The World Economic Forum

Every year a pop-culture celebrity or three shows up at Davos, is interviewed by lots of TV crews, and departs. The U2 frontman, though, has become a regular--and it's a good thing. At a breakfast discussion with Al Gore and Tom Friedman that I attended, Bono rescued what was threatening to be a ponderous and even pompous discussion on global poverty and global warming by honing in on the absurdity of super-rich carbon hogs (such as himself) venturing to pronounce on such matters. That absurdity of course permeates Davos. Bono's genius is that he finds a way around it.