An answer to a reader who thinks Brexit is the fault of the EU

The message from the reader:

“Sorry, but it was the President and Chief negotiator of the European Commission who caused the crisis.
“ If, immediately following the results of the vote on the 23rd June 2016, the President of the EU had acknowledged the dissatisfaction of a proportion of the British (mainly English) electorate and had suggested to ‘get around the table’ and find a compromise then I truly believe that Parliament would never have ratified the result.
“Instead, what I observed was childish petulant ‘If that is what Britain wants, then they can have it’ style response.
“If the toys had not been thrown out of the cot then I believe that it could all have been smoothed over and another vote (as per Irish EU monetary mechanism re-vote).
“Don’t blame the British electorate who stood up to these over-entitled bullies.”(dave@ravemail.com  45.86.203.200)My comment:  The above is a comment made by a reader on a posting I published on May 15 about the effects of Brexit.

My comment:   Strange, isn’t it!  The Little England, “hate the frogs” lot have no idea how they come (came) across to outsiders:  Throwbacks to a different age, when England ruled the waves and one could happily patronize backward French and other Continentals.  For years the Brexit crowd nagged on about the horrors of the EU, really irritating the Continentals.

Well, the former have their way now – and talk about an ill-thought-out dog’s dinner! The challenges facing Britain now are too many (and too boring ) to enumerate to a  sophisticated international audience.  Let’s just comment that from elderly Brits in France unable to renew their driving licenses to small companies who have to start a subsidiary on the Continent at great expense in order to keep their EU sales, a “dark age” looks more likely than triumphant independence, especially given a clown as Prime Minister.  I weep.

The future of the dollar (a bit long, but important)

The mighty US dollar continues to reign supreme in global markets. But the greenback’s dominance may well be more fragile than it appears, because expected future changes in China’s exchange-rate regime are likely to trigger a significant shift in the international monetary order.

For many reasons, the Chinese authorities will probably someday stop pegging the renminbi to a basket of currencies, and shift to a modern inflation-targeting regime under which they allow the exchange rate to fluctuate much more freely, especially against the dollar. When that happens, expect most of Asia to follow China. In due time, the dollar, currently the anchor currency for roughly two-thirds of world GDP, could lose nearly half its weight.

Considering how much the United States relies on the dollar’s special status to fund massive public and private borrowing, the impact of such a shift could be significant.  The sustainability of growing US debt might be called into question.

The long-standing argument for a more flexible Chinese currency is that China is simply too big to let its economy dance to the US Federal Reserve’s tune, even if Chinese capital controls provide some measure of insulation. China’s GDP (measured at international prices) surpassed that of the US back in 2014 and is still growing far faster than the US and Europe, making the case for greater exchange-rate flexibility increasingly compelling.

A more recent argument is that the dollar’s centrality gives the US government too much access to global transactions information. This is also a major concern in Europe. In principle, dollar transactions could be cleared anywhere in the world, but US banks and clearing houses have a significant natural advantage, because they can be implicitly (or explicitly) backed by the Fed, which has unlimited capacity to issue currency in a crisis. In comparison, any dollar clearing house outside the US will always be more subject to crises of confidence – a problem with which even the eurozone has struggled.  Democrats and Republicans broadly agree about China, and there is little question that trade deglobalization undermines the dollar.

Chinese policymakers face many obstacles in trying to break away from the current renminbi peg. But, in characteristic style, they have slowly been laying the groundwork on many fronts. China has been gradually allowing foreign institutional investors to buy renminbi bonds, and in 2016, the International Monetary Fund added the renminbi to the basket of major currencies that determines the value of Special Drawing Rights (the IMF’s global reserve asset).

In addition, the People’s Bank of China is far ahead of other major central banks in developing a central-bank digital currency. Although currently purely for domestic use, the PBOC’s digital currency ultimately will facilitate the renminbi’s international use, especially in countries that gravitate toward China’s eventual currency bloc. This will give the Chinese government a window into digital renminbi users’ transactions, just as the current system gives the US a great deal of similar information.

Will other Asian countries indeed follow China? The US will certainly push hard to keep as many economies as possible orbiting around the dollar, but it will be an uphill battle. Just as the US eclipsed Britain at the end of the nineteenth century as the world’s largest trading country, China has surpassed America by the same measure.

