It has been said that affluence, not poverty, is the greatest problem facing the world today. There is truth to this statement. Those of us who live in affluent countries use the most resources and are the greatest polluters in the world.

It is not just the global community that is negatively affected by affluence, though. Those of us who are affluent, who live with plenty, are also negatively affected.

As an artist (photography not music) I often find it hard to get enough people wrangled up to view my images online, so I can only imagine how hard this is for other people as well. A few months ago I was searching around for an easier way to be able to add friends but not have to sit there and do it by hand for hours upon hours, and I found a really quick, easy and inexpensive solution, they are called friend adders.

When a loved one departs, it is always a distressing time and soon thoughts are turning towards funeral arrangements and remembrance. For those who have been touched by the life of an individual who has gone on to their final rest, there seems to be no way we can express what the person meant to us during their time on this earth.

The purchase of funeral flowers seems to be the best way to say with a gesture what can't be expressed with mere words.

To follow this story, you are requested to assume you are an Anglo Saxon male. You are in a shop that sells things ladies buy and you would rather wait outside. But she who must be obeyed and several garments are having a time out. She- your beloved- is Oriental(Chinese): your sales clerks are both female. One sales lady is blond and she stands back a bit.

Chinese Antiques Shop collecting predates the life and times of Buddha, who lived BC 566-486. Buddhism came to China from the west, up and around the Himalaya mountains and then across the Tibetan Plateau and then the Mongol deserts. The mighiest of all the deserts in Asia was the Gobi- so much that today the Gobi Desert is encroaching the western edges of the capital city, Beijing.

There are four major religions in China, as any wise Chinese Antiques shop keeper could tell you. The original worship was for deceased ancestors, and this is still to be seen in the present time. Next religion came out of the writing and words at Lao Tsu, who lived in the fifth century BCE and who lived at the same time as Confucious and Buddha. While Confucious spoke to the need for order and place in society.

Someone asked me yesterday why I believe in capital punishment. I immediately gave them four good reasons: Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, Harry Reid, and Chris Dodd. But, in all fairness to these fine people who have devoted their lives to "public service" -- even more so than community organizers -- there are several hundred other reasons I could list if it were not for space limitations.

I am writing this article on the fund raising day known as Children In Need. Many people are doing weird and wonderful things to help raise money for this good cause. There are lots of things you can do to raise extra cash on and around this special day. Children in Need is not the only time charities need your help, Red Nose Day is another well known event and many organisations need you help all through the year.

When we think of Chinese antique shops our mind tends to think of delicate and precious items. If you are in a traditional Chinese building then it likely has, or had a red tiled roof with curves tending upward at each of the four corners of the structure. Today in modern Chinese architecture there are many high towers, and some are mocked that such a classic old China roof has been placed on the peak of a tower.

Japan, after surviving two terrifying Mongol attacks with some of China's looting plunder and rape, developed a protective samurai sword that has never been equalled, of any sword ever yet created. In any discussion of the evolution of the mind set of the mild mannered Japanese antiques shop personality, in contrast with the terror of man with the samurai sword must be included.