Fear stops children’s development

Tim Gill, a child expert, shows in his new book a reluctance to let children take risks could stop them developing vital skills needed to protect themselves; youngsters are missing out on their childhood because we over-protect them. In No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society, Gill argues that childhood is being undermined …
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Money wins over humanity, by a wide margin

Humanity’s interest in raising the poor and destitute from the threshold of survival is insignificant. But our interest money, even the virtual money crated by trading opinions in the stockmarket, remains supreme. Whether Boston or Bombay, money, that metaphysical asset, seems to feed our souls. It took minutes for the top guns to swing into …
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America, please stop convicting children as adults

As the rumblings of a change to the policy of capital punishment begin in America, the Equal Justice Initiative is releasing a report that says states should be required to review sentences of juvenile offenders, looking for cases where parole might be warranted.   According to the report, there are 73 Americans serving life without parole …
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Dalai Lama, Politics and Religion

The hosting of the Dalai Lama by Bush raised hackles in China, as expected. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour. China is upset because it sees the Buddhism as a threat to state unity. It seems as if it is fighting a rearguard action though, because in August …
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Behaving like monkeys

A couple of articles discussed recent research in to the genetic programming of fairness. A study by Keith Jensen of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology published in Science concludes that a sense of fairness is genetically encoded in humans, but not in chimpanzees. It is also apparent that some people are fairer than …
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Knowing what you can’t see

Geoffrey Miller recently published research which clearly shows that human males can detect whether or not females are fertile.  The data support the conclusion that males can detect whether or not females are ovulating, even if they don’t know that that’s what they are detecting.  His unusual study took place in lap-dancing clubs and the …
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Islam and Christianity must work together

In a letter, A Common Word Between Us and You, addressed to Pope Benedict XVI and other Christian leaders, 138 prominent Muslim scholars from every sect of Islam urged Christian leaders “to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions”, spelling out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the …
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Eco-consumption under pressure from economic slowdown and greenwash

The slowing US economy is dragging down several green industries, including demand for green homes, energy-efficient home products and renewable energy, according to Energy Pulse 2007, the third annual national consumer market study conducted by the Shelton Group. For eight different kinds of energy efficient home products, this year’s Energy Pulse survey found that consumers …
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Art pioneers donationware

Alternative rock group Radiohead, has released their seventh studio album, In Rainbows, as a donationware download from their official website: that means you can pay what you like to download it. You decide what to pay for the 10 MP3 files – from nothing to £100.  So far they have not revealed how many people …
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