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Details: Written by: Kamran Mofid; Published: 17 May 2020; Hits: 1010

We are loving our simpler life in lockdown!

Photo: Bill Butcher, Via The Financial Times

The other day I began to read a very interesting article by Mariella Frostrup, the Observer's agony aunt. It was very beautiful and inspiring. This is why I want to share it with you.

This was the heading of the letter that Mariella had recieved: ‘I’ve craved a slower pace of life – and want to make it permanent’

‘The dilemma:

I know we’re in the middle of a global pandemic with the economy knackered and the free world led by a man like Trump. I know our freedom has been temporarily taken away from us. But I’m dreading the end of lockdown.

For years I’ve craved a slower pace of life. Lockdown has allowed me to spend time with my family – and not on the relentless promise of success in my career. It has allowed me to play and learn with my child, rather than rush to drop-off or pick-up at wraparound care. It has allowed me to walk in woodland rather than standing on a crowded commuter train. In many ways it has been idyllic.

Yes, I know I’m lucky to be able to work from home instead of being furloughed. Yes, I miss friends and family and meals out, and theatre and cinema and sport. But I’m loving this pace of life and struggle to come to terms with going back to “normal”. Should I use this break as a chance to re-evaluate my way of life?’

And now my friends, this is my dilemma!

As I was reading the above, I was itching to put pen to paper and attempt to write a reply to this timeless letter that I would have liked to have given. But, having read Mariella’s reply, I thought that I could not do better. So below I have noted her wise words.

But before that, I want to share something personal on the same topic and idea. Something that our GCGI has been at the forefront of highlighting, promoting and recommending.

Here I can do no better than noting a passage from the GCGI Ten Steps to Save the World:

‘Throw away materialism and consumerism, ‘Black-Friday’ sales mentality, and opt for simplicity, simple living and be grateful for who you are, what you are and what you have

In Praise of Frugality: Materialism is a Killer

There is more in less: The Evolution of Simplicity

Simplicity: it’s our true guide to a better life

The beauty of living simply: the forgotten wisdom of William Morris

Black Friday, Brexit and Trumpian Values: Deadly forces taking over our world, controlling our minds

Thanksgiving vs. Black Friday: Where is the Gratitude?

Memento mori, Memento vivere and the Madness of Black Friday

In Praise of ‘Enoughness’ and 'Lagomist' Economy

In Praise of Gratitude’

Now, reverting to the wise words of Mariella Frostrup:

Mariella replies:

‘The short answer? Yes! I’m sure that plenty of us will look back at this momentary pause in normal proceedings and share your sense of regret for its passing.

Yes there is extreme hardship and a financial impact that few will escape but, for all that, these are definitely gentler days for many of us. Not just in terms of kindnesses and a reduction in the everyday frenzy of life, but beyond that, there is a slow dawning of appreciation of the things we’ve failed to value highly enough. The proximity of those we love; the luxury of idling; the value to our lives of friends not in our immediate reach; the enriched quality of a kind of existence that is possible when we are not running our lives against a ticking clock. There is also the pleasure of supporting local enterprises that have proved so much more essential than the impersonal giants that, for all their market domination, just weren’t there when we needed them.

For old socialists like me, { and me too, KM} the best of that ideology seems to be experiencing a reawakening as more and more people realise that the way of life we’ve been aspiring to pre-Covid hasn’t produced a bounty of wellbeing. It says a lot about our old lifestyle that the “wellness industry” was booming, making big bucks by commercialising the very things many of us are now enjoying under lockdown. Maybe that goal of “wellness”, but without the trademark, should now be top of our list of good things to retain from this traumatic time. Would it not be a fitting fate for this insidious virus that’s stolen so much from us, to rebrand it as a positive new “ism”, symbolising the moment our world paused and we reconstructed our dreams of what a good life should be? When we are forced to battle our way back into business, would it not be possible to make sure the same old rat race does not re-emerge? To try to maintain the central compassionate glow of this Covid spring?

Making the most of the time left is starting to feel like an imperative and you are not alone in experiencing the tightening of a knot in your stomach at the prospect of the lockdown bubble bursting. The cooped-up chaos, endless rowing and inertia that most of us expected seems instead to have configured itself into a better sense of being. Kids, no matter how reluctantly, taking some responsibility for chores; adults with time to talk to each other, to walk and read and listen and even play cards of an evening! Our world definitely seems to improve when we relinquish the expectations we have come to embrace as normal ambitions, sustained by endless and relentless consumerism.

