Quote of the Day (18)

12 June 2010 - An extensive quote this time. It comes from an SCMP interview with Michael Palin: "Poverty is sometimes used by people who have a lot of money to describe people .. who haven't. I realize we are very much conditioned in our own modern lives. I depend on the electricity company for light, on planes bringing food from 300 miles away, on someone to build the roads. I have just been to parts of Orissa, India, where people have little money, yet they are in control of everything they do. Their lives may not offer as many options as ours, but they have lived on the land for 2,000 years. They know how to cultivate it, they are not destroying anyone else's livelihood, and they are creating in many ways a sense of contentment and fulfillment, which is rather enviable. A lot of the things we now think are important, like sustainable agriculture, development of the community, lack of consumerism, are things they have and we do not. To destroy that way of life is to do so at our own peril."