The Chinese renminbi will not become the global currency overnight. Transitions from one dominant currency to another can take a long time. During the two decades between World Wars I and II, for example, the new entrant, the dollar, had roughly the same weight in central-bank reserves as the British pound, which had been the dominant global currency for more than a century following the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s.

So, what is wrong with three world currencies – the euro, the renminbi, and the dollar – sharing the spotlight? Nothing, except that neither markets nor policymakers seem remotely prepared for such a transition. US government borrowing rates would almost certainly be affected, though the really big impact might fall on corporate borrowers, especially small and medium-size firms.
Today, it seems to be an article of faith among US policymakers and many economists that the world’s appetite for dollar debt is virtually insatiable. But a modernization of China’s exchange-rate arrangements could deal the dollar’s status a painful blow. (The Guardian 4/3/21)
• (Kenneth Logoff is professor of economics and public policy at Harvard University. He was the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund from 2001 to 2003)

Covid and exercise

A US study shows that people who are less physically active are more likely to be hospitalised and die with Covid-19. According to these new calculations, being inactive puts you at a greater risk from Covid-19 than any other risk factor except age and having had an organ transplant. If this is right, it’s a big deal.

In the study, healthcare providers asked people about how much they exercised over a two-year period prior to the pandemic. Using this information, people were categorised into three groups. The first group – described as “consistently inactive” – exercised for no more than ten minutes per week. The second group engaged in “some activity” – exercising for between 11 minutes and 149 minutes a week. The third group consistently met physical activity guidelines, exercising for 150 minutes a week or more. Exercise was defined as moderate to strenuous activity, an example being a “brisk walk”.

Compared to people who were exercising for at least 150 minutes a week, people who were consistently inactive were over twice as likely to be hospitalised and to die due to Covid-19. They also had a greater risk of hospitalisation and death than people doing some physical activity.

There are a lot of reasons to trust this study. It uses data from almost 50,000 people who had Covid-19 between January and October 2020. The information on how much they exercised was collected before Covid-19 came on the scene – which means answers were not  affected by people’s Covid-19 outcomes. The researchers also tried to take into account things that might skew the picture – for example, how old someone was and what other health conditions they had.  (The Guardian)

My comment:  Personally, I go to the gym and use a walking machine, 3 miles, 4 mph at 5 degrees angle.  This I do three times a week, plus exercises given me by my physical therapist.  I’m not saying this to brag ( my wife does much, much more) but it keeps you more active , alert and has some bearing on your weight.  I feel Epicurus would approve.  Healthy body, healthy mind ( I hope!).

Money under false pretences

Fossil fuel companies in the US received billions of dollars in tax benefits through government coronavirus relief measures, but laid off tens of thousands of workers, figures show.

A group of 77 firms received $8.2bn in tax-code changes under the massive stimulus bill passed by Congress last last year, and some benefited from the paycheck protection program. Despite this, almost every firm laid off workers, with over 58,000 people losing their jobs. (The Guardian 4/2/21)

My comment:  I believe that Epicurus, were he alive today, would protest this cruel and selfish policy on the part of CEOs towards 58,000 people, many living on a knife edge, I have no doubt.  Restoration of faith in government is sorely needed, and one thing is essential:  the CEOs have to pay a higher proportion of their income in tax – and actually  pay it.  They are pampered by politicians who want their campaign money.  In my neck of the woods this is de facto corruption.  It goes to much of what is rotten in the system; party affiliation is irrelevant.   We all ( mostly) lose from the present system.

 

Advice for young American ladies

Said Apollo the God

To the belle, Aphrodite,

“Come hither, my lovely

And take off your nightie.”

“Oh no, Sir”, said she,

(the advice of her mother)

You’re a hunk, that I know,

But I’m seeking another.

 

He’ll be tall, he’ll be fair

And more handsome than you,

(Who sits this mountain with

Nothing to do).

He’ll draw portraits all day

And compose on the lyre,

With a figure to die for

And kisses like fire.

But it’s eons B.C  and I

Have to discover

A single male person

Resembling this lover.”

 

Sweet Aphrodite

Set out on her quest

But no human or god

Passed her rigorous test.

She travelled through Tartary,

Turkey and Spain,

Togo, Jamaica –

The men were all vain.

She went to Peru,

But the the men were untrue,

And a diet of buffalo

Ruled out the Sioux..

Women were servants to

Indians and Medes,

And the muscular Swedes

Couldn’t cope with her needs.