Now may well be the moment to take note of the beneficial impact that simpler lifestyles have had on us and our planet and insist that, when the time comes for re-entry, we won’t just step back on the treadmill. I know that with an economy in freefall and job losses at an all-time high it won’t be hard to tempt us into re-embracing our bad consumerist habits, but does a less frenetic pace have to be a bad economic choice?

What I am certain of is that it would be an even greater tragedy than the one that has just befallen us to learn nothing from the whole experience except how to be better prepared for a pandemic.

Would we be “living the dream” if, after losing so many of those we love, enduring terrible financial hardship and cataclysmic job losses, we turned around and went straight back to normal once the threat of the virus abated?

If I believed in God, I’d consider Covid-19 a pretty strong message from him about the need for behavioural change. I’d like to join with you in exhorting readers to celebrate how different and better a world not based on “busyness” actually is – and could be. I’d be tempted to call this new awakening Covidism, as a mark of respect to those who have died and a way of reminding ourselves that their deaths should not be in vain. It’s given us pause for thought and if we’ve learned nothing from it, we really are a lost cause.’- Read the original article HERE

In Conclusion, Lest We Forget

Whatever happens in life afer Coronavirus, we must not go back to ‘NORMAL’. We Must Not Be Cheated and Exploited Again.

Photo: AP Via The Guardian

Before the pandemic began, the systems that govern our world were broken and brutal. We were cheated. We, the people, mother nature and our sacred earth, were abused and exploited to make loads of money for the few. That world was emotionally and spiritually disconnected, dehumanised, devalued. Mammon was ruling the world and humanity in decline.

When we emerge, the world will be different, so must we be.

Out of the coronavirus crisis, a new kinder and better world must be born

The time is now to rediscover our humanity and our solidarity

Details: Written by: Kamran Mofid; Published: 16 May 2020; Hits: 1719

Murdoch's Mystery: Debunking the'Shadow State', The Empire of Corruption and Destruction

And here is a Reuters ( 7 July 2011) infographic that captures Murdoch's Global Media Empire

This is How a Media Empire and the Common Bad Have Come Together to Destroy the World!!

‘MURDOCH AND HIS CHILDREN HAVE TOPPLED GOVERNMENTS ON TWO CONTINENTS AND DESTABILIZED THE MOST IMPORTANT DEMOCRACY ON EARTH. WHAT DO THEY WANT?’- Jonathan Mahler and Jim Rutenberg, The New York Times Magazine, 3 April 2019

Photo: The New York Times

As we proceed to build a fairer, kinder, and better world in the post- Covid-19 era, we should try to discover who our friends and foes are.

Nota Bene

In May 2012, I had posted a Blog, with this timeless question: Can the Media be for the Common Good?

Let me quote a passage from it:

‘Today, there is a great interest in highlighting a growing problem area, namely, the rapidly accelerating global corporate concentration of media ownership and the consequent grave impacts on democracies and consciousness throughout the world. It is very obvious that the performance of the mass media has recently become extremely degraded, with rampant commercialisation, trivialisation, corporate ownership, the PR industry and pressure groups agenda. This, as well as so much repetition, the narrow range of debate, and sharply declining standards for journalistic integrity, has significantly affected the possibilities of progress, development and education.

Lest we forget, a free and an independent media were conceived to serve the public good. Good journalism once stood at the heart of the struggle for freedom, democracy and justice, making it possible for responsible citizens to make informed decisions. This, as we all know, is not, by-and-large, true any more. Profit and share-holders values and interest are what matters most.

Given this increasing and overwhelming ownership of our global media outlets by individuals such as Rupert Murdoch and his cohorts, supported by corporate advertisers, compromising independent and responsible journalism, the time has arrived to seriously question if under these conditions the media indeed can be for the common good?’...

Anyhow, to cut a long story short, I then answered my own question, by saying, YES, indeed, it is possible to have a media for the common good, as long as they are like The Guardian and the BBC.

Can the Media be for the Common Good?

‘It goes without saying that I was delighted and very happy to note that in a University of Oxford study, my favourite newspaper that I have been reading daily since the early 1970s has topped the poll of national papers for coronavirus coverage.The Birts trust the Guardian, its investigative journalism and its reporting of facts, analysis, and stories.

