This being the United States, with its insular culture, dying old media, and third-rate education system, it's vital for our celebrities (and Wikipedia) to step up and educate us about far-flung places like Burma, Tibet, Darfur, etc. since our politicians, teachers and journalists have failed so thoroughly.

Burma, now officially called Myanmar, is getting some of the usual press a remote nation gets after a catastrophe. At least 10,000 people are dead because of a cyclone that hit the country over the weekend.

But for the next 30 days, an unlikely group of celebrities like Will Ferrell and Sarah Silverman are heading a web campaign to bring attention to the decades-long struggle for democracy in Burma. It may sound silly, but Ferrell and Silverman strike just the right notes in these kickoff videos.

They're comedians first, and they never lose sight of that:

And check this out: Burma: it's all dictatory:

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