There was nothing much going in

Vietnam or Gaul.

In Nepal, so it’s said,

She found no one at all.

 

In Italy she had no

Great expectations,

Though, be fair, Italians are the

Best dressed of nations.

But lo! In the Marches of Italy,

Well, quel surprise!

On a soggy, wet day with

Mud up to her knees.

And after a search for

Milleniums of years

She’d found what she looked for

In joy and in tears.

A visit to England had been

Soundly rejected.

“Good gracious,” she thought

“This is quite unexpected.

I thought they were boring,

Standoff-ish and plain,

And the country was shrouded in

Fog and in rain.”

 

Well………………..

 

He drew hippos all day and

Composed on the lyre,

With a figure to die for and

Kisses like fire.

He told endless stories and

Laughed far too much

But she curiously responded to

Laughter and touch.

 

And now for all goddesses

It has been written:

“If you’re wise you’ll discover your

Lovers in Britain.”

 

A poem

A Walk in the Woods

 

I walk in wonder through the wood

Like some great temple, moist and still,

Bid fair to meet some forest god,

Or spirit of the Spring’s new growth,

Maybe perched upon a bough

Or peeping round some mossy root.

“Do you, good stranger, come I peace

Or will you jar our ageless calm?”

 

The May shower ended, and humid air

Hangs lank and languorous in the awakened wood.

Odours of peat, decaying leaves,

Are soft and wasted under foot.   (TURN)

 

In churches bells hang high on towers,

But in this holy, pagan place

A million bells in violet blue

Have carpeted the wildwood floor.

They burst upon the woodscape, and then

Glory done, can rest a year

No temple architect can match

This bluebell sea in stone or tile.

 

The May shower ended, and humid air

Hangs lank and languorous

In the awakened wood.

Odours of peat, decaying leaves,

Are soft and wasted underfoot.

 

Like ancient pillars of a nave

The grey-green beeches, smooth and clean

Hold up on high a canopy

A  trembling green and yellow shade.

But of a sudden sun breaks through

And dissipates the lingering cloud.

Shaftlets of light dapple the bark,

And raindrops shimmer on the leaves.

 

The May shower ended, and humid air

Hangs lank and languorous

In the awakened  wood.

Silent I tread where many more have trod

But never meet my forest god.

An unsuspected love of animals

A man dressed up as a dog took part in the Dog Day celebration in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on 25 April.

Turkmenistan’s leader (a Soviet leftover) has already written an ode to the country’s celebrated and extremely large national dog, the Alabai, and built a gilded monument to it. But now the country has gone further, introducing a new national holiday dedicated to the dog, with the first holiday taking place on Sunday. It featured a contest to find the best Alabai dog, a courage award to a border service dog, and a race.  (https://i.guía.co.u.k.).

My comment: My wife and I  visited Turkmenistan years ago (she on business).  The alabái dog must be the only living thing going for the country. I wandered around Ashgabat, the souk and so on, talking to the locals.  All of them ( I mean all of them) wanted to get out of the place.  The only good thing was that they dressed me up as a very imposing medieval Turkmen chieftain, and I had my photo taken, sans camel. Alas, I could do nothing for the benighted Turkmen themselves.

Vaccine “diplomacy”

Discomfort among European leaders this week after Joe Biden’s surprise proposal of a temporary patents waiver to boost the supply of Covid vaccines for poorer countries. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission boss, said the EU was open to the idea, but at a summit in Porto,  Germany and France gave it a cool reception. They may have a point about US and UK exports (or lack of them) being the real issue but with his move Biden appears to have put the US on the moral high ground about getting the world vaccinated, and Europe on the spot.  (The Guardian 12 May , 2021)

My comment: The advantages enjoyed by the “advanced” countries in terms of fighting covid results in an acute moral problem.  I believe that Epicurus would want as much equity in the fight against covid as possible. The stories coming out of India should make the most hard-hearted wince and squirm.   We should be shipping vaccines to all such countries and, this once at least, ignore the corruption and authoritarianism emerging in so many of them (including India). One way of fighting this authoritarianism is to set an example of no-strings-attached generosity.   What you give comes back to you eventually.

An attack on arts education funding

The U.K. government is facing a backlash from some of the country’s most prominent artists and writers after revealing plans to slash funding for higher education arts courses by 50%.

The budget cuts follow a six-week consultation by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson and the Office for Students, the independent regulator for higher education in England, that found arts education subjects were not “strategic priorities”.