Moreover, I was very happy to note that the nation’s favorite TV and Radio news coverage, The BBC, has also topped the poll in its category.

Wow! What more can say, but that it is wonderful to see that my long held views, convictions, and praise for the Guardian and the BBC have been in line with the praises of the British and indeed many more around the world.

So, my friends, come on board, support, value and cherish these institutions (and off course the NHS), or the Thatcherite ideologues will destroy them, as they have done with everything that was once good and worthy. Be warned.’ I always knew that the Guardian and the BBC are the BEST

Today, I wish to ask a different question:

Can the media be for the common bad?

The answer, in my mind, is, YES, indeed.

But, I want to invite Kevin Rudd to answer this question more fully

Kevin Rudd was prime minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010 and then again in 2013.

He is president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.-Photo: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

The Murdoch media’s China coronavirus conspiracy has one aim: get Trump re-elected- Kevin Rudd*

‘In liberal democracies, the integrity, impartiality and professionalism of intelligence agencies matters. That’s why it is essential that intelligence agencies remain aloof, not only from the political debates of the day, but also from the policy decisions that individual governments may take. The intelligence community’s core task is to provide brutally realistic analysis on the threat environments we face so that governments can then make the best-informed policy decisions possible to preserve our common security.

The failures of the intelligence community before the Iraq war, the gullibility of much of the western media, as well as the cynical manipulation of both by the political class of the day, provide us with a stark reminder of what can go radically wrong. On 8 September 2002 the New York Times published one of this century’s most consequential news articles. The front-page story, supplied by the Bush administration, claimed that Saddam Hussein had stepped up his quest for weapons of mass destruction by acquiring key components for a nuclear weapon. In the UK, the Blair government’s “dodgy dossier” compounded the error. John Howard did the same in Australia. The problem was that it just wasn’t true. These were over-egged stories designed to soften the public up for what would become a disastrous war.

The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 casts a long shadow. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, first in the invasion, then the ensuing chaos, then in the rise and fall of Islamic State. It strengthened Iran’s hand in both Iraq and Syria. It contributed to a massive outflow of refugees across the world, a factor in the resurgence of the far right across Europe. And Washington has spent nearly two decades trapped in a Middle Eastern mess of its own making, diverting much of its attention from China’s regional and global rise.

Lies were reported as facts. Credible sceptics were downplayed, ignored or attacked as unpatriotic “appeasers”. The thrill of landing a big “story” overtook the media’s fundamental duty to prevent the public from being deceived. Journalists who believed they were muscling up to a looming security threat turned out to be working instead against their own countries’ long-term interests. And in all this the Murdoch media were leading the pack across the anglosphere as the unrelenting cheerleaders for war – and vilifying those, like me, who opposed it.

Murdoch and the Two Trumps!!

Photo:BuzzFeed News

This brings us to the Covid-19 pandemic and the public health and economic mayhem it has unleashed across the globe. The sheer magnitude of the damage means that the people of the world have every right to know how this came about. Whether China’s new class of “wolf warrior” diplomats care to recognise it or not, there are fundamental questions we can all legitimately demand answers to. These include the origin of the virus in Wuhan; whether the earliest genetic evidence of the outbreak has been properly preserved for independent research; the danger of wildlife “wet markets” in the transmission of such viruses; what delays occurred in notifying central authorities; why some local medical staff were either silenced or punished; what delay occurred in notifying the World Health Organization of human-to-human transmission, given China’s obligations under the relevant international health regulations. There are also fundamental questions on whether the WHO properly discharged its mandate to provide clear and early warnings to the international community. And whether national governments took all necessary actions to prepare for the virus reaching their own shores, or whether these warnings were effectively ignored – as appears to have been the case in the US.

But amid all these questions, and the parallel debate about the mechanism now needed to conduct an effective international inquiry, we suddenly have a unilateral declaration by the US president and his secretary of state that the body of evidence overwhelmingly points to the virus having leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where research projects have been under way into various categories of coronavirus borne by bats. They claim a “high degree of confidence” in this theory, citing compelling but as-yet undisclosed evidence – despite the US director of national intelligence issuing a rare public statement disparaging this theory.

