Two leaders died this week, both with incredibly different legacies.  One nuclear; one Velvet.  My context of both is drastically different: My picture, driven by the media, of Kim Jong Il is a crazed, power-hungry, slightly insane man.  My picture of Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, is a man of integrity, humor, creativity and passion.  This version was shaped by his friend, a fighter pilot from WW2, who was my professor.

I studied abroad in Prague during college.  It was a random choice – a time when I was seeking to identify my own calling and identity.  This small, formerly communist country, which one has to stay in for more than a week to realize the effects this had on it, changed me.  It was my first taste of learning of nonviolence, of meeting people who had drastically different beliefs than I did (or maybe I was just willing to listen this time), of living on the other side of the world.