The budget cuts may come into effect during the 2021-22 academic year. Other proposals include increased funding for courses “identified as supporting the NHS”, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

The reduction in funding, which would affect performing and creative arts, media studies and archaeology courses, has been described by the  Public Campaign for the Arts as “catastrophic” and “an attack on the future of UK arts”.

A petition opposing the cuts, launched on 5 May by the arts lobbying group, describes the reduction in funding as “a targeted attack on arts subjects” and has received more than 56,000 signatures.

“Artists and curators” are also “urging the government to reconsider” The Art Newspaper adds that the “truly appalling cuts to arts subjects will further divide society”.  And Booker prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other author Bernardine Evaristo wrote on Twitter that “this tin-pot chumocratic government has its priorities all wrong”, adding: “An absurd £37 bn on the failed Test & Trace, unlawfully awarded, now this awful assault on the arts in universities.”  (The Guardian 10 May 2021).

My comment: I have a degree in Modern History from a major British university.  I learned more about human nature, motivations and man management from the brilliant tutors than I learned later from business school. History turned out to be a boon when I found myself with 120 employees, a load of disgruntled customers and a bank threatening foreclosure within six months.  Handling all this proved successful – staff happy, company reputation with customers in due course excellent, debt reduced. Please excuse the self-interested bit of praise, but I owed it principally to modern history!   Man cannot live by technology alone.

A side-effect of Brexit

Thousands of British citizens in France have been left without a valid driving licence, or face losing theirs within months, because of bureaucratic overload and the failure of the two countries’ governments to sign a post-Brexit reciprocal agreement.

“I’d say there are 3,000 who are seriously worried – for whom this has really become nightmarish,” said Kim Cranstoun, who moved permanently to France three years ago. “Commuters risk losing their jobs, tradespeople can’t work, elderly people have missed medical appointments. Many British people in France live in quite remote, rural areas, with little or no public transport. Some are thinking of moving back to the UK. It’s quite desperate.”

The French government announced late last year that, as a consequence of Brexit, British residents of France would need to exchange their UK licences for French ones, and would have until 31 December 2021 to apply to do so.

Short-term visitors and tourists in France can continue to use British licences.
However, those applying to exchange their licences since January have had their requests systematically rejected by a new French online system, known as ANTS, on the grounds that no reciprocal licence agreement is yet in place between the UK and France.
Driving in France without a valid licence can result in a fine of up to €15,000 (£12,808), while taking the French driving test instead of swapping licences entails mandatory lessons and a daunting French-language theory exam, at a cost of about €1,800.

Government sources suggest a UK-France reciprocity agreement is “close to being sealed”, but not there yet. The problem has been compounded by administrative overloads at the centres in Nantes and Paris that processed earlier paper exchanges, but became swamped by more than 100,000 applications during 2018 as a possible no-deal Brexit loomed.   This prompted France to drastically limit applications by decreeing, in April 2019, that UK driving licences were valid for as long as Britain was an EU member, and requesting holders not to try to exchange their licences unless they were expiring or lost. It seems that UK licences “will continue to be recognised in France until 31 December 2021”, but the rules for exchanging  licences have not been confirmed

Many Britons duly waited until after the Brexit transition period on 31 December 2020 to begin the process, and now find themselves with licences that have expired and are unable even to start exchanging them.
“People followed both governments’ instructions, and are now being punished through no fault of their own,” said Cranstoun. “This is having a massive impact, on working people and pensioners. Unless it’s sorted, we’ll have to take French tests.”. (Jon Henley Europe correspondent, The Guardian, Tuesday, 30 March 2021)

My comment:  The EU is not about to make it easier to leave the bloc.  We knew this years ago, and I personally, sympathize with the French.  So the French driving may be scary, but their test is exhaustive, by reputation.  You might have no choice, fellas.  Blame the Brexiteers.

 

Update on the EU and the post-Brexit 1 UK

Far from finally turning the page on five long years of Brexit acrimony, the European parliament’s overwhelming vote to approve the EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement is set to open a whole new chapter of potential disputes.

Commission president Ursula von der Leyen referred pointedly to the “possibility for unilateral remedial measures” in the agreement, going out of her way to say it would “only ever be as good as its implementation and enforcement in practice.”

