The puritanical rules shaping the American way of life make tragedies like that of Mark Sanford unavoidable.

There is no greater hypocrisy than that of the laws of God.

Do away with them in the name of humanity.

In the history of malekind there is but a constant breaking of them.

A more human climate can be created only if God is kicked out of politics for good.

Take the secular society of France.

It allows even presidents to live peacefully in

bigamy and raise children from both, the press held back by very strict laws as for going public on private life. I believe the American press did the same during JOhn F Kennedy´s Camelot days.

At the end of his presidency when he was in the final stages of prostate cancer Mitterrand allowed name and pictures published of his young daughter just as it was made public that he preferred to die in the Paris flat of his mistress (living above my own flat at that). His wife invited mistress and daughter to the funeral with her own sons, all transmitted on television.

Mitterrand in turn created that most wonderful of questions to a woman:- If I should call you, would that give pain to anyone?"

Better of course in In French:

"Si je vous appelle, est-ce que cela fera de la peine à

quelqu´un?"

A man of great culture he was a law unto himself living life to the full.

Surely that is the meaning of one´s moment on this earth.

I thought the point of Michelle Obama´s kitchen garden was

to inspire everyone to grow the same in the back yard or on

your balcony ( I live in Paris and grow potatoes tomatoes strawberries salad persil dill etc using pots of various sizes)

I presume the European system of renting small patches of land for one´s own consumtion of veggies, fruits, flowers is not used in the US.

Best example of its usefulness is Russia where it is acknowledged survival during hard times (and were they hard) is a matter of being able to grow what one needed on those

small plots of land.

To a European Michelle Obama is a blessing for all Americans showing how simple it is to have first class produce on your plate.

How is it possible to miss the global aspects of the

funeral show considering that global television was kneeling for hours beating princess Diana´s funeral as for iconic farewell for the masses. Television all over the world transmitted the show such as the BBC World television doing so for hours on end as if the world stood still.

As did public service television all over Europe not mentioning Europeans news channels such as the three 24 hours French news channels (LCI, Tele-I, BFM)transmitting exactly the same pictures during 4 hours differing in commentators only for the "planetary farewell".

It was indeed a huge day for television, again reminding us that it is the world´s biggest culture, the one common global denominator.

As a European I often wonder why it is that Americans care so little to deepen their knowledge of their true revolution for mankind, the money culture.

I hope the book is better than the Salon review as for facts as old as they are known.

IKEA has had to face worse criticism than the book offers in Sweden itself for years and years. This very Summer a Stockholm art center (Liljevalch´s)hosts the first exhibition on the IKEA impact on Swedish homes, an event immediately condemned even before opening for supposed lack of a critical approach.

Let alone Sweden is fanatically sensitive about environmental issues - including state authorities nowadays admonishing recipients of their e-mails to consider that replying may have consequences for the environment.

However true that IKEA has moved out of Sweden since long preferring the more tolerant Holland it is still very keen on marketing itself as Swedish selling Swedish food even and keeping its practice of naming every product after places in Sweden and by the way certainly not just picking names given men and women and most certainly not just female names as the book and reviewer erroneously suggest. In short any serious writing on Ikea makes for obligatory checking with Swedes themselves.As all Swedes speak English it is no hard task for anyone such as a Salon reviewer to contact the Swedish embassy in order to be directed to the Ikea critics in Sweden. It has been done by journalists in other countries since long.

Meanwhile all Swedes have the time of their lives wherever they are listening to non-Swedes pronouncing the names of products. The French in particular suffer badly.

Before Ikea where was one´s chance to have an elegant home? Ikea´s clever copies of the foremost Italian and Scandinavian designers is low cost for connoisseurs everywhere.

Once a few years ago Ikea copied fine 18th century Gustavian

pieces of furniture - an initiative so popular that it became

impossible to keep up with demand so Ikea ceased production. But there is more: such as copies of what are very expensive French " toile- de -jouy" i.e. French 18th century cotton prints for curtains, table cloth,bed spreads it all great favourites with Marie Antoinette.

Ikea does not only copy modern designs for which it has been sued nowadays it produces copies had from downloading

a cultural heritage not yet protected by international law.

It means Ikea can change every American suburban home into a Marie Antoinette petit Versailles palais if you hurry up and if you have enough knowledge of art history to find the treasures.

Ikea never advertises it supports aristocrats everywhere.