Enter the “global exclusive” story of Rupert Murdoch’s Australian Daily Telegraph last weekend, headlined “China’s batty science – bombshell dossier lays out the case against the People’s Republic”. The paper claims to have been leaked a 15-page research dossier prepared by unnamed “western governments” on the Chinese government’s culpability for the outbreak. The clear inference from the Telegraph report is that the document was prepared by the “Five Eyes” intelligence community linking the US, UK, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand intelligence services. Other Murdoch journalists, re-reporting the story, have expressly stated it was a Five Eyes document. While the article itself shies away from stating explicitly the document’s authorship, the newspaper goes on to detail a number of investigatory actions being undertaken by the Five Eyes to nail the Chinese state’s responsibility.

The most critical part of the Telegraph newspaper report deals with apparent divisions among the wider intelligence community on the authenticity of the “Wuhan laboratory leak” thesis. And it’s here that Murdoch’s paper becomes explicit in its assertion that the Five Eyes research dossier helps validate the as-yet-unproven claim by Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo that the virus was “invented” at the Wuhan laboratory. The article and associated stories are laced with colourful reporting about Chinese “bat virus” researchers – “bat men”, “bat women” and other tales from the Wuhan bat cave. Nonetheless, having delivered its political ordinance in support of Trump and Pompeo, the Murdoch story carefully and cleverly seeks to cover its traces by stating repeatedly that nothing is yet proven about the laboratory leak.

The Murdoch journalist in question, Sharri Markson, a few days later pops up as the prime interview on the Murdoch-owned US cable TV network Fox News. The interviewer is none other than Trump’s personal favourite, Tucker Carlson, who together with Sean Hannity are his cheerleaders-in-chief in the American media. Right on cue, Tucker chimes in that the dossier “is the most substantial confirmation of what we’ve suspected that we’ve had so far” and that “because it’s a multinational effort I think it would be hard to dismiss it as a political document”.

The truth is, at this stage, none of us know definitively whether the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory. The best we can do is accept the Australian government’s assertion that this is at best a 5% possibility. Politically, the bottom line is that the leak of this alleged Five Eyes intelligence dossier to the Murdoch media in Australia, before being resold back into the US political audience by the very same Murdoch media, appears designed to back Trump’s and Pompeo’s claim. But this time with the added “authenticity” factor of the dossier being “multinational” and not just a normal drop from the White House to Fox, which have become a dime a dozen.

This is all about US presidential politics. There are three issues in this campaign: Trump’s handling of the virus; how to dig the US out of its virus-induced economic hole; and who can be most hardline on China – the Donald or “Beijing Biden”, as the Republicans now seek to tag his Democratic opponent. There’s little else on the table. Therefore, using an intelligence leak pushing Chinese culpability, laundered through a foreign country, turbocharged with the credibility factor of being an alleged Five Eyes product, helps the partisan political cause. And let’s be clear: Murdoch is campaigning full-bore for Trump.

Here are questions now for the Australian government and potentially its Five Eyes partners. First, was this an “intelligence” product, or was it simply open source material derived from information in the public domain? Second, was it an authorised Five Eyes product, or was just prepared in the US? Third, who leaked it, given that leaking such material is a criminal offence – as the US has made plain in its handling of Chelsea Manning’s and Julian Assange’s cases that included the large-scale unauthorised release of

classified Five Eyes material. Were any ministers of the Australian government complicit in this? Or was the US embassy in Canberra involved? If the Australian government is serious about the protection of classified documents, then why hasn’t a full police investigation been commissioned? Or is the government fearful of what it might discover if, as is likely, the leak has been driven by political and electoral interests within the US.

The extent to which the Australian intelligence community has sought to distance itself from the “dossier” suggests it does not wish to be in any way drawn into domestic politics – either Australian or American. The British intelligence community is reportedly doing the same. This is good. These institutions appear to have learnt from the Iraq war fiasco and the political abuse of intelligence agencies that occurred at that time. But on this question, the bitter lessons of Iraq appear to have been lost on Trump and the Murdoch empire that supports him.

China has much to answer for, including the ultimate origins of the virus. But if Trump’s claim in the Wuhan laboratory saga ultimately ends up being disproven, either by the Five Eyes or by US intelligence itself, then the irony is that the net political winner will be China. Remember the humiliation when no WMD were found in Iraq? Beijing would seek to exonerate itself as a result of egregious presidential overreach – once again aided and abetted by the Murdoch media. This is why the watchword of any sophisticated intelligence agency is caution in endorsing premature conclusions until all the facts are on the table.’

