Monopoly on wheelbarrows...

Probably the most capitalistic board game around is ‘Monopoly’. So it was surprising to learn that a Chinese imitation of it is also a popular game in Beijing and Shanghai. There are some minor differences in the Chinese version. All the tokens, for instance, are wheelbarrows - no plutocratic top hats, sports cars and the like. And in the Chinese imitation, you can't pay a fine to get out of jail. Lawbreakers have to serve their time. – I kind of like that aspect… As for trumped-up medical parole – take your wheelbarrow and go and do some community service!

I’ve been thinking and reading about how deep in human nature was the idea of a family, and how false the denial of that idea - as in Plato and in all collective systems - and especially in the present tendency to separate out sensuality and value it apart from procreation, recreation and, yes, even Creation. New beginnings, makeovers, do-overs, fresh starts, children are the everlasting new start; life springing up again, joyous and undefiled. I know that everybody, every idea, every family, and even every child will make every mistake that I have made (well most of them), commit the same sins, be tormented by the same passions, as sure as I know that a green shoot pushing up from the earth must ripen and fall back, dead, on to the same earth; yet this does not take away from the wonder and beauty of new beginnings, fresh starts, children or a new resolution – may God bless and enhance your day in newness! (“,)