Even when the truth has been reached – and this can happen only in a limited and imperfect way – it can never be imposed. To try to impose on others by violent means what we consider to be the truth is an offence against human dignity.
-Pope John Paul II [Pinched from Christian Blogs see last entry today]

Human Nature Lets Stop beating around the bush and consider beating Macbeth

Anyone who has read his/her Shakespeare would not have been surprised by the fact that he knew something that we are increasingly loath to acknowledge. There is no technical fix for the problems of humanity.
Solzhenitsyn was not alone in this view: indeed, one Russian poet wrote a cycle of sonnets from the Gulag, in which he referred disparagingly to Shakespeare’s tragedies as ‘mere trumper’ — a phrase he repeated many times as a refrain to underline the unprecedented nature of Soviet evil. Just as the German philosopher and social theorist Theodor Adorno said that after Auschwitz there could be no more poetry, so the Russians said that after the Gulag there could be no more Macbeth.
· Human Nature [City Journal]
· Mental Capacity of a Presidente [InstaPundit]

Parliamentary Culture Stranger in the House

No one is better qualified to write about parliamentary environment than my former boss, Dr Russell Cope. For over 30 years he was the Parliamentary Librarian of the New South Wales Parliament, and generations of parliamentary officers and students of Parliament have found his writings of great interest. Anybody can write a story about the parliamentary rituals, but only a great observer can consistently distill something profound from the stuff of everyday life at Parliament.
· Mono Kultura [Blog -City]