Hagia, Mia!

This attitude applies much to celebrity matters. Even when ‘celebrity’ MEANT something! Take the early delight in very young Mia Farrow, as she entered our view with television’s Peyton Place. You could not have paid me to watch it, yet I took ample time to grouse over the insane, reflexive popularity slathered over both Mia and Ryan O’Neal. Mia did earn respect from me for her role in Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and from subsequent work (and relationship) with Woody Allen. Their ménage in Manhattan struck me as modern, sensible, loving, and artistic.

I was not entirely right about things.

All this is prologue to the hunger strike. Didn’t it – an honest question – didn’t the strike strike you as utterly quixotic? It did me, at first. Partly since the tactic had been used by known activists (effectively by Cesar Chavez, not so effectively by Dick Gregory), and partly to gain notice for problems close to home. Is there any government or world organization or charity unaware of Darfur’s problems? Or of what their power to act and limitations on it are?

But – here is another honest question – does every public act designed to affect someone or effect a policy change really ‘get change done’? Do we really change the world at all ever? Or – by definition – simply enact the world? I don’t want to demean kindness – it’s a prime human virtue. It’s only that Big Kindness is almost always out of our reach. Ask yourself: how much friendly small talk to casual strangers equals a hunger strike? How does a hunger strike affect those aware of it?

I have watched Mia now on YouTube. She offers such idealism, losing no luster by having to curtail her measured starvation, one that we didn’t expect to carry her to real illness, deep illness, anyway. What moves me? Not the politics, but the innocence of her daughter, obviously nurtured and loved. No doubt the butchery in Darfur will continue until justice comes. Our institutions are frail for this. I didn’t call the White House. Normally, when I hear the word ‘sacrifice’, I reach for my checkbook, where portions of my conscience reside. This, though, to Mia: what you’ve done is sweet and clean. Let’s save what we can.

Submitted by Trulyfool
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http://trulyfool-trulyfool.blogspot.com/