A Bishop Makes Things Worse; Economy In Verse

The sting of the deteriorating economy is being felt in Britain as it is everywhere else. Yesterday, the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres--third ranking cleric in the Church of England--was in big trouble for suggesting that for some people, redudancy (being laid off) might be a blessing because it is a relief from the "crackberry culture. While perhaps true at some level, this comment didn't resonate as sympathetic with the nearly 2 million British citizens who have lost their jobs. It doesn't help that the bishop himself makes more than f57,000 annually and lives in a government-provided house which was just remodeled at public expense to the tune of f300,000. pThen there was the poem that appeared in the Evening Standard yesterday. The poem addresses Prime Minister Gordon Brown and government bailouts of banks in the U.K., but you could change the words to reference certain American politicians and our own financial problems, and it still reads just fine:

Brown is my shephered, I shall not work,

He leadeth me beside still factories,

He restoreth my faith in the Conservative Party

He guideth me to the path of unemployment.

Yea though I wait for my dole

I own the bank that refuseth me.

Brown has annointed my income with taxes

My expenses runneith over my income

Surely, poverty and hard living will follow me

all the days of our lives in a rented home

with an overseas landlord

I am glad that I am British

I am glad that I am free

But I wish I was a dog

And Brown was a tree.