Bullying by Schoolteachers

Sometimes people have their heads shaved to demonstrate solidarity with cancer patients.

A schoolboy, Stan Locke, who did this is being punished by being completely isolated from all his classmates.

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-31035847

Children's hair styles are no business of their schoolteachers, who should confine themselves to teaching their subjects.

While school attendance is compulsory such abuses of authority are likely to be common. I have long inclined to ending compulsion, so that heads will have to show enough respect and consideration for their pupils to persuade them not to leave.

Enlivening a salad

I find conventional salads rather dull, though they may help weight control. Today I tried adding fresh pineapple. The salad was transformed, and a pineapple costs little more than a lettuce, that dullest of salad vegetables.

Disabling the Safety Valve

From time to time people commit odious crimes in the name of religion, yet most religious people do not feel impelled to behave like that, and many atrocities are committed in the name of non-religious causes

It is therefore often held that religion plays no part, that people who'd be delinquent anyway just use their religion as an excuse.

I think that may let religion off too lightly.

One thing that can hold us back from extreme action is a habit of thinking before we act and scrutinising our motives critically. Many religions, on the other hand, advocate what they call 'faith', which involves making some beliefs immune from criticism. Someone with faith in an impulse to kill is unlikely to reason themselves out of their folly.

Religion may not teach people to murder, but  training people to block reason with faith may disable a useful safety valve.