Sometimes the weakest can accomplish great things
Has a protest fast ever changed anything?
For many imprisoned wrongly it is their last resort, a protest they hope will be noticed. Some have died. Some have been force-fed, raising ethical problems for medical staff. Some were successful: Mahatma Gandhi and the suffragette Marion Wallace-Dunlop were released from prison after hunger strikes because the authorities feared their martyrdom.
David Isaacs, Sydney, Australia
• The most famous exponent of the art of hunger strikes must surely be Gandhi. Need I say what he managed to accomplish with them?
Angela Blazy-O’Reilly, Villeneuve-la-Comptal, France
Do you really need to ask?
What is rhetorical about a rhetorical question?
Since the word rhetorical means a striving for effect, a rhetorical question does the same without demanding an answer, as in “Who cares?” (ie, nobody does).
Richard Orlando, Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• The tone of the person doing the asking.
R De Braganza, Kilifi, Kenya
• A rhetorical question is figurative only. It does not require a response. Would I lie to you?
Ursula Nixon, Bodalla, NSW, Australia
• Do you need to ask?
Tijne Schols, The Hague, The Netherlands
Keep them all locked up
Is prison the answer?
Prison is not the solution.
Philip Stigger, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Yes, but only if the question was, “What’s the punishment least likely to reform a criminal?”
Alan Williams-Key, Madrid, Spain
• Not to any useful question. An early experience as a young psychologist in a London prison showed me how negative and brutalising prisons can be despite the best efforts of some good people within the system. Better answers would seem to be restorative justice programmes and adequate mental health services, which would not suit the law and order crowd.
On the other hand, I do recall that a prison sentence in Kenya was seen as a way to guarantee access to three meals a day.
Margaret Wilkes, Perth, Western Australia
Listen and you will prosper
Politics excluded, what is the most dishonest occupation?
Motivational speakers who present diagnoses as if they were cures.
Nigel Grinter, Chicago, Illinois, US
Get out on the holiday road
Is there such a thing as fun for the whole family?
Perhaps we had wished we were elsewhere, but the memory of the event in later years often recalls it as fun. I remember a trip to Yellowstone National Park as a teenager with my parents and younger brother. I just wanted to escape and join my friends in North Carolina. Today it is one of the nicest memories I have of those awkward years: sleeping in a big tent, seeing the waterfalls and wild life, driving around in a rented Chevy convertible with my family, all of whom are now gone ... but live on in that great white car with the wind in our hair.
Doreen Forney, Pownal, Vermont, US
• A picnic for the cardinals catered by the Borgias just before a papal election.
Gerald Garnett, Kaslo, British Columbia, Canada
• Certainly! As proof I offer the National Lampoon vacation series and the adventures of the Griswold family of Clark, Ellen, Audrey and Rusty.
Terence Rowell, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Big-screen cinema.
David Tucker, Halle, Germany
• Well-meaning parents often think so, until reality kicks in.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia
Any answers?
Pandas’ difficulty in breeding is nature’s oversight. Are there other design faults in nature?
Mary M Scott, Huntly, UK
The most famous last words?
John Morralee, Belleville, Ontario, Canada
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