And that looks likely to be bumpy at best. British delays to Northern Ireland border checks have further eroded EU faith in the UK’s intentions – which, many in the bloc now fear, boil down to trying to ignore as much of what it has signed up to as possible.

There is already trouble looming over fishing rights. Clément Beaune, France’s Europe minister, warned this week that Paris will block City access to EU markets if Britain does not swiftly grant French boats licences to fish in British waters.

“As long as the agreement is not implemented, in full, we will take retaliatory measures in other sectors if necessary,” Beaune said. “The UK must respect its commitments – otherwise we will be as brutal and difficult as necessary.”

As Manfred Weber, leader of the parliament’s largest political bloc, put it bluntly: “We do not trust Boris Johnson’s government.” Ça promet, as they say in France: it all looks very promising. Anyone hoping for the end of Brexit is likely to be disappointed.

Meanwhile, in another sign of turbulent times ahead in EU politics, polls in Germany have the Greens ahead – sometimes comfortably – of Angela Merkel’s conservatives. After 15 years of stability in the EU’s powerhouse, that would shake things up.    (Jon Henley,  Europe correspondent, The Guardian).

My comment:  All this was totally foreseeable, made worse by Brexiteers who are, to be kind, delusional, and  a Prime Minister who thinks everything is a great joke at best and too complicated to get his mind round the boring detail on a daily basis.

I am not a nationalist ( Epicurus would have thought nationalism puzzling) but I feel deeply sad to  see such dire incompetence and the impending decline of England of what used to be a vibrant, creative country.

.

So much for fighting global climate change!

The world’s 60 largest banks have provided $3.8tn of financing for fossil fuel companies since the Paris climate agreement in 2015, a coalition of NGOs have said. While the coronavirus pandemic has triggered a drop in energy use, funding is still net rising.

US and Canadian banks comprise 13 of the 60 banks analysed but account for almost half of global fossil fuel financing over the last five years. Of the 60 banks, 17 have made a commitment to being net zero by 2050, but the NGOs say this must be backed up with meaningful action. Mark Campanale, of the financial thinktank Carbon Tracker, said: “Banks provide the financial oxygen that allows the fossil fuel industry to breathe”. (Guardian 24 mar 2021).

My comment:  You would think that the banks would be hurriedly investing in climate- friendly technologies that they could dominate and thus continue making lashings of cash. Apparently not.  I believe BP and Shell, for instance, have seen the light, but not the American and Canadian oil companies , who are still busy drilling. Denial of science and suspicion of scientists seems to be more common than I thought.

Migrating to an empty continent?

This is the perspective of a native American:

“Recently, Rick Santorum repeated a widely held myth of US exceptionalism. “We came here and created a blank slate, we birthed a nation from nothing,” the former US senator and CNN commentator told the rightwing Young America’s Foundation’s summit. “It was born of the people who came here.” His “we” excludes Indigenous people who were already here or African people who were brought in chains. And that “blank slate” required the violent pillaging of two continents – Africa and North America. If the United States was “birthed from nothing”, then the land and enslaved labor that made the wealth of this nation must have fallen from the sky – because it surely didn’t come from Europe.

“Racist depictions of Indigenous people in the media (CNN is a major offender) points to a deeper issue. The erasure of Native histories and peoples – which existed long before and despite a white supremacist empire – is a founding principle of the United States. In fact, it’s still codified in US law. So when Rick Santorum and his ilk stress that Europeans possess a divine right to take a continent, create a nation from “nothing”, and maintain cultural superiority, they’re not entirely wrong. It’s the default position with a long history.

“And maybe Santorum and his kind are right when they position the US as a Christian theocratic nation. After all, the founding principles of land theft, enslavement and dispossession stem from religious justifications. A 1493 papal decree known as the doctrine of discovery, justified the Christian European conquest of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. As secretary of state in 1792, Thomas Jefferson declared the doctrine, implemented by European states, was international law and thus applied to the nascent United States as well.

“Those views later inspired the Monroe doctrine, the assertion of US supremacy over the western hemisphere, and manifest destiny, the ideological justification of US westward expansion and colonization. An 1823 US supreme court case, Johnson v Mcintosh, upheld the doctrine, privileging European nations, and successors like the United States, title via “discovery” over Indigenous lands. Indigenous nations and sovereignty, the court ruled, “were necessarily diminished”.

