comedians can be serious, although it really backfired that one time for Margaret Cho

In Tuesday's Times, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column (requires login) accusing the media of passivity in reporting about genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

More than two years have passed since the beginning of what Mr. Bush acknowledges is the first genocide of the 21st century, yet Mr. Bush barely manages to get the word "Darfur" out of his mouth. Still, it seems hypocritical of me to rage about Mr. Bush's negligence, when my own beloved institution - the American media - has been at least as passive as Mr. Bush.

He also wrote that genocide in Darfur hasn't even received as much coverage by the American media the Armenian genocide did in 1915.

So, I went googling and found DarfurGenocide.org, which takes donations and uses them for advocacy, saying that "aid can only do so much" (i.e., airlifting bags of rice into a war zone is obviously a very temporary form of assistance). It seems cynical to say that the best way for regular people to try to abate a genocide across the world is to hire PR people, but Res Publica, which runs the site, seems to be as successful as anyone -- they were behind getting Bush to declare Darfur a "genocide," and they're using PR to get Sudan advocates into the media.

I always speak cynically of an event that occurred annually at Dartmouth in which a number of Dartmouth students slept outside on the Green to show solidarity with the homeless (of which there are not that many in New Hampshire and Vermont, although there is certainly poverty and hunger; it's simply very cold, the area is sparsely populated, and housing is relatively cheap compared to food and other expenses). Anyway, the students would demonstrate solidarity with the homeless by sleeping on the Green in their L.L. Bean sleeping bags. I may be misremembering some details, but I remember feeling so much distaste in seeing this event; you could certainly help more people by sending the cash value of an LL Bean sleeping bag to any sort of social service organization (or simply donating the sleeping bag), and then going out for pizza. Your "demonstration" doesn't help anyone.

(I feel much the same way about, for instance, radical feminist performance art against Bush, which usually involves someone shaving off their pubic hair in combination with some "No More Bush!" rhetoric. I mean, if it has value for you, cool, but that's the purest form of preaching to the converted. Middle America is likely to find such an action extremely unpersuasive, even if it should somehow happen to be televised).

So, I feel a bit unfortunately similar about the act of blogging on behalf of Darfur, but I suppose that's why there's a donation button, so our online navel-gazing can have some effect outside of our navel regions. I donated and I think the site and organization are eminently worthy of support.

When you "check out" with your donation ("add Darfur to your shopping cart!"), you get an unfortunately worded receipt that says "Donation to Darfur Genocide." But don't let that stop you.