Blood From Stones

So far, says Zwick, “The fund has targeted specific needs in those villages, and some neighborhoods that were more impoverished where we had worked. To wit: One neighborhood was in terrible need of a well being dug, another neighborhood needed help with a septic system, still another had to repair road damage that was making it hard for villagers to go to and from work, still another needed a classroom repaired, and so on. And replacement of prosthetics was among the them.”

Zwick and Warner Bros. told me the fund hasn’t finished assessing needs or administering funds, and filling more prosthetic needs is on the list. While the studio maintains it made no specific promise to provide prosthetics to every extra who needed them, it assured me that money from the fund has already gone to children’s organizations that disperse prosthetics. All of the dough raised from Blood Diamond premieres in the U.S. and England will go to related charities.

But the diamond industry has a lot more to worry about than Leo and Jennifer and Ed and Paula’s pic. These days, a fresh wave of MCs is backing away from the urban stylin’ promulgated by Simmons et al. Both Lupe Fiasco, in “Conflict Diamonds,” and Kanye West, in “Diamonds From Sierra Leone,” sing the same anti-war-for-profit message. Soon, very soon, bling may no longer mean cha-ching.