“Such a legal and political reality for Indigenous people is so taken for granted that it is rarely mentioned in history books let alone mainstream commentary. Instead, a culture of amnesia permeates the United States. But purposeful forgetting can’t erase intent, it only perpetuates injury. Erasure makes the taking of Indigenous land easier.

“Although the United States quickly accuses other nations of genocide, it hasn’t acknowledged its own genocide against Indigenous people. To affirm it would mean to take measures to prevent it from happening again. That would mean halting ongoing theft and destruction of Indigenous lands, cultures and nations. A process of justice would have to follow suit. An entire legal order that underpins the backwards racist views and practices towards Indigenous people would have to be overturned. Indigenous land and political rights would have to be restored. A savage nation built of untold violence would have to be finally civilized and make amends with the people and nations it has attempted to destroy. After all the elimination of Indigenous nations was not only about taking the land, it was also about destroying an alternative – a world based on making and being in good relations versus that of a racialized class system based on property and conquest.

“That world still exists, and its stories still need to be told by Indigenous people.

“That’s a tall order that takes willpower, courage, and truth-telling we simply don’t see emanating from corporate newsrooms like CNN, to say nothing of political and ruling elite in this country. Firing Rick Santorum won’t solve these deep-seated inequalities and anti-Indigenous racism. But Indigenous genocide denial – the ultimate cancel culture – should have no platform if we are to finally transcend the 15th century racialist views codified in the doctrine of discovery.”

(Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and an assistant professor in the American studies department at the University of New Mexico.  Pub. in The Guardian)

My comment, If you have never visited, say, Nevada, and seen the way that the original inhabitants of the Continent are existing ( or scraping a perilous living), then do so.  It is upsetting, to say the least.

Question of the day

Why do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in our driveways and put our useless junk in the garage?

My comment:  A leading sociologist explained to me that usually there is too much junk in the garage, and  you can’t open the car door sufficiently to squeeze into the driver’s seat.  Why didn’t I think of that?

“Read Epicurus” – a poem

They peddle fear here.

They peddle fear of terrorists and sudden death

They peddle fear of rapists and angry drivers

They peddle fear of government and paying tax

Of deer ticks, butter, sugar, fat, untested drugs;

Of unknown visitors and dark-skinned men,

Of invasion, war and sudden death,

Of gunmen holding up cashiers,

Of bombs in culverts, school kids murdered with guns.

They peddle inquietudes, nervousness, distrust,

And to the terrified, apprehensive, cowed,

They preach damnation, hellfire in the afterlife.

The more they frighten us the more it gains the vote,

And the opinion-makers drivel on in biased turpitude,

Yapping in support of party, church and power.

Command, empire, sway, rule, dominion, supremacy

All depend on mongering fear and bald mendacity.

 

But then there is Epicurus,

His character assassinated by the church,

Maligned, misrepresented, damned by rote.

He only sought a tranquil mind, a life of peace,

Fearing nothing.  For fear, he said, brings pain.

And politics?  Striving, ambition, restlessness.

There are no active gods, said he, no afterlife,

No spirit out there, evil or benign,

Rewarding, punishing, damning you to hell,

No trumpets, choirs, or seats of the almighty.

Just atoms, molecules, and, in them, everlasting life.

No devils, angels, harps, or golden cities;

No god resembling, oh!, coincidence! a man!

No omniscient god who reads your thoughts,

Or manages the minutiae of your life.

Your life, indeed! Your life it is, subject to fortune,

Tribulations, ups and downs, but in the end just yours.

 

Try not to chafe and fret, but seek a mental peace.

Pursue the arts, activities you love.

Don’t worry over things you can’t affect.

Seek simple pleasures, food and friends.

Forsake consumerism, shops and malls,

Buying only what you really need.

Do no harm. Mend fences where required.

Cultivate  your garden and your peace,

Or get a dog.

All to be done in moderation and with joie de vivre,

 

For simple pleasures trump all wild excess.

Be fun, be smiling, for life is to be lived – 

What follows lasts a long, long time,

Should some abuse you as an atheist,

Remember! it is a propaganda word, and just a word,

Spoken by people with their own agenda

Read Epicurus! Till your garden, walk your dog,

Enjoy Nature while we have it still.

Reject all superstition, think for yourself

Believe not the religious memes of modern life.

Be gentle, thoughtful and and ask yourself…

Why do they peddle fear here?

(Robert Hanrott, January 2006)

My current comment:  “Plus ca change!”