In an odd cosmic juxtaposition, Vaclav Havel and Kim Jong Il died at nearly the same time. They bounded the opposite ends of 20th Century moral and political thought: a soaring belief in the power of morality and intellect on one end vs. the degradation of the human spirit that comes with the degradation of economic and social norms on the other.  The possibility of social, economic and political progress for all people vs. the reality of the slow, grinding poverty and starvation of one's own people accompanied by the threat of nuclear annihilation for others.  An international conscience and an international pariah.   The life of one reproached the life of the other. On his first day in office, Havel called communism "a monstrous, ramshackle, stinking machine" whose worst legacy was a "spoiled moral environment."  He said, "We have become morally ill because we are used to saying one thing and thinking another," he said. "We have learned not to believe in...(Read Full Post)