Malcolm Muggeridge, look to your laurels. How could you parody this?

M. Ali

If you are listening, a propos our discussion below, some days it feels not quite so bad to be Canadian.

Seriously, the worrisome thing here is not the spectre of a dogmatic, bureaucratic leftist-champion of the lazy, but rather that of a semi-educated, perfectly pleasant, bored clerk doing her nails and spewing out this drivel with no sense of the idiocy of it all.

Fair point.

This year New York's Museum of Modern Art loaned Berlin's New National Gallery some priceless pieces, including some Van Gogh, Matisse, and Monet.
The exhibit ran from Feb. through Sep.
The German people spent over 6 million hours waiting in a line which often stretched for over half a mile.

Now, art is important to the human soul, but if the Germans had matched their time spent waiting in line with an equal number of additional hours at work, they could have made about 300,000 more VWs and BMWs to sell to Americans and the Chinese, or five Type 209 diesel-electric submarines to sell to India, South Korea, or Taiwan, or a complete aircraft carrier battle group, to boost Germany's presence on the world stage.

Or not.

Michael, this is what Jeremy Rifkin means by "Deep Play". Leisure is the new vocation of Europe.

Also known as laying back eating lotuses while your enemies smack their lips over all your riches and sharpen their long knives.

Sharpen, sharpen, sharpen...