al's my man.

I sincerely hope you all watched Live Earth on Saturday. I got up at about 9:30 with plans to head down to the show at the Mall, but considering it was a bajillion degrees outside and it wasn't supposed to be much of a show, I decided against it. Instead, I stayed in and watched the performances from other countries... for about 6 hours. No joke.

Most of the performances were incredible, but further research this morning proved that Bravo didn't show some of the best ones. I mean, Damien Rice and David Gray performing Que Sera Sera TOGETHER?! Very very cool. Bravo also failed to show Bloc Party, Toni Colette and the Finish, Jack Johnson, or UB40. No fun. Luckily I can watch everything on MSN. Sting and the Police were incredible (not surprising) as were the Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, and Madonna with Gogol Bordeloo doing "La Isla Bonita"... sooo good. Even James Blunt impressed with his rendition of Cat Stevens' "Wild World." Jane Goodall was there, which is pretty incredible. She was even more impressive with her chimpanzee impression.

I thought the Live Earth program did a great job of focusing on the idea that I was taught as the "Tragedy of the Commons," which, in sum, recognizes the importance of the individual as part of the larger group. If we each take a small step, the impact will be massive. While big changes get a lot of press and make an impact on our surroundings, they certainly are much more difficult to orchestrate, take time to get passed through legislation, and put the work in someone else's hands. If we each become responsible for ourselves and our actions, things can change very quickly and very drastically.

I'll get off my soapbox, but I just wanted to highlight this incredibly important event and its possible impacts around the world. I hope it works... we've started on this way too late.