the MSN stream was so slow I only got to see the end of Snow Patrol's set, the only act I had any real interest in) seemed to be a mix of decent music, infomercials for green products and bizarrely silly pledges scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Things like "Tony B has pledged to turn off lights he's not using" summed up the spirit of the event: public recognition and plaudits for promising to do things your grandmother would have clipped you across the ear for not doing. /Anyway, the event was also crashed by Bureaucrash and DemandDebate.com, whose boss Steve Milloy writes // DemandDebate debuted at Live Earth (New Jersey) with four aerial banners (each with different messages questioning Gore and global warming), and T-shirts and beach balls bearing the message, "I'm more worried about the intellectual climate." We had two six-man teams distribute T-shirts and beachballs inside and outside the stadium..."...