Polishing the Diamonds Story

Another follow-up to blood diamonds: The New York Times offers Hollywood’s Multifaceted Cause du Jour, Marc Santora’s look at Hollywood’s engagement in the marketing or unmarketing of diamonds.

Diamonds are love. Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Diamonds are forever.

Diamonds, obviously, are much more than that. They are big business. They are hardly rare. And they have been used to finance some of the most brutal warfare of the last two decades.

Worth revisiting is the BBC story outlining Al Qaeda’s use of diamonds to help launder their funds, and Cory Doctorow’s comment on my earlier post, outlining allegations against Warner Bros, the studio that produced the Blood Diamond film. I’d caution that the original gossip source of the most damning quote is unsourced.