Naah, this can't be true. Or yes it can be true, given acceptance of a certain level of absurdity.

Day before yesterday I read your post about someone lecturing about understanding and acceptance and open mindedness and such. But when he got a question about how to deal with hierarchy and power, he took the stance that managers are right, and if not, then still. So the whole point of his speech boiled down to ahem urgh nothing. Or to ahem urgh gurgle the idea that some pigs are more equal than others.

I do not believe that people are stupid as persons. But we may be very stupid as members of groups. If only because we don't think we can individually change things. And because we lack imagination. We just cannot imagine the worst, like we cannot imagine the best, although we have to deal with both in our personal lives.

Nietsche said: truth is like a cold bath. Snel erin, snel eruit (paraphrasing: ploink in, whoosh out).

Perhaps that's why people look at nonsense while the world economy collapses?

The manager pleading Zen for Employees is, of course, just looking at his own rest & wallet.

I wanted to read about the Icelandic banks, but the only link in your post was to the lap-dancing story, so I clicked that.

Dave - I'm not sure what your point is here. You conclude with "but really....". But really what? That sounded a bit like Mary Whitehouse in her heyday.

Are you saying that reading about lap dancing is not what a modern society should be doing? Well, welcome to the real world of Guardian readers. The hoi polloi do enjoy reading this kind of article - it seems.

On the plus side, now that you've mentioned the topic on your site, your own hit rate will probably spike up - or was that the plan all along (grin). /Keith

Like Stephen, I clicked on the only link provided in your post. I could not read it, however, because the photo of the reporter, one Sandrine Levêque, shows her to be approximately 11 years of age. While this is undoubtedly untrue, it unnerved me enough to close the page. No real point there, but I thought I'd share...

I must admit that I thought people could find their own way to the serious news stories, but might need help to get the prurient one. I may forgive the Mary Whitehouse link in a decade or so. :-)