infobong.com

Vice magazine has a muddled little video called "Do They Know It's Halloween" up on their Web site. Presumably playing off of Band Aid's 80s benefit single "Do They Know It's Christmas," the song is a benefit featuring "hipster" artists. (It features indie bands like Arcade Fire as well as corporate rockers like Beck and Rilo Kiley, so I don't know how else to categorize.) I wonder if this Unicef fund-raising is an effort by Vice to rehabilitate their image after a series of news stories pointed out the right-wing politics of the hip rag. The publisher of the site later said the politics were an elaborate hoax, but I've found so much offensive in the book, I find it hard to believe that it's all intentional. Regardless, I do applaud the magazine for bringing attention to suffering in the global South.