Short & Sweet - week beginning March 26

The Historical Society of Somerset Hills

Last week I read of a Year Nine boy who had been suspended from a Melbourne school after shaving his head to raise money for his friend suffering from leukaemia.

While the headmaster explained that if the boy had gone through school procedures first, and kept the 'do to a number two, he would have avoided punishment, I do think that sometimes there must be exceptions to the rules, don't you?

In life, if we were all to be perfectly law-abiding citizens all the time, then we might turn a blind eye to opportunities to help others, like in the event that your best friend has leukaemia. What if Rosa Parks hadn't dared to part from the law, to challenge the status quo, and keep her bus seat to herself? What then of progress? Or if a few brave people hadn't dared to question slavery?

While railing against authority and conformity in all its forms must have a true and righteous cause, and not all rules are made to be broken because then we'd have full-on societal anarchy (anyone can steal! kill who you like! why not drive on the other side of the road?!), surely there must be special exceptions... particularly if it's a gesture of gentlemanly humanity and not all-out rebellion that's the motivation? And especially in a world where the opposite (doing things for selfish gain: money, power, fame) is commonplace.

What do you think?

Let's catch up: Over the weekend I felt like I was playing a part in the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (definitely not Lord of the Flies). It was an amazing time of sharing with friends, of kindly and gentle hospitality, of meeting people where they're at and gleaning from them words of wisdom, of getting outside the self for a refreshing glimpse at someone's else, and watching the election unfold on TV in good company with running commentary.
This week's agenda: I am driving solo to Sydney to care for my dad (aka Bloke with a Bag).
The Word for the Week: "For what they were not told, they will see, and what they have not heard, they will understand." Isaiah 52: 15
Quote for the Week: "To have a film about dementia in a person who is still alive is wrong. I don't think Baroness Thatcher deserved to have a film made in her lifetime. She is not without a purpose in her life – and what a remarkable life." - Lord Glendonbrook, The Sun-Herald
Dictionary.com word for the week: Tellurian \te-LOOR-ee-uhn\, adjective:
1. Of or characteristic of the earth or its inhabitants.
noun:
1. An inhabitant of the earth.
"Is it coincidence that Campbell Newman and Tony Abbott bear semblance to a sort of tellurian/extraterrestrial hybrid? The small giants of politics?"
Reading: 'Mr Justice', a profile of Lord Bingham (lawyer, historian, father, committed Protestant, wit) by Jesse Norman, author of The Big Society and Compassionate Conservativism and Bingham's son-in-law at The Economist's More Intelligent Life.

Girl With a Satchel