*This article was first published in The Guardian on Friday 8 May 2020.

Watch the Video: Former Australian PM describes Murdoch media empire's 'assault'

Photo:Manhattan Buzz

How Thatcher and Murdoch made their secret deal

'A rare sighting of Margaret Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch, in 1991.

Their meetings were a good deal more secretive 10 years earlier.' Photo:John Mantel/Rex Features, Via, The Guardian

Murdoch and Thatcher – a convenient alliance against the BBC

Johnson met Murdoch on day he signalled general election bid

Rupert Murdoch in Series of Meetings With Boris Johnson and High-Profile Ministers

Boris Johnson’s last official meeting before resigning as Prime Minister was with Rupert Murdoch

Photo: Scram News

“Mr Murdoch has had successive Prime Ministers in his pocket.”- John Mann MP

Photo: Daily Mirror

Dial M For Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain

Photo: The Daily Beast

‘Murdoch and the Big Lie’

Photo: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Murdoch and His Hacking Empire

‘On Nov. 10, 2011, a protester representing media executive James Murdoch appears at a demonstration by the activist organization Avaaz outside

the British Houses of Parliament, where Murdoch was testifying about the cell-phone-hacking scandal that brought down the News of the World newspaper earlier in the year.’- Photo: Encyclopædia Britannica

The Murdoch empire: Phone hacking exposed

Phone-hacking scandal: is this the tipping point for Murdoch's empire?

Rupert Murdoch's empire must be dismantled – Ed Miliband

Block Murdoch works!

Photo: Via LIGYA GARDEN

Details: Written by: Kamran Mofid; Published: 10 May 2020; Hits: 999

We are dreaming about one of our favourite places in the world, our beautiful resort, Hapimag Albufeira, Algarve, Portugal.

Photo: HAPIMAG

As far as we can remember, perhaps for the last 20 years, every January, and sometimes in Spring and Autumn too, we have visited the lovely Hapimag resort in Algarve. We just love it there. We were there in January this year, for a whole blissful one month.

We now know everyone there. All so kind, friendly and hopeful, the resort manager, admin staff, receptionists, the leisure consultant, the supermarket, restaurant, and bar staff, cleaners, gardners and the golf-buggy drivers, the many guests that we have met every year, and of course the kind portuguese people that we have met and made friends with. We long to go and see them all again.

'The Sharing Economy: Hapimag - A Business for the Common Good'

We miss the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets, we miss our early morning walks and swimming, chatting and laughing with fellow swimmers, nearly all Germans. We miss going to the Zen Garden, for our daily dose of spirituality and meditation.

We miss going to the supermarket, saying Hallo, Guten Morgen, making jokes with the manager and staff about ‘English Weather’, whilst picking up our daily freshly baked baguettes, bread and croissants.

We yearn for our walks to Gale, that beautiful long beach, and carrying on to the most beautiful long boardwalk ever, and on the way back, stopping at our favourite supermarket, Apolonia, for our daily galeo/ lite lunch, food shopping and/or perhaps picking some takeaway for dinner.

We miss walking through the fields of olive trees, oranges and lemons, not forgetting the loveliest almond blossoms.

We also miss our many shorter trips to some of the loveliest places including Albufeira, Olhao, Faro, Sagres, Lagos, Luz, Portimão, Tavira, Monchique, Silves, Loule, and many, many more.

Oh, we can write and write, more and more, how we are dreaming about our next visit to our Hapimag resort in Algarve.

But at this moment in time we cannot plan and book, as we have done over the past many years. Because of Covid-19 there are many travel restrictions in place and at this moment the British government is advising against all, but essential, travels.

Thus, we must remain patient and we know, sooner or later, we will be back to Hapimag Algarve.

Kamran and Annie Mofid

Hapimag Lisbon, we are missing you too

Hapimag Bowness, we are missing you too

Hapimag London, we are missing you too

Hapimag Paguera, we are missing you too

Hapimag Athens, we are missing you too

Hapimag Damnoni, we are missing you too

Hapimag Vienna, we are missing you too

Hapimag Salzburg, we are missing you too

Hapimag Bad Gastein, we are missing you too

Hapimag Mas Nou, we are missing you too